Finding Balance

I've been thinking about balance and how much I can handle and how much I need help...especially the heavenly kind. I also have been reading several chapters by the prophet king, Benjamin, in the Book of Mormon. My younger boys and I have been inching our way through his teachings over the past couple of weeks. But part of his sermon keeps coming back to my brain. It hasn't settled easily over me, and I think that must be because my path has been a little off from what Benjamin proscribes.

"And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another...But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another and to serve one another.

And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish." Mosiah 4:14-16

I think that this has resonated within dis-harmoniously because I have become so involved in some things, that I have found myself becoming the Incredible Hulk version of myself...the snapping, irritated mama that my kids dread spending any time with.

It has taken three weeks for me to soften my heart, to be willing to make a decision that I didn't want to make. But thank goodness for tears from my sweet three year old and the persistence of a loving husband. I have to decided to cut my part-time job hours in half. I already don't work that much. But, only working two days a week will mean that my youngest won't bawl when I drop him at the babysitter's or have odd tantrums for something that never bothered him before. I think that children are more sensitive than we adults, and their reactions are like the finely tuned seismographs, feeling things that we don't or that we ignore.

In short, I am grateful for guilt and an ancient prophet who counseled us to put our families first. When the home is centered, then the rest can fall into place.