Lowering My Expectations...or the "Real" Proverbs 31 Woman

I am often afflicted with a common disease among women: the ability to make very long to-do lists, the inability to actually complete all (or even the majority) of the tasks on any of those lists, and the subsequent frustration that comes from feeling like I should be able to accomplish more so what in the world is wrong with me???

Recently I've realized that I need to set my expectations for myself even lower than I already have. It's tough, because really, I feel like I don't expect too much of myself...but when I still can't accomplish those lowered expectations, I realize I have to drastically re-evaluate what's important. What should my focus be on? What do I need to do so that at the end of the day, I'll be able to say it was a day well-spent? What are the bare minimums?

Here is what I've narrowed it down to so far:
~ food: have I provided food (of some sort, even if it's carry-out) for my family?
~ clothing: have I provided clean clothes for my family (or on rare occasions, clothes I've dug out of the dirty clothes pile because they're not too dirty)? :)
~ love: have I shown love to God? to Jeff? to my boys?

If I've accomplished those things, I think I should feel good about life, even if the laundry is piled higher than it's ever been before (which it literally is at this very moment--filling the entire laundry chute that we have from our top floor to bottom floor in our house), even if I don't have my picture file organized on the computer, even if my pile of papers by the telephone is threatening to tumble over and I know there are important things "lost" in it.

But oh, it's hard to feel good about such meager accomplishments.

I remember two times in my life that particularly stand out as times of intense focus when I knew that all I had to do was accomplish a very specific goal and if I did that, I could feel great. One was immediately after Josiah was born; for me, the whole world narrowed to the task of learning how to care for him and, especially, teaching him how to nurse effectively and helping him regain his birth weight and start gaining more weight. For a little while, that was all that was important to me.

Another time is after we moved from Israel to California, and all the possessions we had with us were in a few suitcases--a few very full suitcases which quickly got disorganized. It was my job to know what was in our luggage and to be able to produce it when needed. Finding clean clothes that fit us and (hopefully) matched each day was quite a job; but if I did that simple (but difficult) task, I could feel a sense of accomplishment. And when Jeff asked me for a certain important document or a cord for some piece of electronic equipment and I was able to find it, I felt exhilarated! Talk about focus: of all the things that normally keep me busy, at that point in life, all I had to do was be queen of the suitcases and that was enough!

But now that life is "settled," I automatically expect so much more of myself. So I was automatically intrigued when I was reading a chapter in a phenomenal book I read earlier this fall, called Things We Wish We'd Known, edited by Bill & Diana Waring. This book is a collection of advice from experienced homeschoolers, and I can't say enough good things about it. The emphasis on focusing on the heart of the child and relaxing about all the "rules" of homeschooling was exactly what I needed to read, and I should probably read it every year as I prepare to teach my boys.

The chapter that I'm thinking of now is called "You Can't Do It All...and Don't Have To!" by Sharon Grimes; and in these few pages, she talks about the Proverbs 31 woman, among other things. How many of us women have read Proverbs 31 and loved that woman, but then thrown our hands up in despair as we've realized how far short we fall when compared to that model? I mean, I certainly haven't purchased any fields or woven any scarlet cloth recently, and I don't always get up before dawn, so I must be a failure, right? Well, not really.

I'm going to quote extensively from Sharon's chapter because she says it better than I could...

It became so frustrating trying to emulate my biblical role model that, eventually, I was compelled to really study that thirty-first chapter of Proverbs. I reached some startling conclusions that really changed my "I have to be busy all the time or I won't be a success" attitude.

First, I learned that the woman in Proverbs 31 was not a young mother with young children. I believe that she was in the next season of her life, with grown children. See the verse that says "her children rise up and call her blessed." Now, when was the last time your children got up in the morning and told you how wonderful you are? (Mother's Day doesn't count!) Can you remember when you first realized how hard your mother had worked and all of the sacrifices she had made for you? If you are like me, it was not until you became a parent and saw how much work it took to run a household. It is grown children who "rise up and call her blessed."

Now, some of you may still insist on emulating all of the Proverbs 31 woman's activities. All right, here is point two to convince you that the Proverbs 31 woman did not "do it all." What is the first thing that she did every day after she rose? (I rarely can find anyone who knows the answer. All that we remember is her multitude of activities.) Give up? Verse fifteen explains that she fed her maids. How many of you have a houseful of maids to feed in the morning? NO, none of us has the multitude of household assistants taking care of our every whim that a woman of royalty would have had! I was starting to get a different picture.

I became convinced that these accomplishments were completed, not concurrently, but spread out over the course of this woman's lifetime. I had failed miserably in my efforts to "do it all." People always say, "prioritize your schedule," but my priorities were wrong! All of those urgent needs outside our home continued to pull me away from the most important jobs I had: wife and mother. And, for the first time in my life, I clearly understood that my attempts to please the Lord had been performance-based rather than a simple walk of obedience (I Sam. 15:22-23).

Sharon writes more, but I think this is enough to give the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter for me is my heart--my heart to accept my limitations, my heart to stop judging myself based on my to-do list, my heart to stop comparing my accomplishments with what other women are able to do, my heart to trust what God has shown me is most important.

So as I lay down at night, if I can say I fed and clothed my family and loved them and God, it will be enough. And when the days of more productivity come, I'll accept them as a blessing from God, but will strive to remember that it doesn't change my worth or status as a woman before God.