Overcoming Resentment in the Home

As women, the majority of us are in the home, home-making. We're the ones in the crux of the diaper field, the ones with our arms elbow-deep in soap suds, the ones with sweat dripping down our brows as we scrub at that weird stain on the bottom of the fridge door. Home is our mission field. It's our domain. And with that domain often comes the little dramas and follies that prove whether we are of the Martha nature or the Mary. It's the ground where we become the Proverbs 31 woman - the woman full of grace, tending to her home, laughing as she looks into the future.

I was led to write about this topic last week as I faced a flood of thoughts tainted with resentment.

The Situation

It'd been a long, hard day. The kids were unusually loud and rambunctious. School was a series of exhausted lectures. Evening came and the kitchen was a disaster, my sister (who usually makes our bread for breakfast) wasn't feeling well, and it seemed like everyone was on their own planet, doing their own thing.

I was in the middle of doing some blog related work when my sister called me over to ask if I wouldn't mind doing the bread. I can't say my reaction (blank-faced stare) was very commendable.

I'd cooked a huge meal for lunch while cleaning out the fridge and supervising my little brother. (And then cleaning the whole mess up.) I'd spent the afternoon attempting to inspire my little humdinger (my 9 year old student of a brother) to apply himself in the learning about Earth's atmospheres - with little success. Four o' clock had come around and I had tiredly dropped in front of the computer, notes in hand, preparing for "my time."

My time, as in, my time to think. My time to work on my blog. My time to write. My time to make something of myself.

The request to make the bread infuriated me. Did I have a target sign painted on my forehead, beckoning for one and all to call on me for absolutely everything? Couldn't she have asked somebody else? Why did everything seem to fall on my shoulders?

What more, looking around me, I found plenty of people to resent for not stepping up to the plate. No one else had done as much that day, of that I was certain. In fact, I could have probably given a running itinerary for everybody in the house, proving how little they did compared to me.
Oh, the self-pity ran deep!

I marched myself back to the computer, sat down with a huff, and stared at my notes. Notes I'd written about blog posts I wanted to write, things I wanted to create - all rooted in Christian theologies and teachings. It shamed me. I sighed and went to the kitchen, surveying the mess that I'd forgotten I was supposed to clean.

In the end, I didn't have to make the bread. My younger sister stepped up to the plate while I wiped down the table, put away the food, and washed all the dishes. But as I was standing there up to my elbows in suds, I realized how intense my resentment was against certain people in the house who I felt weren't doing enough.

It was self-pity and resentment but also anger. And it felt awful. I'm no stranger to it - I've been struggling against this nasty combo since I was a young teenager - but I've come to a place of no longer wanting to indulge in it. My own relationship with the Lord suffers when I do. It's something I desperately want to overcome.

The Key

When the enticing urge to pity yourself arises, allow it no mercy in your life.
I fail here often, but it's an area I'm slowly growing in. Cut it at the quick. The moment it pops up and you recognize it, put the proverbial knife to its throat. A single moment of self-pity is a slippery slide downhill - and getting back up again is hard. Really hard. Silence it before it can wreak much havoc.
From there, change your inner tune.

Stop painting yourself as the victim whilst condemning everyone else, and think about what God is doing in your life at this precise moment. What could God be teaching you? (That's right - what is He teaching you while you stand exhausted at the kitchen sink, covered in soap and sweat, wanting to pass out from exhaustion, while everyone else seems to be doing less... What. Is. He. Teaching. YOU?)

The Lesson

My thoughts went a little something like this:

Well, He must be teaching me about what kind of reaction I shouldn't have when I'm interrupted from doing what I want to be doing. (You see the real root of the issue? I'd "done" my good works for the day; I'd gone above and beyond... and more was required of me? What about MY time? What about the things I had to get done? Despite the earnest appeal in that kind of train of thought, there's a great deal of selfishness involved there as well. A root that God will persistently reach for and dig at in order to uproot.)

In fact, He could be teaching me how to respond with grace and willingness when the call to go the extra mile is made. (Death to self.)

And to take it a step further, if God does indeed have a future for me that includes marriage, motherhood, and home-making, how intensely necessary would a lesson of this sort be to me in those years?

You see, when I take my eyes off self and I consider the eternal purposes of these little moments and lessons, the situation takes on a different colored hue.

If I can just perceive my private troubles and trials as training ground... if I can just look at the process of my stretching as a GIFT and not a curse... how much more of a benefit will I glean from it all?!

It may hurt now but how much grace could abound in me if I only would surrender and stop clinging so desperately to my rights? What kind of vessel could God be training me to be? How can I get out of the way so He can do His job more fully? These are the kinds of questions we must ask ourselves.

The Purpose

God desires to bring forth in us the fruit of the Spirit. Not of the flesh. And He uses these seemingly trite situations to do just that. He cuts away at the ungodly roots; He tills our soil and brings forth the kind of beautiful aromas that will glorify Him.

It's the heart of the Christian walk. Self-denial. Self-sacrifice. Self-forgetfulness.

If Jesus calls us to walk as He walked... to do as He did... to pick up our crosses and follow Him... then we must realize that such a walk is a blood-spattered road. We will not always enjoy refinement. We will not always want to abase ourselves.

But we have this hope: that God does a great work in us and through us. That we are His workmanship, the vessels of His HOLY Spirit. Our lives are not our own.

Embrace wherever God has you - in whatever phase of life He has you. And fret not: He is doing His work in you right now, in this very moment. Trust Him. Let go. Bow down. Relinquish. The resentment washes away. The exhaustion is forgotten. Joy takes it's place.

And fruit awaits you!