I know I know...

Well here's the idea...you get up in the morning, your children get up and everyone does their morning chores and eat breakfast and start school! Well! That is a lot harder than it sounds. They do everything BUT what they're supposed to do. They act as if you're the most wonderfully interesting person in the world, just so they don't have to do their chores. Yet the rest of the day you're just a fixture that is a part of normal life. I don't mind being so interesting, but I do mind them being disobedient.

We've tried the restrictions on fun things....DOESN'T work
We've tried the yelling and getting upset...DOESN'T work
We've tried walking them through it all and teaching the concepts over again...DOESN'T work

We're working a new technique presently. I'll let you know how it goes.

Routine shouldn't be complicated. You get up you do it and life goes on. You learn to deal with responsibilities you don't like and know you're being obedient to your authority and pleasing God in the process. Routine is routine after all what we do every day. The concept is not startling.
There are those who just go the opposite way once their out of their authorities reach and usually in the long run pay a high price for it.

I didn't like the idea of predictability when I was growing up. I wanted to be that mysterious girl that was so interesting to everyone she encountered. And therefore well liked. But unfortunately that wasn't the case. My eyes weren't opened up til I was married and all my ugliness protruded from my ego. WOW what and ego I had. I spent some time apologizing to friends I still had for my self-centeredness. I'm not sure what they really thought I only got a shocked as all response. I sure didn't act that way on purpose.

I remember in high school becoming "popular" for a very short time, 'cause then my family moved 500 or so miles away. But after I moved my popularity was nill. I had my family though. My brother, my cousin and my church. That's all that mattered at the time though.
I couldn't figure out though why I looked to everyone like I was a "snob". I thought I was likeable. I did have many friends afterall. I am a christian afterall. Christians are supposed to be nice.

But the awakening came when I realized it wasn't about me. Well I knew it! I did the "I know I know, life is about honoring God and living for Jesus" but I didn't get it. I still had this chip on my shoulder as if the world and everyone in it owed me something for being "interesting". But I was miserably wrong. I was alone a lot my first year of marriage. My husband was trying his hardest to provide for us with 60 hour job. He was always tired when he got home and we had no friends in a strange new state miles away from everyone we knew or I knew or anything. I had a lot of contemplation time and tons of time with God that year. I can't say it was the best year ever like some would say 'cause I went through an internal house cleaning that I didn't know I needed. God worked so hard with me and I didn't really know that's what He was doing either.

I am thankful in retrospect only. I have learned things about myself that I feel bad for others for. I have learned what I've learned for God's sake ultimately, but then for my husband and my children and then for others. I know God's not done with me yet. I'm sure I'm still horrible, but He loves me and saved me and constantly being molded by The Potter's Hands.

Now God is using me and my husband to help mold my children. And how ever much they don't like routine, it's what brings us to a familiarity with ourselves and our creator when we give it the chance.