Rachel Goode is a mother of three and the wife of a federal agent currently serving with the United Nations in East Timor. When she kissed him goodbye at the airport, she realised God and the Goodes were going to have to be a very close team this year if she was to survive the rigors of the single-parent life.
My name is Rachel and I'm mum to David (yr 6), Josh (yr 4) and Andrew (yr 1). I am married to Mark, but Mark is working overseas for ten months, so I'm parenting on my own.
I am not working (outside of the home!) this year. Instead I'm juggling parenting, school commitments, housework, cooking, bible study, scrapbooking, gardening and everything else you can think to ensure the smooth running of a household.
I am supposed to be having a Year of Me this year.
I was supposed to have it last year as Andrew started school. I had daydreamed of being free of children for 6 hours to peruse my own agenda, which would NOT include preschool, playgroup, shopping with grumpy kids and being interrupted every 30 secs when out for coffee with a friend. However, as with all good plans, this vision was shot to pieces when the back room flooded and I needed to wait about three weeks for all the quotes and repairs to be completed. Then, just as I began to contemplate finally pruning my weekly schedule, a closer examination of our budget dictated that as we had three boys at an Anglican school I would actually need to go back to work.
My new labours would need to be more often than a the casual Christmas work I had been doing for the last couple of years; probably as much as three days a week. So began the arduous task of hunting for work that was close to home, preferably school hours and something I could do! Fortunately my father-in-law was able to offer me a position which fitted all my criteria and I entered the ‘working mother’ phase, something I had never done before and frankly not really what I had in mind for the Year of Me!
Halfway through last year, after prayerful consideration and a lengthy interview and testing process, my husband changed jobs. He now worked in the city and his relatively short commute turned into an hour-long each way. As you can imagine, this changes the family dynamics and I had more things to juggle than ever before. After six weeks he took a posting overseas, again after much thought, prayer and advice from others close to us. Not everyone agreed with our decision but we prayed that we would bring glory to God and seek to put him first in everything that we did.
So the second half of last year found me juggling two jobs and being a single parent. 2006 was fast coming to resemble the Year of Anything But Me. The emotional and spiritual costs were quickly becoming more than I could afford. ‘Enough!’ I said, ‘Something has to give!’ because at that time it was my prayer life, bible study and time with the kids that were being sacrificed. So by the end of November I had resigned from both my jobs, didn't pick up my casual Christmas work and instead threw myself into school holidays, Christmas preparations, and getting ready for Beach Mission.
So 2007 is well underway and I'm determined to have the Year of Me this year! I don’t intend to make it as frivolous as it sounds; quite the opposite. I'm considering very carefully what I'm going to commit myself to and work out what my priorities are. First and foremost I need to join a bible study group during the day (like most mums I’ve got issues with babysitting in the evening), and I need to spend more time talking to God. These two areas of my life really suffered last year and so they needed to be addressed before everything else.
I’ve joined the ladies’ daytime bible study at church and the prayer group that meets before hand. Really it is two birds with one stone and I have committed myself to this group for the year. My next priority is my boys and supporting their teachers at school. I have committed myself to helping out at school with reading and that has been scheduled into the calendar.
The third priority is ministry outside the family. I'm not a theologian, bible study leader, or evangelist but I can encourage others in their daily walk, especially other mothers. So the third weekly commitment in my diary is Mothers Coffee Morning at my church. Not having my own children there means I get to make coffee for others, hold all the new babies (and goo and gaa at them!) and chat about not onlly what's going on in my life but the other mothers as well.
Lastly, I want to spend some time on all of those little projects which have been sadly put to the side every time life got too busy - which was most of the time. I'm going to finish my UFO's (UnFinished Objects) and am in the process of writing a list of all the cross-stitch, knitting, patchwork and scrapbooking projects I have started but not finished.
Hmm, looking at that list alone make me think that maybe next year will have to be another Year of Me too!
Check Insight for more of Rachel’s honest musings on giving God His place in the life of a busy suburban house-mum in weeks to come
