Oftentimes I’m asked, “How can you do everything you do?” I have two boys, their extracurricular activities, a full-time job, my dream plan I’m working on and still have time to enjoy ME time. I’d like to think it’s all me, but the truth is my parents have really taken on a role to help me with the boys. Baseball season is so chaotic with two different practices and two games per son. For the most part, I am at the park five days a week and on practice days I try to get in a run around the park. The boys know this routine and are not surprised with seeing me run around the park. I’ve even joined in on the warm up and Jonathan has laughed.
I have another secret, Grace. I take liquid vitamin B complex. The vitamin helps me increase energy and reduce stress levels. Boosting my energy for a full day at work and play is essential to get me through my schedule. Decreasing my stress is so critical to prevent any panic attacks, which I have experienced since the separation. I need to be at my best and function at my best.
I’d like to think that Merlot and cupcakes have something to do with this, but that just isn’t so. Merlot does calm me down and cupcakes give me a momentary boost of energy to my detriment at the end. So today, we are cheering for parents and B complex! LOL
Guiding Lesson:
Eve, it is pretty amazing how much you need to do and still try to fit time for you. The demands don’t go away. They just keep multiplying. Building a support system along with keeping yourself healthy is important. I’m glad to see that you are reaching out and recognizing how to stay healthy. Blessed are you who is willing to receive and aware of the gifts around you!
Another thing I would like to include is Love. Nothing in the world inspires us to act and do things we don’t want to do but Love. It is a driving force. It stretches you, opens you up and acts like a catalyst to move you to respond to another human being, especially your children, in ways and situations that you would not normally want to do. What else would cause any parent to wake up throughout the night to care for a child but love? It is the greatest force that has brought you here to this point. It is a guiding, powerful and yet gentle form of energy that cannot be explained.
As the very core of your being, Love is more than a feeling. It is a choice, an invitation to respond to the ordinary demands of life and make the simple, mundane moments extraordinary and sacred. Without love, the demands will wear, deplete and take away your energy. “Doing all things with great love” (by Mother Theresa), brings new life, joy and healing to the world around you and within you. You can do extraordinary things based on what others deem extraordinary but without love they do not bear fruit or last. I like to leave you with the words of St. Paul (1 Corinthians 13:1-7) who said it so eloquently:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it is does not seek its own interest, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Eve, I share and say all of this with great love.
Love always, Grace
MissGuidedMom 
Being a fortunate man that has been trained by a strong woman during our 41 years of marriage, I’ve learned some of the very points you bring up so eloquently in your post today. This is one of the best posts I’ve ever read and it should be shared with as many people as possible. It drives to the heart of men, women & children everywhere.
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