My Biggest Frenemy

Just so you know, I use the term "frenemy" loosely here.  I'm not cool.  I don't keep up with what's "hip" these days.  In fact, my daughter (who is turning 3 on November 5) tells me she has swagger, and I don't really know what that means, but I'm sure she has it.  I know there is a song about a fox that's popular right now, but I've never heard it.  And, when I found out what the Harlem Shake was, I had to look it up, and realized...that's how I actually dance. Seriously. Ha!

But anyways, that's beside the point...back to "frenemy".  For those of you who are not cool like me and don't know all of the cool terms, frenemy means: An enemy disguised as a friend.  I looked up the definition in the Urban dictionary, just so you know it's legit.

As a working mom/wife, my biggest frenemy would have to be DINNER TIME!  This picture described my life perfectly...

Y'all, I can't even tell you how much I hated cooking supper.  I had zero motivation.  My mind could not wrap around the fact that my child and husband wanted to eat Every. Single. Night.  You'd think someone who grew up in a home with such an amazing mom who had a home-cooked meal on the table every single night (even when she worked full time outside of the home) would grasp that fact, but I couldn't.

That 5 o'clock hour would creep up on me.  I could feel myself becoming aggravated and frustrated that again, I hadn't planned for it.  I didn't have the groceries I needed to make something, and my husband would come home with a rumbling tummy and to me giving him blank stares.  Let me say this...my husband doesn't expect me to do it all.  He chips in with everything around the house.  He's not one of those, "Fix me a sandwich, woman." kind of guys.  Could you imagine...me with a guy like that?! HAHAHA! That just wouldn't work.  On those nights when my husband would come home from work to an empty table, HE would cook supper, happily.  He has Iron Chef/Chopped skills where he can make amazing meals out of nothing.  I don't.  I need a plan.  I need a recipe.  I function better that way.

So one day it dawned on me...this realization that I hated cooking dinner.  I had all of the symptoms of it, but never really the revelation of it.  Now, I'm a great cook (if I do say so myself), and I love cooking.  I just hated the pressure of dinner time.  I told Jeremiah that day that I hated cooking dinner.  He said, "Kristen, honey, I already knew that."  And, then we came up with a plan.  He would cook dinner and I would clean the house.  I was so excited to be relieved of that pressure.  Freedom!

God taught me so much through this.  As I began to experience the freedom from cooking dinner, I WANTED TO COOK DINNER!  No joke, y'all.  I cooked dinner more after that "confession" and time of pressure being relieved than I had in the last year.  It was like a switch was flipped in my heart.  Isn't that how God works?  He removes pressure from our lives, and gives us the freedom to transform?

So now, believe it or not (believe it!), I cook dinner pretty much all of the time, unless Jeremiah just wants to.  I make a weekly meal plan, grocery list, find new recipes and try them out, and cook delicious meals for my family.

God has shown me the value and love I can express to my family through dinner time.  Emery tells me every night, "Momma, thank you for cooking me dinner!" without being prompted.  Her little heart KNOWS it's an expression of love for her from me.  And, for that, she's thankful.  My husband LOVES coming home to a house that smells of a home-cooked meal and I LOVE doing that for him.  I found that when the pressure and expectation I had placed on myself to be a pinterest-pinning-and-cooking-momma was released, I could be what I wanted to be.

The Lord is teaching me every single day how to live this life with happiness.  To some people this little dinner time revelation wouldn't mean anything, to me it's been a huge blessing.  I often say, if what I'm learning in my personal study time, church time, Bible study, etc. with the Lord doesn't help me pay the bills, raise my children, love my husband, love people, and have dinner on the table, I don't have time for it.  God is doing just that...he's so graciously teaching me how to live life and love my family the way He intended...without pressure.  I'm blessed.