One of the things that I greatly disliked, and STILL have trouble with, is the feeling of being pressured. Part of that is because I am a naturally lazy person, and have always looked for opportunities to slide into a chair and read. One of my daughters takes after her grandmother, who described herself as “driven”, and I can attest to the mountains of work that that woman could get done in one day!
But my other daughter is just like her mother — looking for that break in the schedule. I was talking to her one day about that, and we were laughing together about how hard it is to keep going. And then she commented that although I had passed on to her my lazy genes, I had also passed on the burden of guilt. I have thought about that much, since that conversation….realizing again and again how precious and important that guilt is.
My mother taught me to keep a clean house, and to discipline my children, and to make three meals a day [cheerfully], and to read my Bible, and to do countless other things that add up to a loving and peaceful home life. Whenever I wanted to lay that burden down, and do what I wanted to do, at whatever expense to the family it might have, I couldn’t do it. My “guilt” would not let me. Even when the pressure mounted, I had to keep going. What a mother, who would by her quiet and firm example, establish in me that burden that made me keep moving forward. I am so very, very thankful for a mother like that!