Working Mommy Lesson #2

Who knew the lessons would come so frequently. . .

This week I am pondering another working mommy lesson. Hang with me here as I process a bit as I write.

Working Mommy Lesson #2: As working mommies, it's OK live a compartmentalized life.

My pastor talks a lot about living a "fully-integrated life". He encourages that our Sunday morning worship should bleed into our mid-week life. . .that the way we serve at home should show up in our workplace and so on and so forth. I am absolutely on board with this belief. The only way to truly live as Christ is to be the same everyday of our lives. There is nothing worse than a Christian who does not carry the same heart with them on Tuesday as they do on Sunday. Actually, it's pretty pathetic.

I guess at some point though, I adapted the belief that living a fully-integrated life meant that I carried work home with me, that I let it invade my head and my emotions when I should otherwise be focusing elsewhere. I suppose I've thought that fully-integrated went both ways. If my worship and the person that I am should bleed into my work, then the visa verse should be as well. Although this seems to be the right notion, I think I'm missing something here.

I believe this is true for all of us, most of all working mommies. While we need our worship and our love to show up in every area of our lives, we do not need our work pressure or our work stress to show up there as well. I got in my car this evening burdened by a silly little thing that happened at work. It was so small and trivial and yet I let it eat away at me. Then it dawned on me that I needed to leave it there, in the parking lot. If I so choose, I could pick it back up there in the parking lot tomorrow but perhaps by then I will have forgotten all about it. Each and every night as I leave my role as a manager I need to close that compartment of my life until I open it back up again the next day. With this job it seems almost impossible to do that but I have to at least try. When I carry those burdens home with me I am not helping anyone. On those rare occasions where that "thing" is truly a big deal, maybe I'll carry it home in a trusty little portable container and open it back up once Hope has gone to sleep. OK, maybe I've gone to far with the imagery here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is. . .it's OK to compartmentalize some things. I think we have to or we'll go mad. We need boundaries in life and sometimes those compartments are just that, offering us the opportunity to differentiate between what is important in the moment and what can wait.

I am committed to living a fully-integrated life when it comes to everything good and holy and pleasing to the Lord. But when it comes to those things He warns us against just as worry and stress and even fear of failure, you'd better believe my office is soon going to look like the Container Store.