There is nothing more challenging to a single mother than having to balance the needs of her children with the need to provide for them.
This morning, I have been challenged with the provision side of life. As an entrepreneur with irons in several fires, and as a mother, I wear several hats. I wear the graduate student hat (as I finish one master's degree and work towards my doctorate), the teacher hat (as I home school my children), the disciplinarian hat (as I fill in for their much absent father), the counselor hat (as I help my children decide what is right and what is wrong in their lives), the spiritual leader hat (as I try to show my children how to love the Lord with all of their lives and hearts), the provider hat (as I try to find ways to earn money while taking care of their special needs), the medical hat (as I help them take their medications daily and monitor their moods and medical appointments), the animal husbandry hat (as I help my children with their pets and animals, especially when one of the animals gets sick or something happens to one of them), the business leader hat (as I try to develop business that I can do at home while taking care of my very special teens), the artist hat (as I try to create in the moments when I find myself stressed beyond imagination), and the woman hat (which I rarely get to wear).
The provider hat is struggling today. There always seems to be more bills than there is money. Although I am doing free lance work to bring in money, the cash flow just isn't there. The hardest part is keeping my children feeling secure in the midst of all of it. Making sure that their needs are met, that their feet are warm, their hearts are nourished, that their bodies are fed... that their spirits feel cherished. Balancing the hats today... it is a season of major trusting for me. It is not like I can just go and "create money"... I wish I could. All I can do is trust... trust that the money will come in. Trust that the Lord will guide me in how to provide for my children and how to pay for the bills... how to either earn, or sell, or trust Him for all that we have need of...
I feel stretched beyond belief today... yet it is belief that holds me still before the Creator of the Universe trusting His hands to hold me near.
RamyB