Are You Working with Diligence?
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence. ~Samuel Johnson
The “word for the year” trend passed me by until this year. I think it had to do with having two babies fifteen months apart. I didn’t have time to think deeply about what I wanted my year to even look like. Maybe my word should have been survive. However, this year the word diligence kept coming up again and again, both in my mind and in my life. So even though the trend is not as highly publicized, and other people have decided to take a year off, I’ve jumped on the word train.
I’ve never written my word in a journal, nor have I put any kind of sign on my wall as a reminder. I thought if diligence wasn’t my word, it would probably hop off my brain train. Now the word diligence—meaning “careful or persistent work or effort”—remains on my mind, but my idea of what it looks like fleshed out in my daily life has changed.
At first, diligence seemed to encompass several different areas of my life: exercise, reading for myself, homeschooling, cooking. It didn’t take long for me to realize that everything can’t happen every single day. I did, however, put into practice a rather regular schedule of exercise and early morning reading, and our homeschooling was running fairly smoothly. But some things I would like to have included in our lives more regularly were still missing from our schedule. (And cooking may forever be a challenge at my house.)
Meanwhile, another baby will be joining our family. Growing a person takes a lot out of a mama, and so rising early in the morning is harder. The challenge of lifting weights or getting on the treadmill while nauseated caused me to set that goal aside for the time being, although hopefully not for my whole pregnancy.
I would have been so sad to see my vibrant reading life take a dive, too, but with diligence in mind and by coincidence, a solution fell in my lap. While I was away for a weekend, my husband had the idea for our littles to each choose one short video in the morning to watch, which takes about forty minutes. It’s perfect. I can set them up, get my hot coffee, and sit with my book.
If this system wears out or something else changes, I’ll just have to be diligent about figuring out another time for reading. After all, my reading is connected to this whole idea of diligence. I’ve been reading a book on homeschooling called Home Education by Charlotte Mason. She writes about the creation of habits and taking one thing at a time, slowly building more and more habits into your life. This idea resonated with my thoughts on diligence, not that I hadn’t thought about habits before. After all, every mama should eventually be giving her kids assignments and chores to teach them habits and responsibility. Boy, do I have to be diligent about follow-up with those!
The two words—diligence and habit—swirled in my mind, and I thought about how much they play into each other. Habits are created by the careful or persistent work or effort. Habits are the reward of diligence. Habits make our lives easier because we can keep up with things without their feeling like the same level of work they once did. Habits even make the lives of our families easier, because they know what to expect.
Yet even though I figured out how to still make the reading happen, other habits and my diligence have both taken a dive. This blog post is getting to the editor late. I have three baskets of laundry sitting here unfolded, and I can’t remember the last time I mopped my floors. I just can’t find the energy for some things I usually find energy for.
On the other hand, another habit I wanted to work on now has some focus. Since I have energy at nine o’clock in the morning, my boys and I have been working on being in our schoolroom by then, ready to go. We pray, sing hymns, and begin some of our read-alouds. That focus on God and our family reminds me that sometimes diligence means focusing on the habits that bring peace and calm into our home, even if the laundry seems chaotic and I’m late for other things.
I don’t want poor habits to become the norm, but I know if during this challenging time I put the Lord and my family first, I’ll eventually get back to being diligent about what needs to be done. Pregnancy is a season, and eventually the end will arrive. My energy will return, along with another new normal and more new habits to diligently begin practicing.
Sometimes diligence means picking up and starting again. And again. And again, through all the changes in our lives. It means evaluating yet again how we can continue with habits already made and what needs to change so we can diligently continue pursuing God and serving others without letting ourselves become worn out and downtrodden.
Do you have some evaluating to do today?
enjoys a crazy, beautiful life with her military husband and four sons. A baby and toddler interrupt her homeschool days in the best ways, and she is always attempting to live with mindfulness of each moment. She hopes to look at the world and each person in it in light of our amazing Creator and therefore, to see each moment presented as an opportunity to love and serve him more. Carla relishes time to ponder God’s Word and have quiet moments with him and her coffee. She loves doing life with other mamas and encouraging them to simply be who God has made them to be.
Photograph © Alice Hampson, used with permission
