Anyone who really knows me, knows that I LOVE LOVE LOVE Little House on the Prairie...  the show, the books, the musical.  I love it all.  While getting my degree in history I focused most of my attention in 18th and 19th century American history.    So, as a stay at home mom, I often have moments where I  will think of Ma and what her life was like and realize my life is pretty cushy!  This morning was one of those moments.  Without trying to share TMI,  breakfast was wrapping up and three of us needed to use the bathroom.  I went up to our room, leaving Kailyn and Ryen at the table.  I giggle as B & E headed to the other two bathrooms, grateful that we had three bathrooms.  Then it hit me - what did Ma do with her little babies when she had to go to the bathroom?

Just the other day, I was at our church when several of us had to go to the bathroom - including myself.  I had Ryen but there was no stroller to put her in.  So I picked the least used restroom in our ginormous building and set her on the floor while I went.  What else was I supposed to do with her?  I would NEVER have done that at McDonald's but I happen to know our church is very clean.  Of course, when I did it another mom followed me into the bathroom and caught me leaving my one year old daughter on the floor!  Nice...

Anyway, what did Ma do when she needed to go potty?  I mean sure, the Ma of the TV show would just leave Mary or Laura in charge of baby Cary or Grace.  But what about the REAL Ma?  When Mary and Laura WERE the little babies?  Did she just carry them to the outhouse with her?  Moms of our generation joke and complain all the time about just wanting to pee by ourselves all the time but how did it work when there was no fancy indoor plumbing?

So this led my thinking a little deeper.  Anyone who has read the LHOTP books knows they are filled with the day to day doings of life.  These women were busy from the minute they woke up in the morning until they laid their heads down to sleep.  Each season was filled with the daily tasks of living,  getting ready for the next season, taking care of family....  They were busy ALL THE TIME and there was no zoloft!

These people were busy every minute of the day and I do not think their pastors were preaching about the dangers of "busyness".  There were not book stores filled with books on how to deal with the evils of a busy life.  There were not blogs upon blogs urging women to cut back on their crazy schedules.  They were busy because they had to be.  They were busy with surviving.  And I do not believe they were any less busy than we are today.  I do not have ANY stats to back this up - but I do believe that the depression that is rampant in our culture today is a relatively new phenomenon.    We hear about how "stressed" out everyone is from all they have to do and this causes depression. 

I look back at what life has been like throughout the world over through all of time and I just do not get it.  We are stressed out over getting our children to swim lessons and AWANA.  We are stressed out about having to go to two birthday parties in one day.  We are stressed out about making our yard look pretty.  Less than two hundred years ago, the busyness that filled people's lives had a purpose.  If you did not get the corn in at the right time, your family did not eat next winter.  If you did not get the wood cut, your family froze next winter.  They were busy doing things that MATTERED and I do believe that this makes a huge difference.  I suspect there is a sense of enormous satisfaction when you bring in the corn that will nourish your family for the next year.  It probably trumped any depression you felt in the pressure to get the corn planted in the first place.

I am NOT trying to make light of depression here.  I do think it is very serious and people who suffer from it need help.  I suffered from it deeply in my early 20s.  Nor am I trying to romanticize the lives of early Americans.  Life was hard and filled with disappointment, early deaths, hard labor.  But I think what I am feeling today is that we need to find a way to fill our lives with things that matter. 

Things that matter to life. 

Driving through McDonald's is an easy way to feed my family but it certainly does NOT give me the sense of accomplishment that I get when I MAKE them something healthy. 

I am not really sure where I am going with this except to say, life has ALWAYS been busy.  It just seems like today, we have filled our lives up with busyness that does not matter. 

At one point in my life, someone commented to me that I always seem tired.  There seemed to be some condemnation in that comment in regards to the life Keith and I have chosen to follow, having as many children as God would choose to bless us with.   I have thought of that often.  I am tired.  A LOT.  VERY TIRED.  But it is a good tired.  It is a GREAT tired.    Sometimes it is a cranky tired but I have noticed that it is usually the crankiest when I have chosen to fill my life with the business of things that do not matter in the matters of LIFE.   Going to this, doing that - focusing all my time, attention and energy on things that may be fun but have nothing to do with survival tend to drain me in a cranky way.  They are fun at the time, in small doses but a day (or days) filled with them drain me and make me cranky tired.  Doing for my family, cooking, cleaning, schooling - they may not be glamourus or as much fun - but there is a sense of satisfaction that leaves me feeling satisfied tired.  Does that make sense?

Let's be honest, God created us to work -
Genesis 1:27-29 says
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
 ²⁷ So God created man in his own image,
       in the image of God he created him;
       male and female he created them.
 ²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
 ²⁹ Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.


We were created to work 6 days a week and rest 1 day.  In our era of convenience food, appliances and the internet we have mixed up what is work, what is life giving and what is fun.  I cannot tell you how many mothers I hear complaining about taking their children to this activity or that.  They are "tired, stressed out" from all they "have" to do.    We have taken the blessings of modern conveniences and turned them into the curse of having too much time.  We were made to work, so we are not satisfied sitting around doing nothing.  So what do we do with our time?  We fill it with stuff that gives us no sense of accomplishment and end up stressed and depressed.

I have no clever ending here.  These were just thoughts that have been in my head.  I just think that God clearly created us to work most of the time - do you think he knew that we would find that work to be the stuff of life giving satisfaction?  He created us to rest one day - do you think he knew that if we tired to fill our lives with too much "fun" that the fun would no longer be fun but would just create stress and dissatisfaction?