Sometimes my life feels a lot like the movie “Groundhog Day”.When you are a mother of very young children, your days usually look pretty much the same, and you are faced with the same dilemmas over and over again. Little kids love continuity and need repetition. If you are like me, you don’t necessarily like how mundane the routine can feel. I am an optimist, though, and there is a silver lining experiencing the same old same old schedule. I have found that it gives me the opportunity to make better decisions the next day. Let me explain.

One of the most difficult things for me as a mother is knowing what course of action is the best. I am not a good decision maker in general since I am such a perfectionist. Often times I make a decision by default since I end up missing an opportunity instead of making a move. As a mom, I feel like I make hundreds of on-the-spot decisions that can impact the rest of our day or week tremendously. However, making different decisions about the same scenario allows me to test the outcome of each decision. As in “Groundhog Day”, I know that the same scenario will come the next day, so if I fail at this attempt, I will get another chance to figure it out.  I can also stick with a particular strategy for a week or so to see if that helps. In the end, I hope that by being repeatedly faced with the same scenarios, as in “Groundhog Day”, I learn something about how to make better decisions for me and my family.

I suppose being a mother requires practice, patience, and perseverance, and ultimately, motherhood is God’s way of transforming me. (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18)