Suddenly it’s so easy

Newsletter article by Sulamith, 31 yrs

Time and again, mothers ask me about our six children: at school, kindergarten or on the playground. They come with many questions and want to know how I do it.

They already can’t cope with their one or two children and are at their wit’s end. What must it be like with six children?

So admittedly, sometimes it can be really challenging. There are moments when nothing seems to work and the whole world seems to be slapping you on the head. Then there’s discord here, an “Ouch!“ cry there, something breaks here, a mess there, some carelessness there … everything gets out of hand at the same time. BUT interestingly, there is also the phenomenon – and this can be a few minutes later – where suddenly the whole world becomes „AS LIGHT AS A FEATHER“ again. Suddenly it’s super-easy with the kids. There is a calm and peace in the whole house. The kids play peacefully or help out joyfully and are a huge relief, the household is fun, the energy is almost endless and in the evening you can say, “It was a wonderful day.” On such evenings, I have often wondered what made the difference. How can it be that a single day can be so decisively different? But, when  I analyized this, I always came up with something different. Sometimes it was that we tackled a little project together, other times it was that the children had enough exercise, that I was a little more consistent or that I had gathered and focused the children …

After our last OCG training day, I really realized what the secret behind it all is. Do you want to know too?   My dad talked there about being “upwardly reception-oriented”. Being reception-focused describes the ability to become completely still until you have received exactly how God is mastering a thing. It describes an active, God-seeing calm and not a “rummaging around” without knowing where you are actually heading. Without exception, whenever I succeeded in  finding this calmness  in everyday life and to receive from God how HE masters the thing, it became light as a feather!

That’s how it was, recently when we went for a walk in the Alps during our vacation. It became really exhausting and uncomfortable again. We had hardly walked the first few meters, when the first problems came up. Dana (7) had hot feet, which made walking a burden for her. Samantha (6) stopped at every little flower for a considerable time and was “miles behind”. Kosima (5) had problems with her fingernail, which really needed to be filed right then. Amina (3) was hungry and tired. Fridolin (2) had to be called again after every meter and Letizia (2 months) had unfathomable problems, which made her scream. And we parents thought to ourselves: “Don’t ever dare to go for a walk again.”

Because like this, no one felt like going on any further, we spread out our picnic blanket and sat down in the meadow. Now it was high time to become quiet and to RECEIVE. In becoming quiet we realized that we were not collected or focused at all before we started walking. So, everyone was only fixated on his little problems and everything was distracted. By talking to each other, everyone focused on the others again. Afterwards, this wonderful “phenomenon” immediately occurred again, where it suddenly became so “easy” (simple and easy) again. For a long time the children played on the meadow, we parents relaxed, and then when we walked on, it was just wonderful. The littlest ones slept in the stroller, Dana and Kosima walked hand in hand and had lots to chat about, Samantha hopped from one flower to another and Andreas and I enjoyed the beautiful view. We could have walked on forever 😊.

I experience this pattern almost daily. I feel it is such a gigantic privilege that we in the OCG are trained in these divine principles of life. You too can experience this.

Hearty greetings

Sulamith