Your To-Do List: Is it a Blessing or a Burden?

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Consider your to-do list. Is it a blessing or a burden? Your answer will determine how easy or hard your tasks will be to complete.

Your To-Do List: Is it a Blessing or a Burden? Life as Mom

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Omigosh. I have so much to do. I don’t know how I’m ever going to do it all. How in the world did I get myself into this mess?

Sound familiar? Been there, said that, right?

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and regretful when we have a mountain of work in front of us. And it’s not unheard of to think of the tasks on our to-do lists as burdens.

Dishes? Laundry? Errands?

Boring. Boring. Boring!

The weight of all that Mom needs to do in a day can feel boring at best, burdensome at worst.

Or does it?

Recently, I was feeling agitated and anxious by ALL I HAD TO DO. I mean, of all the women in the world, I was sure that I and I alone had an insurmountable list of tasks to complete. I went to bed feeling discouraged and defeated. There in the dark, I wondered how I was going to get it all done.

Lying awake in the dark is a good place for reflection.

My thoughts wandered in the blackness, and God reminded me of what life was like for me 18 years prior. That was the miscarriage year. We lost three babies in eleven months. That was so hard.

What if that was where my fertility story had ended?

My to-do list would look a lot different. I’d have one child, not six, and he’d be grown and flown. My nest would be empty.

My to-do list would look a lot different.

Your To-Do List: Is it a Blessing or a Burden? Life as Mom

Your To-Do List: Blessing or Burden?

That brief glimpse into a what-could-have-been gave me the perspective I needed. My to-do list is a representation of all the blessings in my life. It’s not a burden.

Dishes? I have a houseful of healthy kids who (more or less) enjoy eating my food. I have money to buy the food to feed them.

Laundry? Not only do I have indoor plumbing and a 2nd-floor laundry room, but I also have an amazing washer and dryer that sings me a song when each cycle is complete. 

Bonus: my kids all know how to do their own laundry.

Errands? I have a reliable car — even if the AC is broken! — gas money to run it, and safe roads to drive on.

If I look at my to-do list as a representation of the blessings in my life, it’s a lot easier to handle. What could be looked at as burdens are now honors and privileges.

Now sure, not everything on our to-do lists are bonafide blessings or can even be thought of one in the most Pollyanna kind of way.

Some things are hard.

But, we win or we learn, right? Even those hard things on our lists can lead to teachable moments that enhance our lives in the long run. God does not waste hard things.

What’s on your to-do list? Is it dragging you down? Or can you look at it in a different way, from a different perspective, and realize that it can represent all the blessings in your life.

Counting our blessings makes such a difference in our attitudes.

What’s on YOUR to-do list today?

Your To-Do List: Is it a Blessing or a Burden? Life as Mom

This post was originally published on June 5th, 2017. It has been updated for content and clarity.

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9 Comments

  1. It’s definitely about perspective. The list is never ending and we collectively have a way of complaining about it, but if there was no list, would there be life?

  2. For me, a to-do list is necessary. There are times when it does feel like a burden, but this comes and goes depending on the season of life I’m in. Hope that makes sense. And, when you have one of those days where you must run multiple errands and you encounter an issue at every stop…that is a BIG BURDEN and I just want to run home and hide. Lol

  3. Typed a comment & lost it! I try to keep in mind the blessing behind the frustration, too, if that makes sense. Usually, the thing that is frustrating is part of a bigger picture, most of it good.

  4. That’s a good perspective. The first time this really dawned on me was when I had a baby and a preschooler. I took them to the house of 2 single ladies who had agreed to babysit for me. Their house was so calm and peaceful, but then it dawned on me that it was partly that way because there was no husband or children- with the family comes some of the mess & chaos! When things are frustrating me, I try (not always successfully) to remember the blessing that comes with the frustration.

  5. It really is all about perspective, isn’t it? Laundry is my favorite “chore,” because after somewhere around 15 years of infertility, it was such a blessing to–finally!–be able to wash baby clothes. Well, my “baby” just turned 13 and his clothes are bigger, but doing his laundry still reminds me of how blessed we are.