Let us be where our feet are

Last Sunday we celebrated Mother’s Day and as I continued to listen to messages from different people, the one from Christy Wright stood out for me. Christy, who says she loves encouraging us to become who God wants us to be and is raising three little kids, one with special needs, simply urged us as mothers to “be where our feet are”. 

As I reflected on what is required of us as mothers today, although it is an uphill task, I still believe we all need to hear and heed this message and work on being where our feet are.

This, in my view, means our daily decisions and choices need to align with who we are becoming or who we want to be. It also requires that we resist our internal senses of hustles that maybe calling us away from where our feet are.

You see, being where our feet are means living life in the present moment and appreciating what is before us. This week as I enjoyed my Pilates class, instead of letting my mind wonder towards what else is on my to-do list for the day, I reminded myself to concentrate, which enabled me to connect and feel the movements I was making. 

I also heard and enjoyed the lyrics of the song we were working out to. In addition, I was able to appreciate what this low impact exercise is doing for both my mind and body as I go through the effects of being a middle-aged woman.

Being where our feet are will ensure that we no longer spend our days dreaming about being in another place or wanting more than what is before us. I still remember the advice from Brian Tracy years ago when I became a mother. 

He said, “Do just two things; work and family.” Further that, “Work all the time you work. Time wasted at work is time you are taking away from your family.” 

In addition, “When you are with your family practice focused attention”. 

What stayed with me, however, was the advice to “have quantity of time at home and quality of time at work. Never mix them up”. Although I cannot say I have lived 100 percent up to this advice, it stayed with me, and I continue to do my best to follow it. 

Reflecting on Christy’s advice for us to be where our feet are brought a lot of things to mind. I mean how many times do we choose to do other things at work knowing we will catch up with work at home?

Yet, as we catch up with work, the children we desired and God in his goodness and graciousness granted to us, continue to grow, be raised, and influenced by other people other than us their mothers.

Christy’s advice also took me back to a period when our children were toddlers. A friend visited us in Tunis, they admired the relationship I had with our children, and I admired where they were in their career. I still remember the words that came through me as I thought what they had was success and what I had was not. 

The words, “if you do not have your own definition of success you tend to feel unsuccessful each time others talk about their success” brought me back to reality. Whereas we were both successful in what we were doing at the time, because our feet were not where we were, we did not recognise it and instead wanted what the other had.  

Finally, being where our feet are will entail that we always keep in mind that tomorrow is not promised. The present moment is all we will ever have, and we need to make the now the primary focus of our life. In addition, we need to be there fully in mind, body and soul and perform what is expected of us as mothers. 

I take comfort in the words of Pastor Jentezen Franklin in his message ‘The Spirit of Motherhood’ where he reminded us that “as mothers we need to be the ones to raise our children and have influence on them. Keeping in mind that God is generous, and he gives A for effort”. 

Our point of reflection this week is to ask ourselves, ‘what do we need to change so that we can put into effect the caution by Christy to be where our feet are?’

Ms Rosette Wamambe is a transformational leadership coach with the Maxwell Certified Leadership Team,  [email protected]