Free Kingdom Woman: Embracing Your Purpose, Power, and Possibilities by Tony Evans, Chrystal Evans Hurst Page A

Chronicles
    Not too long ago, it occurred to me as I got up to clean the kitchen for the umpteenth time, that I didn’t feel like it. What else I realized was how many times over the last weeks, months, and years I’ve felt the same way about quite a few of my responsibilities in motherhood.
    The truth is, there is very little room for selfishness in this place of servanthood. If I took the route of bemoaning my fate, things would only get worse, and then I’d have a bigger hole of self-pity to dig myself out of. If I don’t do the dishes, they pile up. If I don’t do the laundry, we have no clean clothes. If I don’t pay the bills, we have no electricity.
    I can’t even imagine what life would look like around here if I did only what I felt like doing. So I’ve discovered that this path of being a kingdom woman is not a path for sissies or for women who are not made of tough stuff.
    I’ve discovered that my best days are the ones when I arise early to get myself together before the troops converge, and when I go to bed later than everyone elseto make sure that things are at a good starting place for tomorrow. Believe me, I do not prefer to wake first and sleep last. However, it seems to be the key to having a smooth day.
    Today, for example, I began cooking dinner shortly after finishing breakfast. Putting a chicken in the Crock-Pot made my dinner prep all of thirty minutes at 6:00 PM . Making gravy, roasting potatoes, cooking rice, and throwing together a salad was almost effortless. I also made a menu for the rest of the week, which allowed me to make my grocery list, which made it possible to get in and out of the grocery store in thirty minutes. Being semi-dressed (dressed but not glamorous) before my crew arose allowed me to be somewhat composed when my doorbell rang. These are small things in which I strive for excellence, and yet they are huge in return when I can sigh at the end of the day because I realize that I’ve given my all.
    A day like today shines in comparison to other days when I have been down, behind, hungry, discombobulated, and stressed. Most of those times involve my indulgent self-pity about how hard things are as a woman pulled in so many directions and needed by so many people.
    Deciding to take my home and family on like a kingdom woman and not cowering under the weight of the tedious and mundane make the flow of my day so much easier.
    If I stare back in time too long, I’ll find things that I wish I had done better or cringe at all of the things I opted not to do at all. Looking in the rearview mirror of yesterday, I see lots of “would haves,” “could haves,” and “should haves.” But those years are spent. They are gone. How I used that time is how I used it, and I can’t go back.
    But I can take a step forward into a brighter tomorrow.
    Each day I am blessed to live gives me another day to press on and do the best I can with what I have. It gives me another day to live as a woman of excellence. No, most people will never know how many loads of laundry I do in a year,how many spills I clean up, or how many homeschool lessons I prepare and grade. But God knows. He knows my every move, and He has created me to make my every move in a spirit that is nothing less than excellent. He knows the same about you, too.
    Often, the life of a woman—young or old, married or single, presents opportunities to perform thankless jobs in many ways. The temptation is there to pull back or just get by. But when I start to think that way, I remember my aunt and the example she has always lived in excellence. Never married, she dedicated herself solely to the Lord and has given herself to be “Auntie” to her nieces and nephews and now her great-nieces and great-nephews in so many ways. She also dedicated herself to starting and running the children’s program at our church for decades—while simultaneously getting her PhD. She is a woman of excellence, and when asked what motivates her to