Meaning in the Mundane: A Healthy Appetite

25/03/2026

When I started this blog eight years ago, I compared motherhood to an ultramarathon. I was encouraged to find out how good women are at them. At long distances, the playing field is levelled. It’s one of the only sports in which woman regularly compete with, and outperform, men.

Now that I’m older, and have several thousand washing loads and cooked dinners under my belt, the comparison seems all the more fitting.

The monotony of motherhood takes a fair amount of grit to get through.

Human nature is such that we quickly lose our taste for those things of which we’ve had our fill.

This feeling is so strong that, after days of eating manna – an angelic food, bread from heaven no less, the Israelites dreamed of heading back to Egypt and their harsh slavery, just to taste something different. (Numbers 11:4-5)

It’s not just food we start to despise, when it’s been repeated for long enough, but a range of things – even the very best things.

Proverbs 27:7 says, ‘one who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet’.

The opportunity to faithfully care and provide for our family is undeniably good. However, in the unending daily repetition, it can feel tiresome or even frustrating.

When the good and sweetest things in life, like nurturing our family, become tiresome, other things can begin to look appetising. Personal ambition? Self-indulgence? Our appetites can get skewed and the bitter can start to look sweet.

So how do we realign our appetites and find joy in these simple things?

Ecclesiastes 2:24 says, ‘a person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God.’

Notice, finding satisfaction in our work, whatever that might be, comes initially from the hand of God. It is a gift which we can ask him for.

I wrote this series, “meaning in the mundane“, largely to help myself find purpose in all those tasks which can easily become so tiresome. Whist there are many ways to find joy and satisfaction in our chores, the easiest way is to simply come like a child before God, and ask him for it. I should have begun with this.

Faithfulness, patience, joy; these are all gifts the Lord has promised to give to his people through the Holy Spirit, when we ask. (Galatians 5:22-23, Luke 11:13)

Today I’m praying, ‘Lord God, give me satisfaction in the work I do today. Help me to find joy in the little tasks. Let my children see a mother who enjoys spending time with them. I’m sorry my appetites are so often skewed. Help me to love what you love and not be tempted by those things that look sweet but turn to gravel in the mouth.’

Not only can the Lord answer our prayers, but by turning to him with our struggles, talking with him, and focusing our minds on him, our appetite starts to realign. This is because Jesus himself is far sweeter than anything else the world has to offer.

“He must be sweet from whom such sweetness flows that he makes the foulest and most offensive of mankind acceptable to God.… He is sweet because, whenever he comes into a man’s heart, he breathes into it the sweetness of abounding peace.” [1]

Today, as you faithfully continue in all the small mundane tasks set before you, may you know the sweetness of a gentle King and saviour, spurring you on with love and prayers from the very throne room of God.

Children’s appetites

Parents can have quite a lot of influence over their children’s appetites.

Midwives encourage parents to feed their babies all sorts of vegetables when they begin to wean, to start them off with healthy appetites early on.

Research has shown that it can take 10-15 exposures of a new or initially disliked food, to turn it into an accepted one.

It took a lot more than this to get one of my daughters to enjoy mushrooms, and I’m still working on the youngest one, but ‘hope springs eternal in the human breast!’

It’s not just food though. The things we talk about in front of them, the places we take them, the music we play in our home. It all has an impact on their appetites.

And of course this extends to their education too.

Reading quality literature to children exposes them to so much. They can learn about different people and cultures and journey with characters as they overcome adversity in their lives.

The more we read together and discuss books, the more they naturally also learn to spot well written paragraphs and plots.

We recently read the ‘Pirate Academy’ series together. It was an easy and engaging read, with lots of action and interesting characters. But it was a bit like chocolate cake really, not much nutritional value. A little while into the series, one of my sons started to ask questions about the plot.

‘Why are the children training to be pirates if they are supposed to be the good guys? Pirates used to steal and plunder. What are they training to do? It doesn’t make sense.’

It was quite a big plot flaw!

We then started to compare the book to ‘October, October’ a winner of the 2022 Yoto Carnegie medal. We had read it just before the pirate series. Initially the children hadn’t especially enjoyed it. However, when we compared the plot, character development and additional facts about mud larking that they learnt from ‘October, October,’ they could easily see why it had won an award.

They may not have found the story as exciting, but they could appreciate how well written it was.

Moments like that are priceless – when you can see their appetites shaping before you. Interestingly, the opportunity would not have arisen had we not read both books.

It reminds me of a quote from a book my friend recommended to me, ‘Modern Miss Mason’ by Leah Boden.

She said:

“Don’t just eliminate—educate. Most respected nutritionists will now advise that quickly eliminating certain unhealthy foods altogether can cause a mental struggle with willpower that feeds a sense of deprivation. Instead, they recommend introducing and adding in more fruit, vegetables, and whole grain, leaving little room for those other foods. Introduction is more powerful than elimination. We all enjoy a drive-through burger now and again, but there’s nothing quite as satiating as a slowly prepared and cooked home meal full of colour, texture, and flavour. I’d say the same for books!” [2]

Though I would usually choose more content rich books for our read-alouds, we did enjoy the Pirate Academy series. It was especially enjoyable, as through Just Imagine, we got a chance to hear directly from the author in one of their virtual author events. My son was very encouraged when his pirate ship name was chosen by the author as the winner of a competition. The author even asked if he could write it into his next story. We may have to purchase the next in the series! If you’ve not come across them before, I would highly recommend the Just Imagine live author events.

Another great resource is the Carnegie website which is fantastic for choosing good quality books (and is where we discovered ‘October, October’). Each shortlisted book has an attached activity pack that can be downloaded for free.