Yesterday, the day after Christmas, my kids were super over tired from the long week we had had so far and my house was a complete wreck. I was determined to make sense out of it all, even though I knew it was going to be a horrible day full of attitudes, frustration, and very little success. It did in fact end up being a really rough day, and I was in a bad mood for most of it as a result. :P So, when I woke up this morning and sat down for my devotion time, I find it no surprise that God had me read what I did... especially in the midst of waking up to the house I spent all day yesterday cleaning in complete shambles already, the play room carpet is soaked with the water from the now deflated punching toy the kids got for Christmas, Kyleigh spilled a bottle of bubbles all over one of my shelves full of books, and my two youngest children were having a battle of the feet (not a happy one) while we were sitting on the couch together. Thankfully, I was already half way through the chapter, so I decided to walk past all of it and sneak into the "man cave" downstairs to finish reading before tackling each situation. Praise God that I did...this is some of what I read. (This is all from a book called 1,000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp) :)
"In our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives. Haste makes waste...On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur...
The time, always the time, I'm an amateur trying to beat time. The six kids rouse. We race. The barn...and hurry.The books, the binders...and hurry! In a world addicted to speed, I blur the moments into one unholy smear. I have done it. I do it still. Hands of the clock whip hard. So I push hard and I fall hard and when their wide eyes brim sadness and their chins tremble weak, I am weary and I am the thin clear skin, reflecting their fatigue, about to burst, my eyes glistening their same sheer pain. The hurry makes us hurt. ..
I speak to God: I don't really want more time; I just want enough time. Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done --- yesterday...
I just want time to do my one life well...
Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time: When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. I can slow the torrent by being all here.I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. And when I'm always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter. And time slows. Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time's river slows, slows, slows....
Wherever you are, be all there...This is where God is. In the present. I AM --- His very name...
Thank God for the time, and very God enters that time, presence hallowing it. True, this full attention slows time and I live the full of the moment, right to outer edges. But there's more. I awake to I AM here. When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God. In His embrace, time loses all sense of speed and stress and space and stands so still and...holy. Here is the only place I can love Him...
It's ridiculous how much joy a moment can hold...
The real problem of life is never a lack of time. The real problem of life --- in my life --- is lack of thanksgiving....
Calm. Haste makes waste. Life is not an emergency. Life is brief and it is fleeting, but it is not an emergency...Stay calm, enter the moment, and give thanks...And I can always give thanks because an all-powerful God always has all these things, all things, always under control.
The slower the living, the greater the sense of fullness and satisfaction...
I watch the hands move grace on the clock face. I'm growing older. These children growing up. But time is not running out. This day is not a sieve, losing time. With each passing minute, each passing year, there's always a deepening awareness that I am filling, gaining time. We stand on the bring of eternity.
I want to savor long whatever time holds.
As I sat here and typed all of this up, I have had countless interruptions. Landon brought me his new puzzle box soaked in more bubbles, Kyleigh and D.J. were screaming their heads off at each other over a game, Hayden pulled out the step ladder and was climbing onto the counter to rummage through a cup of random nick knacks, and I literally just ran into the kitchen (which is right next to me at the moment) to rip a bottle of prenatal vitamins out of Haydens hand...a supposedly child proof bottle that she managed to open and tried to eat. Yes... despite what it may seem, there are things to be thankful for even in these moments. The fact that I have healthy active kids...kids who are able to use both hands, both feet, their voices, their brains... kids that drive me up the wall, but also shower me with love constantly throughout the day. Beautiful kids...beautiful gifts from my amazing Father in heaven...who for whatever reason, trusted me enough to be their mother.Even now, my youngest son just walked up to me and gave me a kiss on the shoulder, for no reason at all. May we enjoy EVERY moment...chaos or calm, and give God the glory in all things!
Now to go clean up all the water downstairs... what am I thankful for in this moment? The fact that we own a shop vac ;)
Friday, December 27, 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Unglued
The other night, after a LONG week of Thanksgiving cooking, 2 days straight with just me and the kids (Dave was hunting), and then our final day off consisted of me cleaning and grocery shopping...I literally came "unglued". I love this term because it offers the perfect description of what is happening in these moments, moments that I know I personally have at least once every couple months (sometimes more). I laid in bed and, per my usual 3 month break down, poured out my heart to my sweet, patient husband. Expressing how tired I was, tired of trying to keep up with the house, tired of all the different battles each child of mine poses throughout the day, tired of the endless dishes, laundry and filth... I told him I just couldn't do it, not alone. It was TOO MUCH. I struggle to enjoy my children most days, to enjoy life. I know this can't be what God wanted for me, for my family, for anyone. What am I doing wrong? I feel guilty 98% of my week. Guilty over my reactions, guilty over the lack of time spent with my kids, individually and together. Guilty over the lack of desire to even WANT to spend time with my kids. Guilty over not being able to keep the house together. Guilty for being such a poor example of Christ to my family and those around me. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I was exhausted. On top of that, of course, I feel fat and uncomfortable thanks to my 5th pregnancy. This should be a beautiful time, but unlike our childhood dreams painted, pregnancy really isn't so "pretty". It's incredible, don't get me wrong. It is the most precious gift God has given me, times 5. I LOVE my children, I love my life, and I love being a mother and wife. But what I had no idea going into it all, was just how much work it really was. How exhausting, and grueling, and repetitive it was. Above all, how chaotic it was! After I literally "vomited" all of these emotions to my husband, he got me laughing, I felt a bit of relief, and we went to bed. As usual, the next day I just went on as always, no change, just pushing on through the raw emotions that fill my day. I desire so badly to be the wife, mother, and woman God has created me to be. But for the life of me, I cannot seem to figure out how on earth to do that. I know I need God's help above all else, but in a life of such chaos and business, I struggle to find that one on one time with Him daily. And I'm sorry, but I can't just meet with Him once a day, I need Him continually throughout my day. But life doesn't seem to allow for that...hence my continuous feeling of being "unglued". Often throughout the week, I think about how much I wish we could just sell everything, move to another country, and live modestly serving the Lord. I imagine this will remove all of the chaos and business that fill our days. And though God may have that for us one day, He has us here now, and I need to figure out how to get my life under His control, under His peace, right where I am.
Like the loving, amazing Father that He is, the night after my fateful breakdown, I stumbled across a blog post one of my friends had shared. It expressed my emotions, my thoughts, my heart, to a T. I was floored. I read some of it to Dave and he was under the impression I had written it. Oh how refreshing to know you are not alone! I feel Facebook, of all things, makes everyone feel worse about themselves. We see what looks like perfect lives, perfect parents, perfect examples of self control, and we feel more and more like the failures we have painted in our minds. But to see a woman who struggles like I do. Who fights depression, who fights these awful outbursts of anger and frustration towards her husband and kids. Who wants to crawl into a hole and just hide from the world. It was just what I needed to hear.
Today, in God's perfect timing, I finally decided to head to Lifeway and buy the book we are planning to read for our Bible study. Prior to leaving the house, I had dealt with Hayden peeing herself, then Hayden pooping herself (and I mean, it was not a smooth clean-up, lets just say I had to throw the underwear away), and while cleaning her up, Gabriel had managed to get into the dog bowl of water and was soaked head to toe. On top of that, I planned to do a slow cooker meal today in loo of going to the gym this evening, only to discover I had in fact forgotten to buy the main ingredient. Then it was time to take them all to the grocery store, and Landon insisted on pushing his own cart (one of the mini ones). Well, he is a terrible driver to say the least. He began the journey through the store by running straight into the entrance door. Embarrassing. Then, we take a few steps forward and he runs into my ankles. OUCH. And then he does it again. It took about 10 minutes to get the boy to stop looking down and running into everything and everyone in his way. We left the store with him sobbing LOUDLY because I wouldn't let him bring the cart through the parking lot. Then, I come home to find the dog had pooped in the living room...again. Eventually we made it to nap time, and I sat down to begin reading my new book. First time I have gotten to spend alone time with the Lord this week... if that doesn't sum up how the week has gone so far. :P God could not have put a more perfect book in my hands. Another refreshing realization that I.AM.NOT.ALONE. Many, if not most, of the mothers in this world...heck, most women mothers or not, are dealing with the very same emotions of defeat, helplessness, and guilt. She says in the first chapter, "I know what it's like to praise God one minute and in the next minute yell and scream at my child---and then feel both the burden of my destructive behavior and the shame of my powerlessness to stop it." YES! I am so thankful we have a God who loves us so much, who cares about us enough to provide such encouragement in the midst of our abundantly blessed lives. And we are in fact so blessed. We may fail to see it most days, or to feel it, but we know deep down just how blessed we are. And He never fails to remind us. But He knows our plight, He knows our struggles, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin." - Hebrews 4:15 And as our Father, our incredibly loving Father, He knows just what we need and when we need it. I cannot wait to see what this book holds, and I am so thankful for authors like Lisa, who are willing to be so vulnerable and transparent in a world where we all try to pretend we have it all together. Because the truth of it is, none of us do, and everyone of us faces these feelings at some point in time, if not all the time.
To begin this book, she shares the very first way to start "renewing our minds". We need to change our perspective. Today, though it is hard to say how on earth all those events held any good, I can look back and think, "I'm thankful I have a healthy little girl. I am thankful I have an abundance of clothes to change her into when all of these accidents happen. I am thankful Gabriel is such a happy little baby who knows how to entertain himself, even if it ends in a mess. I am thankful I have an independent little boy who is willing to learn how to do something new, and continue trying even though his mother is being a grump and he is struggling to catch on. I am thankful my dog pooped on the hard wood floor and not on the carpet. I am thankful I have a home for which all of these things could happen in and we are not stuck out in the cold like so many others. I am thankful I have enough money to go buy a book full of of encouragement and truth, and the freedom to do so. As Lisa Terkerust says, "I can't control the things that happen to me each day, but i can control how I think about them. I can say to myself, "I have a choice to have destructive thoughts or constructive thoughts right now. I can wallow in what's wrong and make things worse, or I can ask God for a better perspective to help me see good even when I don't feel good... Yes, I can face things that are out of my control and not act out of control."
Like the loving, amazing Father that He is, the night after my fateful breakdown, I stumbled across a blog post one of my friends had shared. It expressed my emotions, my thoughts, my heart, to a T. I was floored. I read some of it to Dave and he was under the impression I had written it. Oh how refreshing to know you are not alone! I feel Facebook, of all things, makes everyone feel worse about themselves. We see what looks like perfect lives, perfect parents, perfect examples of self control, and we feel more and more like the failures we have painted in our minds. But to see a woman who struggles like I do. Who fights depression, who fights these awful outbursts of anger and frustration towards her husband and kids. Who wants to crawl into a hole and just hide from the world. It was just what I needed to hear.
Today, in God's perfect timing, I finally decided to head to Lifeway and buy the book we are planning to read for our Bible study. Prior to leaving the house, I had dealt with Hayden peeing herself, then Hayden pooping herself (and I mean, it was not a smooth clean-up, lets just say I had to throw the underwear away), and while cleaning her up, Gabriel had managed to get into the dog bowl of water and was soaked head to toe. On top of that, I planned to do a slow cooker meal today in loo of going to the gym this evening, only to discover I had in fact forgotten to buy the main ingredient. Then it was time to take them all to the grocery store, and Landon insisted on pushing his own cart (one of the mini ones). Well, he is a terrible driver to say the least. He began the journey through the store by running straight into the entrance door. Embarrassing. Then, we take a few steps forward and he runs into my ankles. OUCH. And then he does it again. It took about 10 minutes to get the boy to stop looking down and running into everything and everyone in his way. We left the store with him sobbing LOUDLY because I wouldn't let him bring the cart through the parking lot. Then, I come home to find the dog had pooped in the living room...again. Eventually we made it to nap time, and I sat down to begin reading my new book. First time I have gotten to spend alone time with the Lord this week... if that doesn't sum up how the week has gone so far. :P God could not have put a more perfect book in my hands. Another refreshing realization that I.AM.NOT.ALONE. Many, if not most, of the mothers in this world...heck, most women mothers or not, are dealing with the very same emotions of defeat, helplessness, and guilt. She says in the first chapter, "I know what it's like to praise God one minute and in the next minute yell and scream at my child---and then feel both the burden of my destructive behavior and the shame of my powerlessness to stop it." YES! I am so thankful we have a God who loves us so much, who cares about us enough to provide such encouragement in the midst of our abundantly blessed lives. And we are in fact so blessed. We may fail to see it most days, or to feel it, but we know deep down just how blessed we are. And He never fails to remind us. But He knows our plight, He knows our struggles, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin." - Hebrews 4:15 And as our Father, our incredibly loving Father, He knows just what we need and when we need it. I cannot wait to see what this book holds, and I am so thankful for authors like Lisa, who are willing to be so vulnerable and transparent in a world where we all try to pretend we have it all together. Because the truth of it is, none of us do, and everyone of us faces these feelings at some point in time, if not all the time.
To begin this book, she shares the very first way to start "renewing our minds". We need to change our perspective. Today, though it is hard to say how on earth all those events held any good, I can look back and think, "I'm thankful I have a healthy little girl. I am thankful I have an abundance of clothes to change her into when all of these accidents happen. I am thankful Gabriel is such a happy little baby who knows how to entertain himself, even if it ends in a mess. I am thankful I have an independent little boy who is willing to learn how to do something new, and continue trying even though his mother is being a grump and he is struggling to catch on. I am thankful my dog pooped on the hard wood floor and not on the carpet. I am thankful I have a home for which all of these things could happen in and we are not stuck out in the cold like so many others. I am thankful I have enough money to go buy a book full of of encouragement and truth, and the freedom to do so. As Lisa Terkerust says, "I can't control the things that happen to me each day, but i can control how I think about them. I can say to myself, "I have a choice to have destructive thoughts or constructive thoughts right now. I can wallow in what's wrong and make things worse, or I can ask God for a better perspective to help me see good even when I don't feel good... Yes, I can face things that are out of my control and not act out of control."
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