An Unedited State of Mind

There may be another one out there like me this morning. Just in the event there is, and you could use a little solidarity, here is how it's going down here. I will warn you, I am going to be honest. Really, truly honest. I'm not writing from great spiritual heights, nor a deep, dark valley.  I am somewhere in the middle, trying to see beyond what is right in front of me.

Without editing (gulp), here is what you could expect to see if you spent the morning in my head:

5:45AM    "Johnny, no....I'm sorry, I love you, but you may not make it a habit to crawl in beside mama. I've let this go on for a week, because you are so darn adorable and secretly I know I break the rules for you because you are the baby of the group, but I must reserve this space for your papa and me." and so we stumble back to his bed, he whimpering, me feeling a little badly, but not enough to let him back in under my covers.

6:30  "Go back to bed. It's the still the middle of the night (sorta)" we tell the three boys that keep trying to edge their way into our room. "Is it seven yet, mom?" asks the oldest from our door frame, every five minutes. When they finally reassemble themselves in their room, we lay there, listening to escalating noise and commotion, which wakes up the girls. "We will miss this someday, honey" says the man who impregnated me with all the noise now coming from the south wing. I know he's right and my heart flickers a little with the warmth of it's truth...until I hear the sound of urinating and promptly hear a female voice at my ear reporting that her little twin broski completely missed the toilet and was standing in the middle of a yellow pond on the bathroom floor.

8:00  It annoys me when my husband is driving on the higher road than I. Which is often.  He's a take-the-shirt-off-his-back-even-if-he-won't-get-it-back kinda guy. Truthfully, I'm not that kinda girl. Not even close. It would be lovely to subtly suggest to you that I am, but it was promised this post would remain unedited and so it shall be. This is the second Saturday this month he's helping someone move. Another weekend day where I get the full load on a day where I kinda hope for only half (and really want none) of it. Any word or motion or look from the man, unintended or otherwise, is taken as a "holier than thou" statement. The man cannot win and I am a loser for making it so. It's hard being the she-goat wife to the Candyman (Sing along! "Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew Cover it with choc'late and a miracle or two..").   

Dear Jesus. Help me feel remorse for this.  Help me love my job. Help. Me.

9:00  Flying around the house in my grungy robe, trying to get it in order just because it's already chaotic. If the house looks some what put together, maybe we can feel more put together. Irrational, I know, but at the very least the pee-soaked rug in the upstairs bathroom needs washing. I set my laptop up to look up that article about essential oils recommended to ward off the cold and flu, run upstairs to retrieve said mat, run downstairs and as I'm rushing back to the laundry room, notice a pool of coffee all around my brand-new, very nice laptop that the Candyman got me for Christmas. Feeling my smelly body getting even hotter, I demand "WHO did this?!?!?" as the children are fighting over a shriveled up Red Robin balloon in the middle of the kitchen floor (let me say here, there is nothing like a balloon to cause major upheaval in this house). No one admits to it as I hastily lift it up and hear coffee swishing around inside. Lifting it up and to it's side, my creamy drug of choice drips and drips and drips from the flashy red HP's inards. "IS NOTHING SACRED?!?!?!? DO I NOT EVEN GET ONE FREAKING THING that is reserved for ME????...or should I just give  up now and be a personality-less slave who has no interests of her own for you all for the next 18 years!?!?!?!" It wasn't spoken aloud, but it was thought. In the spirit of honesty, it was a variation of "freaking" that I used if I remember correctly. And I do.

9:15  Still shaking with frustration and running out to the barn in my big black robe and bright red slippers, I retrieve an old cooler to put the soggy laptop in. I cover it with rice, hoping that it will work. It is then that I ask the children, somehwhat calmly, who did it. The one I least expect comes forward and I commend her honesty. I know it wasn't her fault, but mine, for having coffee so close to it on the counter. I also know that her feelings are immeasurably more important than the new gadget that I kinda liked. A lot. 

It was the one space of time in this morning that I felt the force of my Father pull me back and restrain my tongue. Thank you, Jesus, for that.

10:00  More fighting. Skirmishes left and right. And I start to think about my stupid Pinterest board and how the pictures of kitchens I'm hoping to mimick will probably just collect dust because how on this big, green earth will we EVER get ANY project of that magnitude done. (And I don't mean moving walls or any structural changes) This is when my unwanted friend, Cathy Comparison slips in and she whispers stuff like "How does so-and-so paint her house?" and then moves onto "Her children must be more compliant and well-behaved or play better on their own or be more obedient or read more books or play by themselves better...." and I start to think of my children as less then. Seriously. I am really not sure I should press post at this point. I've got some of the coolest little children on the planet, and just because I can't forsee the ability to refinish my cupboards, I'm wishing them to be different? Yes. Sadly, I am.

11:00  To ensure you have lost complete regard for me, I can tell you that in the back of my mind through ALL of this morning, I am remembering the woman my age with two small girls (who I've never met) who is fighting for her very life against a disease that is posing mighty opposition. Here is a woman who would give ANYTHING to have an ordinary, frustrating Saturday morning with her girls. She would submerge 200 laptops in vats of coffee and just laugh if she could experience carefree living.  I am amazed at my ability to know this, to KNOW that I should be embracing every "ordinary" second I have with my precious children and

YET

I still feel myself getting sucked in to the mayhem of the moment, even as I plea with Jesus to spare another mama's life so she can go back to having these delightfully maddening Saturday mornings herself. This is where I think I must let myself a little off guilt's hook. It IS indeed helpful and good to keep perspective. It is also good and helpful to know that even if and when God heals her, and life moves on, she will have mornings that test her patience to it's maximum daily levels.

***

This is middle part of life...I am neither in the valley of the shadow of death or standing on a mountain peak looking below with breathless excitement. Even without living in an extreme environment, how I navigate the little challenges and frustrations count. Do I spend time beating myself up for failure, or do I keep on keeping on, trusting that with each new day, my "flying off the handle moments" will grow more infrequent than my "OK, God, we can DO this, You and I" ones? I do not think this is a "Mommy-with-children" thing either.  If I did not have children, I am confident I would have similar challenges, just in different forms. We all struggle with selfishness, with the need to displace self-reliance with God-dependence. We all feel the need to step away, and breath in the cool, crisp air of perspective that reminds us how far bigger this Grand God Story is than what we can see with our limited vision. The scope is big, but these tiny moments in our little lives count. They do. 

This is part of faithfulness, keeping Truth close, forgiving others and ourselves and choosing to be honest with our faults so we can love more as He does and less of like our instincts do. 

My friend, I've got nothing else. If you've read this and are horrified, pray for me. If you've read this and know, well, then let me know and we can pray for each other.