I feel like a crummy mommy. We’re coming up on Mother’s day,
and as I reflect on my journey over the past year (that started on Mother’s
day, actually), I am probably more frustrated, embarrassed, and overwhelmed
than I thought I was then.
I wake up every day with fantastic intentions to have fun
with the boys, get a lot done, walk in the Spirit. And within 10 minutes of
their waking (which recently has been an hour plus earlier than they should), I
am angry, edgy, and frustrated. This is the course of the day; it is then set.
Each offense after that just adds fuel to the fire. My tone gets more coarse,
my reactions starch and stiff – definitely not the loving mother I always
imagined I’d be.
Moments come where I may breathe, but most of the day, I
hold my breath. I feel my cheeks puff, blood rushing to my skull. I stand up
and get lightheaded, and I wonder why I don’t have the endurance to go the
distance. Lord, open my lips so that I may breathe of You.
Sometimes, I wonder if it is my sheer determination to walk
by the Spirit that makes it so hard. My enemy sees me as a threat. Maybe? So
things get harder.
Or maybe my little boys are being just that – little boys.
What else should I expect from a 4, 2, and 1-year-old? My parenting lacks as I
just want to avoid. I’m tired of breaking up fights. I roll my eyes at the
drama of another “owie.” I cannot stand to be asked one more time, “Can I have?”
And most of the time, I am already in process of meeting the request even as
they are asking. We’ve worked on manners, but they seem to go out the window
when the boys are hungry (which they seem to be constantly.) I can’t keep
anything nice in the house. The couches, chairs, beds, cribs, changing tables,
gates, railings – they all become things to climb up, conquer, then jump off
of. Balls are thrown (as are blocks and anything else that can be projected
from a toddler’s grip). Maybe bubble wrap on everything would be most effective…..
I don’t mind the fingerprints on the windows, the mud on the walls – soap and
water always does the trick. Crumbs left on the floor; I can sweep those up.
And the ones left in the sofa cushions, a vacuum and a little elbow grease
(well, sometimes, it works anyway.) But what about the four-year-old’s name
scribbled across my coffee table book in ball point ink? The wall he chose to
use as his teacher’s marker board to educate his stuffed animals?
Then there’s “Mommy, MoMmY, MOMMY!” while I’m trying to take
care of business on the phone, the inability to carry on a full conversation
with my husband before 10 PM, two-hour-long dinner’s because “I don’t like it”
again.
Sun up to sun down, food prep, dishes, sweeping, mopping,
wiping counters, wiping noses, wiping bums (yuck), washing, drying, folding
laundry and getting them into proper drawers. Pick up the toys (and don’t miss
pieces, or your sore foot may remind you later). Training little ones to get
dressed, make their beds, take their dishes, hold the dustpan, feed the dog.
Sometimes before dawn, offering snuggles because of a bad dream; sometimes after
dark, filling a water cup, turning on a bathroom light, or tucking them in
again. Homeschooling (now that’s like a second full-time job), teaching ABCs
and 123s, shapes, colors, science and art. Planning, purchasing, preparing
meals, grocery shopping, check-book-balancing, bill paying, plant the seeds,
water the vegetables, pick the produce and store it away. Bake the bread, boil
the bagels, and brown the meat (all while superheroes battle it out behind me
on the kitchen floor.) Catch a glance of the purple violets sitting in a saucer
of water on the table and be reminded that my little ones do love me – even if
they don’t always show it.
I’m a mother – a tired mother. I’m a mother, and I want to
be a better mother, a good mother, a mother that sees the fruit of God’s work
in her life and in the life of her little ones. If they are to arise and call
me blessed, something must start that process now. Someone must start that
process now.
I’d love to have the “answer,” but I don’t think there is
one. I get tired, weary, burnt out – all while desiring to walk with God. And I
know I cannot do it. I cannot do it alone.
I was encouraged the other day by a comment that someone
made that David (as in King David in the Bible) sought God before every battle.
He didn’t assume that God’s battle plan would always be the same. So each time,
he sought God to ask, “What is Your battle plan?” And sometimes motherhood
feels like that – a battle. Each day, each moment even, a battle for good, for
my kids’ hearts, for God’s victory in their life. Why would I think that God
would want me to approach motherhood with a formula and try to do things the
same each time. It just doesn’t work. Each battle is different. Lord, Give me
wisdom to fight this battle today; show me how You want me to fight this battle
now.
As this Mother’s day passes, and I enter in another year of motherhood, my prayer is for Christ to have the victory – over my heart, over the battles that I face, over my kid’s hearts – and that He alone would get the glory and honor. Soli Deo Gloria!
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