Am I surprised by this? Not in the least. It happens as I recover after each new baby. I struggle. I grow. I recover. But the patience is always hard. It is always hard to look at my still-saggy body and wish I felt more like working out - or had a baby that was not quite so needy all the time. It is hard to take my super-sensitive two-year-old AND my easily-irritable baby out in public. Sometimes I the grace comes to stay calm amidst their cries and struggles, but the looks the comments of others cut deep. It is exhausting on so many levels.
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| Me and the kiddos out and about :) |
As I was turning to God in the midst of this, I found myself telling Him, "I'm just off-balance." I cannot seem figure out what is important and what is not. I get distracted. I try to fix one area of my life and another falls apart. I get the laundry done, but then have nothing to offer the children for dinner so we eat frozen pizza for the third time this week. We make it out of the house for a fun activity and I get some work done for my part-time job, but suddenly the house is an absolute mess and the kitchen floor so sticky I think one of my shoes is still adhered there.
But then I realized, this is the stuff of the life God has called me to.I am not called (at least not right now) to spend days doing serious fasting and kneeling on cold hard floors (although I do that now, but because I think its fun - I am so strange, I admit it). I am not called to hard physical labor or to combat. God has called me to be faithful to my vocation. My primary vocation is wife and mother. So God is calling me to connect with my husband - spend time with him and take concern over his day. Then God is calling me to care for my children. I have to discern if I should be putting in extra effort to find super-healthy meals or if my time is better spent in other avenues, while I offer them more processed and simple choices. This is the stuff I struggle with, but I am just finally realizing the struggle is real. I am not making decisions that affect tons of lives or doing heavy lifting, but I'm doing what needs to be done for our family and that is something.
I really feel like God is in the moment. Each moment I am trying to discern what I should be doing. Often the crying baby trumps all, or my grumbling tummy makes it clear. Other times I get distracted and suddenly an hour has passed and I have nothing to show for it.
But the secret I am learning is that the more off-balance I get, the more I need to lean in. My family practices the art of Aikido. In Aikido there is a lot of leaning. Generally the person being attacked wants to use the attacker's momentum to get the attacker off-balanced and "throw" (literally) them away. In the case of God, though, I see it as allowing Him to throw my energy where He sees fit. I attack Him. I give him all the power I can muster, flailing into Him blindly these days, and he redirects my efforts sending them off in all directions to my family, my friends, my community. And being overwhelmed almost seems to help fuel the cannon as I have so many reasons to turn to Him. All I need to do is lean in and let Him guide me through His will for me at that moment - whether it be cleaning the floor, bathing the children, or finishing up a work assignment. I don't need to be troubled by all those things I am not doing that I think need to be done, or all those things I would like to be doing. I just need to be in the moment with God, and it all starts by leaning in.
Nice. So nice.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.