focus.

disclaimer: this post is not intended to bring about positive cheers in my court. i am not looking for sometime to pat me on my back while i am feeling down. i know that i am loved, this is simply here to share.

i have pretty much been sucking it up as a wife and mother. although, i am going to give myself a little bit of credit here- i have been putting a lot of work into my marriage (most days) and i do feel like the relationship aspect of what i have with sam is definitely moving in the right direction. praise the Lord.
however- wifely duties? like having a clean, well maintained home? or having dinner made and not ordered in? or how about having a showered wife? although these days i am sure he would be happy for a smiling wife (as opposed to the ball of stress i have been).
but a lot of the wife aspects can be chalked up to 2 reasons:
1) i am an exhausted pregnant woman.
2) i cannot get myself organized
and those things can be directly related if not caused by the simple fact that i am not consistently starting my day centered on my Savior.
it's the kid stuff that is really breaking me down. pretty much all day sunday (starting from a little after midnight) was an emotional roller-coaster. way to much bleeding for someone who is pregnant, followed by a stupid nurse who doesn't accurately know how to use a doppler to check for a baby's heartbeat, and the horror of what we thought was going to be a second lost baby (we had a miscarriage in March of 2005).
but the prayers that you are sometimes to afraid to even utter, but are pragmatically etched into your heart, are answered. and around 10 am sam and i got the first glimpse of baby 4 (happily moving and heart beating).
so, you'd think after spending a day not moving- then monday being sick and letting my husband take care of everything, one would think i'd be emotionally recharged for my life.
ha ha ha ha ha.
i wish.
if anything i am ashamed of myself. i came close to what i thought was losing a child, and here i am tuesday morning secretly wishing that someone else could be the other 3's mom for a couple of days.
my children are driving me crazy. and i hate to even admit that out loud, because i will get the friends who actually say to me, "and you think you are going to home-school your kids?" and the friends who just look at me and think "she'll never be able to handle staying home and home-schooling all of them".
not that i blame them, i am the not the picture of someone who has it all together.
when i take a moment (while my children are NOT napping, even though they should be) to really reflect on myself as a mother, and why i cannot muster up an iota of patience towards my children, two things come to mind.
1) the director of women's ministries at my church (and leader of my women's Bible study which i rarely can get myself out the door for) told me something fairly profound- which may not sound profound to anyone else, but at the time it was for me simply because it was said in such a way that made sense to me.
"one of the reason's God gives us children is to show us how much we need Him, and how we cannot do any of this on our own".
apparently God really wants me to know how much i need Him, because He keeps throwing these little blessings into my lap (feel free to replace blessings with any other word that may come to mind.)
2) compassion.
i seem to be unable to show my children the smallest amount of compassion. instead i continually demand excellence and perfection from them, when i am not taking the time to lay down the steps to help them accomplish obedience.
and today i connected the 2 thoughts in my brain. because i kept thinking, it's not like i am constantly whining to God about Mason sitting in my chair or Campbell touching me with his milk cup (2 things my children frequently do) or its...... well i was going to come up with other examples and then realized i couldn't. because i DO do things like that all the time. i may ask my children to pick up their toys 20 times before they do it- and get frustrated to the end of my very short fuse, and what about me? how often does God ask me to not worry but to trust in Him? and how many times at the first sign of conflict,crisis, or concern do i immediately find my husband or a friend or the internet or my own scenarios trying to mend the issue? instead of simply stopping myself and praying to my Lord?
i am not different then my children. the only difference is that i cannot physically see the Lord getting frustrated with me. but my children get a front row show to that all the time.
so why can i not offer them the same compassion and forgiveness that the Lord gives me? why is it so hard to be an example of Christ to them, and imitator of God?
because, i am a sinner who really needs her Lord.
i thought about all the things i could try and start to make my life more organized: doing dishes after each meal, not going to bed with a messy house, not letting the laundry pile up, getting the kids to clean up their toys immediately after losing interest with them....
all of those things are good things- but they don't represent the heart of the problem.
and that is me, and my heart.
i have become more self-fish than a mother can allow herself to be. constantly frustrated by being interrupted with all the things i want to do.
when being a wife and mother is the only thing i want to do.
such a pickle i am in.
so, a small challenge for myself. instead of trying to radically change all the fiascoes of chaos i have forming around here, i am going to try instead to focus on my heart.
1) starting my day centered on the Lord. i know that i may not always have a moment to do devotions before one, two or all of my children wake up, but starting my morning with my eyes and mind focused on Him, asking there to be more of Him and less of me, will be a good start.
2) really praying. being slow to anger. quick to listen. to pray before i react- to remember that i am the biggest example of Christ my children will get to see today and tomorrow.
and if that thought doesn't freak me out enough to change.... well, than i need a lot of prayer.