When You Want to Escape

Do you ever have days when you just want to crawl out of your own skin?  When dark chocolate and a good book just aren't sufficient distractions?  When the poop on your hand and the fighting toddlers and the job and the budgeting and the demands make you want to run from the door, screaming all the way to the neighbor's house?

When you are cleaning spit-up off the floor for the 100th time and giving your two-year-old rectal suppositories just to keep him regular, and your nearly-five-year-old is still throwing fits that would shock the devil.  Your life consists of sticky floors, mounds of unfolded laundry, and burnt dinners, and you--ever striving--wonder what in the world you are really doing of any good? Is it worth it? Was this the life you wanted?  Really?

And you realize after 9 months of miserable pregnancy and 6 months of nursing that maybe it wasn't so bad compared to the "normal" hormone fluctuations of the month-to-month.  You want to scream, or leave, or take down the offender.

But how do you do that when the offender is really... you?  After all, you are the one with the anger issue--the impatient heart.

Now you realize you probably should reserve these rambling confessions to a journal and not the world-wide blogosphere.

Still, all you want... really want, is to be known well and loved well, despite who you really are.  With these words, you will probably only gain further misunderstanding and judgment.  But maybe a few, a select few, will get it.

Because I am not my mom, and I am starting to realize I never will be. I am not gracious and merciful or full of patient love.   When the children turn possessed, I wonder if I'll lose my God filling.  After all, how many times can you, the Poweful 8 personality, really withstand the rebellious defiance.  The blatant "I hate you!"  the repetitive "I won't!"  The ignoring.  Oh, how I hate to be ignored!

 It would be so much easier to let them do whatever they want.  No fighting back, no demands, no expectations.  I want to yell back, "Don't you get it? It's for your own good?"

And God gently whispers, "Why don't you get it?"

My daughter turns haughty on me and argues once again, "Mom, I know better than you do!"  And she really believes it. She's four.

And He asks of me, "Do you feel that way too?"

My two-year-old refuses to apologize after poking his sister in the eye, and goes to his room for the third time since breakfast.

And the Lord prods my heart, "Am I still Lord to you?"

When you want to throw the burnt pan across the kitchen because you were changing a diaper and breaking up a fight, will you stay your hand?  When you want to scream at your kids to control their tempers, will you see the irony and take a breath and seek His strength?  When you realize that control really is His and belongs with Him, will you turn and unclench your fists?  They aren't holding anything anyway.

I am reminded once again, that perspective is everything essential.  I learn, grow, love, and thank because I see.  When my eyes are staring at self-pity, comparison, and anger, I cannot thank the Lord.  And thankful hearts lead us to joy and peace.

Without it I am lost.

So, I look over these words and hope they are somehow turned to a Psalm, my own decrepit version of despair and frustration turned to praise.

My life, my issues, my children, their issues, are His, not mine to predict, worry, or control.  I can't.  He can.  I will lose it all if I try to grasp at it.  I give what I can and let the Lord be who He Is.  And He Is, Was, and Will be, long after my life is over.

In that truth, I have to breathe or I will cease to breathe through this day.

And now, I leave to break up another fight and speak what truth I can into sinful hearts--mine included.