May 10, 2013

• {remind me}

  
  
  
  sitting here in the living room enjoying a little quiet as reese naps.
  windows are open, curtains blowing up in the breeze.
  love when they do that and i grabbed my camera to take some pictures.
  there’s just something so magical about the wind~

  i’m sipping on a coffee that’s loaded with vanilla creamer..
  which is about the only way i drink coffee, all nice and khaki colored.
  i’m sure all the real coffee drinkers out there are just shaking their head at me! sorry guys.
  
  this week has seemed to equal two. i think i’ve thought it was friday since tuesday.

  tuesday night at youth i kept asking people how their week had been, as if it was already over.
  they’d look at me a little confused and i didn’t even catch on till someone said, “well, it’s barely just started…”

  oh.
  really?

  i’ve had this nasty flu/ cold thing that’s been going around, so that might explain thee {extra} fogginess. 
  and i just saw i wrote thee instead of the, so apparently it makes ye talk with an irish accent too!
  
  i hate colds. anytime really, but especially when the weather is warm. it feels like such a rip off.
  i don’t want to be inside blowing my nose. i want to be out. or atleast up and about and doing what i need to. ..
  with yes, the curtains blowing up wildly in the breeze through the window!
   
  but no matter how i pushed myself this week everything seemed to move in slow motion.
  and by everything, i mean e v e r y t h i n g !

  i was positive at one point i really had been cleaning the little size two fingerprints off the patio doors for atleast six hours..
  only to realize it’s just the same thing i do every day.
  same spot.
  same routine.
  same little hands.
  
  
  

  i found myself kinda chuckling at one point.. thinking of how everyone tells mom’s with little ones that someday they’ll miss these days of messes to clean up. sitting in a house with everything clean and pristine and not a thing to do {sounds rather inviting, eh?} but i thought at this rate.. by the time i get to that someday of missing these days i won’t be able to see out a window at all! i’ll be too old and probably half blind so it won’t matter in the least if they’re clean or dirty!!

  but for right now, when you’re still so much in the middle of it all that someday can seem like forever away, can’t it?

  i look at my older two and you’d think i should know. i mean, i do.
  in those moments of quiet reflection all by myself i realize it.

  then all four descend on me and so many needs and things to do and places to be and i feel pulled in a thousand directions and yeah, i forget what i was just remembering maybe seconds before.

  selfishness is funny that way-
  it never really reveals itself until something’s knocking into the territory of what we want or expect.
  i can be the most selfless, serving mom in the world when i’m all alone- haha!
  but add the kids and a little everyday tiredness and craziness and it shows in a hurry what’s in my heart.
  and i can tell you right now – it’s not always pretty!
  
  it doesn’t matter what i think i am it’s how i react when life gets stressful that reveals what i really am!
  
  
  

  
  

  last night was one of those nights when i felt the ugly creeping out.
  it was all going along fine.. and then, bam!

  suddenly everyone’s texting and asking and running in and out and the door is slamming and kate needed picked up from soccer like 20 minutes ago because her dad, that had planned to get her ended up working later than he thought. and ben is begging me to take him to the skatepark with his friends because heaven forbid they’d just skateboard down the road like normal people. no. you see on the street there isn’t any stairs to gap or rails to shred. {aren’t you impressed with my skater talk?} and sweet emma just wanted to go to the book fair at her school that of course, was right during when kate needed picked up and ben wanted dropped off. and reese was in the fridge eating every slice of american cheese. through the wrapper!! and the left side of my upper cheek beneath my eye felt ready to explode right out my face and i really just wanted to go to my room and sleep, for like a week! actually.. i really wanted to board a jet plane to someplace tropical and remote… where i was untraceable. untextable. uncallable. unwhinable. unmomable. )

  and even more so when i finally dropped ben off later and he said i had to come sign some papers.

  “um.. you didn’t say anything about me having to get out of the van, bud!”

  “but they won’t let me skate if you don’t.”

  “do you see what i’m wearing? this isn’t public safety approved!”

  and he just stared at me blankly cause he’s a guy and of course, doesn’t get it.

  “please, mom.”

  i stared back. then, sniffed my runny nose hard, that at this point i so desperately needed to blow {but not a napkin to be found in the entire van}. i shook my head and let out a long sigh. turning the van off and climbing out, tugging at my clothes as i did…

  i was wearing leggings with a shirt that didn’t quite cover my bum.
  and yes! i know, i know {liz!!!} that leggings are not pants!
  i hate it too when girls wear them like they are.
  but i hate even more when almost 40 something year old’s that don’t have rear ends that look anything like that of the younger girls wearing them wear them!

  i tried the best i could to keep my back to the wall.
  i’m pretty sure the people there are still puzzled at the strange mom that creeping along the wall like some burglar as she came in and out.
  oh my word!

  back in the van i lowered my mirror and looked at my cheese faced two year old.

  “you kids have no idea all i do for you.”

  to which she only responded, “we det ice tream now?” 

  
  

  finally. when everyone was back home and safely deposited in their beds and i’d had a chance to blow my nose and change my leggings and was once again the selfless mom, all alone! i thought back over my attitude to my kids that night… this whole, “you’ve no idea all i do for you.” and i realized how when i hold on to that perspective it just causes me to plummet instantly and feel only frustration and disappointment in my kids because they’re not giving back something i’m expecting. which, when i don’t let it go can so quickly lead to resentment. even bitterness.  not that i would say i’m “expecting” anything. but that’s the thing. i don’t have to SAY it. my responses are dead giveaways to where my motives are coming from – a heart that is being tender and teachable or a heart that is anchored in self pity and pride over all i’ve given up and do for my kids, even my husband {because i can have the same attitudes towards him}.

  and when i have these times of processing, it’s easy for me to get the part that selfishness and genuine love cannot live together in the same heart. one always suffocates out the other~ all i have to do is look no further than my own life for plenty of examples of that! but, sometimes i still try to combine the two. thinking i can love through my selfishness and own efforts, which becomes alot like trying to squeeze into last summer’s shorts after the winter’s extra pounds.. there’s no way except by force. and who wants a forced, phony love?

  “Remember, it is not your weakness that will get in the way of God’s working through you, but your delusions of strength. His strength is made perfect in our weakness! Point to His strength by being willing to admit your weakness.” paul tripp

  delusions of strength. how that part jumped out at me!

  
  
  
  
  
  so my conclusion is always, ” then how, Lord?” how do i mother these kids with Your strength?  with a love that is for them and not me. not rooted in selfishness. how do i have a sincere servant’s heart.. how do i get to that place? because it’s certainly not just naturally there!

  and i’m not really sure the answer exactly. like 30 days to becoming a better mother kind of formula.
  i wish it only took 30 days.
  but it takes a lifetime. and i think that’s supposed to be the point –
  always learning. growing. realizing our need for something beyond ourselves. for Someone!
  and i’m grateful He never gives up on me and continues to show me every day what i lack and ways to do better.

  and then, this…
  just a prayer that i pray often. simply, “God remind me.”

  when the chocolate milk spills and is running all over the table like a fountain onto the floor – remind me.
  when toddlers have climbed in the fridge and are eating through cheese wrappers- remind me.
  when teens have attitudes and i feel anything but a soft answer wanting to come out – remind me.
  when i clean the fingerprints off the window for the one thousand eleventh time – remind me.
  when i’m tired and sick and want to leave on a jet plane…
  when everyone needs to be somewhere and all i’m supposed to be, i can’t….
   
  in all these moments. and the hundred in between. remind me.

  that it’s not about getting something. but showing something.
  not in what i say but what i live.
  a gospel that’s found in more than just pages of their Bibles.
  a grace that never runs out. a mercy that flows down like that chocolate milk across the table – everywhere!
  and a Savior that sees this tired mama that might not always get it right, but redeems the parts she doesn’t.

  He doesn’t just cover part of us. He covers it all!

  
  

  amber.

  • 2:08 pm
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