Growing Pains

I’ve turned in the overwhelming oppressive yucky feeling about needing to do the right thing for a heart broken feeling. A self induced dumping myself out of the boat into cold frigid, rough waters. Whilst trying to gain my bearings…feels like I’ve been doing that for MONTHS now…my head is all over the place. Mostly self-pity places. When I’m in the middle of MONTHS of refinement, it seems like I am such a drone. Such a burden. Such an annoying, could I ever get out of the pits, killjoy. The waves of chaotic thinking and misunderstood perceptions and hurt feelings keep wacking me right and left and front and back. Okay, God. I surrender. I’ve done what you’ve asked me to do. Please help me work it out from here. I recognize here a problem that I have…is that I try to work everything out…myself. (No wonder I’m exhausted!)

Way back before I knew Jesus, I lived an existence of mental turmoil. All. The. Time. Almost 30 years of pretty consistent yuck. Good times. Yeah. It is only by the Grace of God that I made it to here. The GREAT news is that Jesus brought me hope. Even in the middle of the turmoil, I have hope. I always see a light at the end of the tunnel. And I always have someone to ask for help. And I can lean on Him with absolute assurance that He won’t let me down. That He makes all things good. That there is a plan in all of this. I didn’t have that before. How I lived or was able to sustain is hard for me to understand, but yay that I did! I know now that even though I’m VERY TIRED after months of refinement, and I’m really ready to see the light at the end of this tunnel, there WILL BE an end to it!

I am oober consious of what my moods do to affect my daughter and hope and pray that I won’t ruin her and keep her little foundation off balance. I hope the rest of me is consistent enough. Today I think we had a little bonding moment, though, that helped me feel a bit better. I was a bit short with her and she had a two year old tantrum that blew all other tantrums out of the water…worse than I have ever seen. Over sidewalk chalk. So I put her in her bed until she could simmer her little self down. That pretty much sent her through the roof even further. Which in turn sent me through the roof. Self control…not really my strong suit when a mood of mine and a mood of hers collide. Lord have mercy. But when the explosives died down, I took her out of her bed and rocked her for a moment. I asked her to look at me, which she normally will not do when she’s upset. She looked right at me and I said, ‘I’m sorry that I got so upset at you.’ She looked me deep in the eyes and said, ‘ok’. And then we hugged and the world was lovely again. Being the only voice on her planet makes me crazy on a good day. Most of the time I feel I am terribly failing her somehow. Discipline is not easy when there’s no one else to help bear the burden. I always feel like I’m doing it wrong. I know I’m not. I know I’m doing a good job. I am a good mommy. Discipline is a necessary evil. I’m sure harder on the parents than it is on the kids.

It’s 11pm at night at my mind won’t quit. I recently read this really good book called ‘Lord, I Want to be Whole’ by Stormie Omartian. If you were raised in a home with emotional turmoil, and you still struggle with feeling emotionally off balance, I highly recommend it. VERY good book. Really empowering. Admittedly a bit of an overwhelming realization, though, that those raised with a broken foundation have a whole lot more cracks to navigate with the enemies shenanigans. I really get tired of fighting. I just want God to come down with His giant foot and squash the enemy out of my existence (for me its squashing the negative self-talk and bludgeoning). He can and will do that if I ask Him. I just have to know that I have the power of Him, within me. Strattling the fence between the old way of knowing (long process to let go of -dying to thyself) and the new way of understanding is not always easy to remember, especially under duress. Some days I just want to be rescued. Please God, I can’t think anymore. I don’t have the will or energy to even dip my feet or hand into the water. Could you do it for me? But as we cannot and should not do everything for our children, we want to empower them to be strong individuals, sometimes we have to ask them to do things on their own. I can’t carry my daughter everywhere, no matter how much she wants me to. Being carried through life only enables complacency and condones self-pity. Responsibility is not always an easy thing to exercise. But it is mandatory.