I have this bit of a struggle when it comes to my blog. Some people call it“keeping it real”. I’m never quite sure how to do that without it becoming my personal complaint center. Plus, I’ve never been one to “air my dirty laundry”. And quite honestly, the thought not far from my mind is “if you having nothing nice to say, just don’t say anything at all”. And there is my struggle. My blog seems happier than my real life……WAY happier……sorta like a person who’s always so happy that they seem fake……yeah that would be my blog! A big fat FAKE!! Well, not really fake because happy moments really do happen, I don’t manufacture them, but they don’t happen every minute of the day and some days I feel like I’m searching for a minute, a second of that happy smiling bloggy moment.
Life stinks right now…….it’s not at all what I had envisioned. And to be honest (since honestly is what I’m aiming for right now) I don’t like it……not one.single.bit. I want to go back….back to when life was hard, but happy. Back when dirty diapers abounded, but dirty looks did not. Back when my babies cooed and smiled instead of smirk and glare.
But in all this “mess”, I’ve been reminded over and over of God’s faithfulness AND that this job of parenting MY children is what He has called me to do. My current “mommy-life verse” is from I Corinthians 16:13-14: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
Tough love is that…….TOUGH. It takes a lot of strength to love our kids in the way they need, especially when their needs are great. Being watchful means I have to be present (both in body and brain). I have to be engaged with my kids. And remember that my faith is NOT in my own ability as a parent, but in the ability of my heavenly Father……who is the perfect parent. But the hardest part of this verse is “act like men”. I don’t want to be the grownup!!!!!! I would rather pout and have a big ol pity-party about poor ol me who’s life stinks!!! I never envisioned that parenting would be this hard, this painful. I had the “cute little house with a white picket fence” dream.
Many times in the past 3 or 4months I have felt 2 Corinthians 1:9 “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.” And for me, it was the dying all the more of that dream…..the dream of the perfect little family. But really the dream God has for our family is the second part of verse 9 and verse 10: “But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.” God will deliver. He is mighty to save. My dream shouldn’t be for that perfect little family. My dream is for redemption! My dream is to see each of my children walk through the “valley of the shadow of death” and to “fear no evil” because God is their deliverer.
Does that mean that the hard goes away…..nope. It’s still there. But it does mean, I am not alone! And my heart cry is from Betsie ten Boom “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still” and from Psalm 40:1-3:
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
House of Smooches 