One year husband bought me an android phone.
A few months later iPhone came out and he just HAD to get us a matching pair.
A year after that he realized he likes to mod his phones a little more than apple allows so he went back to Android and hasn't looked back... except to try to persuade me to join the dark side.
At one point I DID get an Android for a month but I just couldn't stand all the changes in the details: it wasn't the interface, but the menu buttons. Nor was it the way I wrote texts but the difference in the bubbles on the screen. It was the details.
Details... they get to me.
It's the little things.
The last 6 months or so our house has been on the market. My husband wants to move us north- further away from family and to a place I have only two acquaintances (but no real friends yet). Aside from encouraging him to look at houses closer to my family every once in awhile, I've been fine with it because I truly feel peace (not conjured, but perhaps bestowed?) in the matter and in trusting his leading.
When our house sold after one showing, two weeks after the fact, and we were given limited time to move I again was fine.
When we had to make decisions about buying a house and it came down to my house and his house I sided with him because in the end we're following his leading and I truly think God blesses a man who leads his family (I know it sounds puritan but in unsure matters you have to go with the Small Voice and as a husband he has something I was not entrusted with: the leadership of our family).
Then started the packing, making plans, those plans changing, making plans all over again... and I've been pretty fine.
BUT NOW... the details of life (motherhood more specifically)... they're breaking me. The little moments of impossible that seem to suck all the hours of surety faster than a tornado picks up sticks. And if you run with that analogy by the time I run around picking up all the sticks that were thrown for miles in every direction another tornado moment of crazy hits and there they go again.
It goes like this: wake up to a quiet morning (the benefits of a night owl family is that I can usually get at least 20 minutes in the am before they wake up if I sacrifice enough sleep), start into the feeding, cleaning, schooling, mothering, packing, shopping, and errand running routine, making sure the kids have time outside, have at least 20 minutes of cuddling with mommy, books read to them, at least one tickle attack a day, and time to process all the change while keeping everything (like laundry, dishes, meals and clutter) contained. Everything is going fine and life is wonderful.
SUDDENLY- a moment in the middle will damage all my calm: Margo will try to push the cart at the store, fail, try again, fail, try again, be told it's mommy's turn, try again, be told it's time to stop, try again, give up because she found a bottle of open pop with a straw in it on the shelf and she wants to try it, get a strong lecture about NOT drinking anything open we find on the shelves, go back to try it once more before mommy catches her...
And all of those moments were just MOMENTS in the shopping trip. Not minutes, but seconds. Only a culmination of a minute or two at most put together, but by the time I got home from the half hour trip to Target I was emotionally exhausted.
One half hour.
One trip.
One whole day thrown off kilter...
It's discouraging because I love that little hand placed in mine, that little mind creating stories from scratch, the little voice that says "I love you mommy!", those twinkling eyes (Margo indeed knows how to twinkle her eyes; they just smile and light up in the center), and how she seriously looks at the world saying the most ridiculously honest things. She makes me laugh, she makes me cry, she moves me... and some days I CAN'T STAND HER!
Today as I sat on the kitchen floor bawling my eyes out I thought of my own mother crying in the kitchen when we had driven her to despair and I wondered, why in the world did I do that to her?!
Because I was selfish. Why would I be anything else? She was(is) a most loving, caring, devoted mother who committed her youth and sanity to raising us... I had been raised to think I was the most important thing to her aside from God and my dad, obviously I was to be served! It wasn't obvious, though, because if I had stopped to think about it that way I would have thought to do better than make my mother cry out of pure frustration.
Also, I wanted to be my own person. From the very beginning, I think, we're fighting to be alone and stand apart. Very few personalities just want to snuggle down and conform so as to never be out of fellowship... perhaps there are a few Beth Marchs'(es? 's?) out there... but for the most part we start kicking and punching from inside the womb and all of our mothers struggled to understand a person not themselves. NOT themselves.
For me, I hated being told I was JUST like my mother. She is a good woman, we have a lot in common, but I'm also very very different.
I know Margo has also been taught selfishness, and it is naturally occurring (some things you don't have to teach), but I have to wonder if some of these most trying moments aren't also her attempt to become herself?
How do I teach her? How do I guide her? How do I let her take her own steps?
I pray often God directs her path towards Him but I know He lets her take the steps... as a mother how could I want more control than God?! Silly.
But then, I also have to think, His children were very disobedient... and continue to be even to the point of death...
In the end I conclude, these are seasons. I as the adult am crafting the next generation. I guide, but she makes the decisions. Sometimes it will be hard. Sometimes it will be lovely. I have to learn to breathe through the tornado and let the sticks go where they may.
Let the details go and look to the One who holds the big picture for peace in the tornado.
Pray about the big picture and don't get fixated on the details.
Just... pray more.
Cheers.
((10 points for every movie, book or song reference you can find in this post... I intentionally did 5 but I thought I had done more haha))
No comments:
Post a Comment