Things I hate about being a mom

There are things I hate about being a mom. I know that I am breaking some unwritten code by saying this, but it is true. As a whole, I love being a mom and I love my two wonderful daughters, but as with any job, there are the downsides. These are the downsides of motherhood.

Poop and Pee. I hate cleaning up poop! I hated changing diapers (thank God they are potty trained now!) I hate the mess and the smell. I remember when I was pregnant with Krissy and Korey was only 8 months old. I used to throw up at almost every diaper change. During the potty training phase, I began to hate pee too because I was always cleaning it up off the floor and getting peed on by a little girl who couldn't hold it anymore. But the absolute worst is when they poop in their pants! I get infuriated! I just hate it. I usually have to tell the child to leave the room naked for fear that I will say something to them that I regret.

The repeating. If it's not me having to repeat a command to the girls over and over again, then it is one of them, repeating, over and over and over again, that they want something. "Mom, can I have some more milk? Mom, can I have some more milk? Mom, can I have some more milk?" It makes me want to change my name! They can be so impatient! I am not exaggerating when I say that she could ask for milk 50 times in the amount of time that it takes me to get up, walk to the fridge, pour the milk and be back at the table.

The blatant disobedience. When they know that they can't do something and they know they will get in trouble if they try and yet they do it anyway. What more do I have to say.

"But I want Mommy to do it!" Even when my husband or parents are around, sometimes they just want mommy. If you are not a mom, this seems endearing. Maybe even most moms think this is endearing, but for me, it usually just means another trip to the bathroom. Usually for the 5th or 6th time in the matter of 20 minutes. It was cute at first, when they wanted mommy to read them a story or help them with a puzzle. It's not so cute when it involves one of the above things.

The constant thought, "Am I doing this right?" I hate that I constantly second guess myself and my behavior when it comes to the girls. It isn't who I usually am. I am the type of person that will make a decision and stand behind it come what may, but when it comes to my children, I can't help but wonder and question every step. It's just such an important job, that I don't want to screw it up. In my previous life as a special event planner, before mommyhood, I would say to my coworkers and employees, "As long as a bomb doesn't go off in your venue, you probably had a successful event. We are planning parties, not life or death surgeries." But raising children feels much more like surgery than a party. It feels like life or death with almost every decision I make.

When I pray for my children, I often just thank God that He is ultimately in control of them and not me, and I pray that He will guide me and correct me when I go too far off the course. I pray for wisdom and discernment for myself and that I will truly live Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things."

The other night I asked for forgiveness for hating parts of my job as a mother, but the Lord, in His grace and wisdom, taught me something amazing. I looked at the things I hated in my job as a parent and saw that I have done all these things to Christ, my Father, many times. It is the process of growing up. The girls are simply growing up and all the things they are doing is a part of that process. With learning, comes messes and often disobedience. It's funny because I do not hate or resent my children in the slightest for the things that I don't like about my job, I know that this is what they must do to become strong, productive members of society.

And that is when it hit me. Why do I ever think that God is mad at me for the process of growing up? He knows I am not perfect, He made me that way! He even knows what mistakes I will make and the things that I will do (over and over) that are absolutely futile, yet He loves me, just as I love my girls, and He longs for the day when I will "get it" and not have to struggle anymore.

I guess the take home message is that when Jesus said blessed are the over comers, He knew the process would be long, hard, messy and even annoying at times, but He also knew just how worth it, it would be.

Things to do before I die

Partial list but here it goes:

1. Sing the national anthem at a baseball game
2. Walk through a field of lavender
3. Spend a whole day with Rich on the beach, where we have someone bringing us our drinks, food, sunscreen, etc. Watch the sunset while on the beach and then have a candlelight dinner on the beach that night. Maybe it should be 2 days!
4. Read the bible cover to cover, in order
5. Take a transatlantic cruise
6. See my children accept Christ as Savior (although I have no control over this, but i do pray to see it)
7. Take a train from coast to coast
8. Go to Yellowstone national park and see old faithful
9. Go to Yosemite again and again and again
10. Buy a book that I have written from a regular book store

The Next Step

I hate not knowing what is the next step in something. It makes me feel helpless, and out of control. I guess that is probably the point from God's point of view. He is trying to teach me that I am not in control, He is and as long as I trust Him, then everything will be OK. I just wish I knew when, how and what I need to do to make it happen.

Lord, I know I am stubborn and you have to teach me the same lessons over and over. Please give me comfort in not knowing the next step. Please help me to be content with not knowing how, since I know Who holds my future. You are so much better equipped than me to do it anyway.

There is a song by Switchfoot that has a line, "Let me know that you hear me, let me feel your touch, let me know that love me and let that be enough."

Oh God, I so want to be content where ever I am. Let that be enough.

Heaven

I just finished reading a book call "90 Minutes in Heaven" by Don Piper. This guy died in a car crash and was dead for over 90 minutes. During this time, he actually went to the gates of Heaven and saw them. It was an interesting book. I read it because I wanted to hear what he said heaven was like. I kept reading it because I was fascinated by his thought process and recovery. He says in the book that he went into a deep depression, because after he had seen heaven, he didn't want to come back to earth. He came back to earth to experience a long, hard recovery from an awful car crash. He was in the hospital for a long time and has never had a pain free day since the day of the crash.

The funny thing is, I thought I would find his description of heaven the most fascinating part of the book, but instead I found that his search for purpose amidst indescribable pain AFTER having experienced perfection to be the part I related to and the part that challenged me the most. Do I truly trust God and His purpose for my life? Do I accept that if I am here that I must have a purpose, a mission from God, so to speak? By the end of the book, Don had realized that he was brought back to earth for a purpose and he had accepted that purpose as being more important than his own physical comfort or his desire to return to heaven. He has accepted God's timing in his life for everything. I pray that I am able to accept God's timing in my life. I pray that I can put aside my own comfort, desires and wants in order to fulfill God's purpose.

I was also encouraged by the fact that heaven is really real. I have never doubted that I would go to heaven, or that there was a heaven, but I never really put it into terms of being a real place, with walls and streets and real people that I can hug and talk to. Now, I am even more excited about heaven. I am happy for those who have died before me because I know they are there and not here. The streets of gold aren't just a metaphor, the are real streets of gold. The gate to heaven really is made of a single pearl. When I read Revelation now, I can picture a real place, not just a metaphor or a fairy tale.

I am challenged to live more and more according to God's purpose for me and less and less according to my selfish desires. And I long for heaven. For the singing, the joy, the worship. To see God. For faith to become sight.

Crisis of Faith

I am trying (once again) to read through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy this summer because I will be studying these books in BSF starting in the fall. Today I was reading about Abram. What struck me about him today is that he had some very ordinary, very normal "crisis of faith" trials. What I mean is, he was alot like me and you. He trusted God, he loved God, one could probably say he was fully dedicated to God, but if Abram couldn't figure out how God was going to accomplish a task, he decided to take it into his own hands. When he and Sarai went to Egypt to ride out the famine, he couldn't figure out how God would protect him because of his wife's beauty. So instead of being excited about the fact that God was going to perform a cool miracle, he decided to take matters into his own hands and come up with a ridiculous solution. A solution that caused his wife to have to sleep with another man! God obviously had a different plan. He had promised Abram land and descendants more than he could count so God wasn't going to go and let him get killed by some lustful Egyptians. But instead of standing on God's promise, Abram took matters into his own hands and created a royal mess (Yes, the pun is intended)!

After this crisis, Abram's faith did grow enough to take his household men and defeat an entire army in order to get Lot back. And he gave God all the glory for this, but it wasn't too long before he fell back into the same crisis of faith. He let Sarai talk him into sleeping with Hagar (probably not that hard to do). We try and rationalize Abram's behavior by saying that he was worried because of his age and because Sarai was barren, but Abram's dad live to be 205 and Abram wasn't even 100 yet. And yes, Sarai was barren, but she was barren the day that God promised him a son! Why believe God then and not now?

The thing is, I think it is because Abram was an ordinary person like you and me. He loved God with all his heart and wanted to follow Him, but Abram was human, with all the frailty that comes with that state of being. This, strangely enough, is what gives me encouragement. If God is willing to use a man with some of the very some faults that I have to bring about His chosen people and to change the world, then He can use me. And if Abram can come back from these "crisis of faith" moments and grow in his faith to the point that he is able to obey God even to the point of sacrificing his one and only son, then my faith can grow like that too.

The promise God made to Abram was that He would make Abram famous. I don't want to be famous, but I do want to live an extraordinary life in Christ. I want Him to be able to use me in crazy and amazing ways because I have the faith to be obedient in all things, even when I can't see the outcome. I hope that when I can't see the outcome, that I will get excited, knowing that God is going to do something great and surprising. Lord, make my faith grow surprising proportions so that I can be your vessel to do surprising things.

Never grow tired of doing good.

I am amazed sometimes by what God uses to teach me lessons. I shouldn't be, considering He even used a talking Donkey to teach Baalam in the bible, but nonetheless, I am amazed. On Sunday, in KidVenture, the lesson was to never grow tired of doing good. At the time that I was preparing all the materials, and getting everything ready for Sunday, that message did not even phase me, but as I sat down on Sunday to listen along with the kids, that simple phrase, "Never grow tired of doing good," hit me like a ton of bricks. I often grow tired of all kinds of things: cleaning the house, laundry, weeding my garden, planning lessons, materials and volunteers for church. I realized in that moment when "Admiral Endurance" was talking on the screen, that I had in fact grown tired of doing good. And if God says to never grow tried of doing good, then He must also have prepared an energy source for me. That source is, of course, His word and HIMSELF! His word says for me to renew my mind daily, which I think often means that I need to change my perspective. All too often, I concentrate on how much something costs me in time and effort as opposed to looking at how much that act will bless others. A clean house, clean clothes and well manicured garden may not be all that important in the grand scheme of things, but preparing an environment for kids to learn about Jesus; a place that parents feel comfortable and confident leaving their children, well, that is more important than most things in life.

I also realized that God wasn't telling me I had to do everything. He wants me to do what He has asked of me, and to do it well. And then he wants me to ask for help when I need it. Even Jesus needed help carrying His very own cross to the mount to die on. A cross made of wood from a tree that He created. When I remember just how big God is, and how amazing it is that He would make Himself into a lowly human in order to give me an example to live by and to grant me salvation, I am so humbled and awe struck. How can I complain about the task at hand, considering all He has already given to me?

Never grow tired of doing good.