Where does my help come from?

After my last post, life has continued.  That's right, the same old grind. The same struggles for balance.  But, while my life has continued to be crazy busy, I've continued to be crazy stressed, and I've continued to not always be my best self, something even more crazy has happened.  God has continued to pursue me.  That's right! The maker of the universe and creator of heaven and earth has continued to pursue the messy, imperfect human that I am.  Seriously.  How can that not fill me with hope?  And thank goodness it does, because when I stop thinking about it, I want to cry.  But every time I think again about how God has been there in all of my recent struggles, the weight of all I've been carrying is lifted and I feel both the love and hope I've been longing for.

Yesterday was a rough day.  Billy and I have been bickering about a lot of little stuff, because life is busy and we don't have everything figured out. Today work was so busy I barely had time to take a bio break during the day, much less have time to think and sort through challenges.  The kids have been a bit out of sorts because they didn't get enough sleep while we were on vacation with friends the past few days.  After getting the kids to bed, I still have so much to do.  After all of the running yesterday, I just needed to sit and do something mindless for 10 minutes before jumping to the next item on my to do list after the kids were asleep.  Immediately, I started checking and responding to texts, emails, etc. and realized that was not at all relaxing.  It just caused more stress. So, I flipped to Facebook and started mindlessly scrolling through my newsfeed.

I came to a long post with lots of words and no pictures, which I typically don't read (sorry friends that write long posts).  For some reason though, I started reading this one.  Halfway through, I realized that a friend of ours twas writing about my husband.  She was writing about the fact that she saw him at the store with our 2 year old, making a menu, doing all of the week's shopping and buying me flowers.  It was humbling...so humbling it made me cry.  This is the same man I've been bickering with about silly stuff and, frankly, being pretty mean to for the past day.  Why?  I don't really know...he's been kind of crabby, so I've been crabby back.

That post made me realize how much I'd been taking for granted all of the amazing things about my husband.  Like the fact that we really are equal partners in the running of our household.  We both have our strengths when it comes to that (mine is definitely not putting hockey pads on the kids), but we both work, so we both share the responsibilities of keeping our family on track. I may not always like his jokes or his obsession with really fast boats, but he's a pretty great husband and father.

So, I tried to refocus my energy on praising God for his pursuit of my heart.  Then, this morning, as I was driving to work, I heard a song I'd never heard before.  It is called Known by Tauren Wells.  It captured my heart in that moment so accurately it too made me cry. God has continued to pursue me in spite of myself.  Now, I can't help but raise my eyes to the hills to remember that my hope comes from the Lord alone.  That is helping me look past the stuff stressing me out to the one thing that truly matters.

"It's so like You to keep pursuing. It's so like me to go astray. But You guard my heart with Your truth."  From Known by Tauren Wells

I Lift My Eyes

This post has been formulating in my brain for a while, but I am finally taking the time to sit down and write it. 

Three weeks ago, we packed up and headed to Lake O for the weekend.  We do this a lot, so I’ve got the routine down.  The kids even know what to pack (even though they always need to be reminded about pajamas and underwear). This time, however, the kids were packing for a whole week.  So, when we came home on Sunday, the kids stayed at the lake with their Nana and Papa.  This is a tradition that started 3 years ago, so I wasn’t fully prepared for the week ahead like I thought I was.

Monday and Tuesday, we worked.  Then Tuesday night, we went out with friends because Wednesday was the 4^th of July.  It was so nice to be able to be spontaneous and stay out late without having to worry about what time we told the babysitter we’d be home.  Wednesday morning, we slept in.  Another rarity in our life with kids.  We then got up and went to Greenville to hang out with my family.  That day was tough. The business was gone and the reality of my children being 4 hours away hit me.  I wasn't with my kids to celebrate a holiday that, since Audrey was born over 9 years ago, I’ve always celebrated with them.  Thursday and Friday were back to the grind until we made it to the lake late on Friday and were reunited with the kiddos. 

The next week, Billy was in California and Audrey was at her first overnight camp.  It was just the boys and I.  We actually had a good week, despite me playing single momma and not having my mini-momma around to help out.  But, I frequently found myself that week torn between home and work.  I was making sure I was doing what I needed to for my family while my husband was gone, but in doing that I was having to keep strict hours for work and had no flexibility to go in early or stay late. 

All of this has had me really battling with the working mom guilt.  In the past I’ve called it just “mom-guilt,” but I’ve come to realize this is a specific flavor.  At church a few weeks ago, someone likened it to different flavors of gum, which is totally accurate.  As moms, we all feel guilty about something that we are or are not doing and think we should be.  But, depending on our circumstances, ages of our children, etc., that guilt is about different things and manifests in different ways.  For example, one stay-at-home mom I know mentioned that her guilt is about how she spends money; more specifically, since she isn’t bringing in income, she feels bad spending money on things for herself.  For a mom that is a teacher, she feels guilty about the fact that she isn’t as patient with her own children as she is with the other children she teaches, because she's just tired when she gets home.  For me, the guilt is about the fact that there are only so many waking hours in the day, and I don’t feel like I spend enough of them on my job or my family. 

I could let this guilt paralyze me from doing anything, and if I am honest, I started to trend in that direction. I was getting so stressed out that I wasn’t actually making good use of my time either at home or at work.  But then God reminded me through some awesome friends that I am not in this alone, and that I need not rely on my own strength and abilities to balance it all.   Only He is all things. I am human; He is God.   So, I need to stop trying to be all things, have faith that God is in control, and just be the best me I can.  While it’s hard to keep that perspective, there’s always help in His word. Specifically, Psalm 121 has been my anchor verse as I continue my search for balance in my life.

1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

Praise God that I don't have to do this alone.  Praise him for helping me.  Praise him for keeping me from harm. Praise him for watching over me "both now and forevermore."