What a tough week can teach you

It has been a crummy week. Coming back from Grandma's is almost always like that. We love the Grandmas, but the re-acclimation to life at home is always tough. You add in colds and a perhaps teething baby, and this is one stressed out mama. So here is how today went.

The baby woke up to nurse at 4:30. Curtis' alarm went off at 5. As he tried to creep downstairs, Elijah come out of his room and yells, "Hi Daddy!" The baby wakes up again, I nurse her while listening to Curtis try and fail to convince Elijah to go back to sleep. Curtis leaves earlier than usual for work, and I try to make some progress on cleaning up thehouse while Elijah watches some PBS and Rachel sleeps. I make some progress before Rachel needs to eat again and while I'm sitting here nursing, the carpet guys knock, which is sort of surprising given that they were supposed to call before they came and therefore I am still in my jammies. So I let the carpet guys in to do the measuring, Elijah runs around the room they are trying to measure, totally in the way while Rachel whines because her feeding was interrupted. On and on it went.


Then I got both kids down for afternoon naps and I stood at the sink violently scrubbing away burnt on gunk, telling Jesus about how horrible my life is, how completely unhappy I am, how I can never get anything done that will actually stay done and I hear, "Its not about you."

"But, didn't you hear me, Jesus? Every time I wash a dish another three get dirty, and don't get me started on the laundry. Every time I get the screaming baby quieted down, her brother yells, 'Rachel sweeping!' After which she is screaming rather than sleeping. And no one ever even notices all that I do. And..."

"If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all."

"Yes, I know what that but, it is hard to live that way, Lord."

"I know that so much better than you child."

So then I got to repent, and remember that in the sometimes extremely difficult process of raising children, God is also still raising me. It is still a moment by moment process of learning to lay down my rights and delight in the inside out, upside down world that is Gospel-centered living, but right this moment I am grateful that God is using the little people in my life to remind me that it is a beautiful thing to live in the Gospel.