Spiritually speaking the last several weeks have been rough ones. Some days have been all out struggles with God and other days I have been just wandering around wondering where He was. It hasn't been (and still isn't) easy to post about it here. There is no big tragedy or major stressor that I can point to. There is nothing tangible to explain the way I've been feeling. The hardest part about that is that I didn't know how to fix it. I couldn't fix it. Those of you who I've reached out to in my funk, you are great and you are there for me as always, but you couldn't fix it either. This was a God thing. It was His will that I come to him with it. That was hard because I didn't know what "it" was and I didn't know how to pray for something I couldn't verbalize. I found myself thinking, "How can I ask God to make me feel happy? Look around me. What do I have to be sad about? Look at all of the people actually suffering and enduring. What is wrong with me?"
So I kept going to others asking for I don't even know what. Love, support, prayers. They were there and I felt lifted up. God is good. Even though I take the longest most complicated path, He still meets me where I am with arms open wide.
God has used so many people to reach me and to touch me and gently guide me back so that I didn't need other people to feel His presence. It feels so good to be back. This spiritual journey is a tough one! Seeing people who are so filled with the Spirit and so in tune with God, I often forget that it is a relationship that takes constant work like any other. (I have so many friends who make it look so easy from the outside, but it isn't and I can't forget that!) God is always there doing His part, but I can't get lazy and not live up to my part. It is hard to explain, but once I had felt Him and His presence, I couldn't feel good without Him. He is always there, but my spirit longs to be connected to Him. That connection doesn't just happen. It takes work, time, dedication, obedience, sacrifice...
Nothing worth having comes without these things and there is nothing worth more than a relationship with Christ. I thought about it last night as I was reconnecting with my husband. It isn't easy for us to reconnect at times. He is gone so much and sometimes when he comes home I feel like I collapse into a heap on the floor. Things start hurting and exhaustion comes that I wasn't even aware of until he walks through that door. The hard part is that he is also exhausted. It isn't easy to raise children together when there isn't time to talk about the children other than when the children are present. The older they get, the less time there is to talk without the children present. It is so important that we keep certain conversations from little listening ears. I am sure there is a learning curve on that with the oldest child.
So last night I was sharing my struggles with little white lies each of our children (the ones who can speak in complete sentences) have told this week. The struggles with our son suddenly finding it cute to giggle about something when he is choosing not to listen and deliberately ignoring what I say to possibly soften the fact that he is not doing what he's been asked to do? I have had to say to him, "You cannot laugh about it and it makes it okay. You still have to do what you are told. It is so important that you listen to Mommy and obey...." (So hard when he sounds so sweet giggling. It isn't malicious laughter, but it borders on being disrepectful and I have just felt the need to nip it in the bud.) That along with the constant reprimanding of our whining 3 year old, has made me feel like I am the meanest mommy in the world. At times I look around at children on the playground at school and I think, "Am I just too hard on my kids?" I feel like other kids are getting away with behavior that I am constantly correcting at home and in public. It was a very defeating feeling to look around and feel like no one is on our side. I was just saying this out loud to my husband. Telling him that the responsibility of raising our children that is mostly now on me, has begun to overwhelm me. "What if I'm messing them up?" "What if creating exactly the opposite of what I am trying to do?"
I went so far to say that in my struggle and search for God lately, I have been doubting and questioning every move I make. I told him that I was feeling so spiritually unconnected and so alone in the way I was feeling that I couldn't be a good mom. I need God in the process. We can't raise our children without Him and I don't want to! Literally minutes later, God put it on a friend's heart to send an e-mail with a link to this sermon and my husband started it right up. (It is only available until Sunday. I am so excited to share it! Praise God for His word which comes exactly at the right time!) We sat watching as God spoke to us both. All along God has been leading me as I guide my children. He tells me that because it is hard that it is right. He never said it would be easy. I have felt myself pulled to the secular world at times while raising my children because it is easier. There are so many tempting things out there. So many distractions. There are times when I think about how much easier it would be just to give in. (How many times can I say, "If you whine about it, you are not going to get it. You have to ask nicely. You can't just stamp your feet and get your way!"? Well, enough times that they learn it. Enough times that it sticks. And I am a prime example that it will not "stick" forever. Stamping my feet? Whining? Guilty, even now. But I hear my Father speaking to me and because His words were planted in my heart when I was a child, I turn to Him. My children have that same benefit. They are so blessed that their daddy and mommy were raised as Godly children and that we choose to take the path less followed and raise Godly children ourselves with Him firmly holding our hands all the way.
I know you're there, God. I know You know who I am.
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