Just Not Today....

 I am in a negative mood this morning. I got on my blog site to get those feelings out (and I don't like to use my blog as a vent area) in  hope that it will therapeutically  bring me to see even this feeling of heaviness in the light of his glory and grace.  The thing is I feel bad, guilty even, for feeling like this. But then I feel  like I am entitled to my pity party some time. I don't have the energy to put on a smile, and say Kind words and be cheery.
I know, I know- or maybe I don't know.
I could barely pray with the children this morning because I grew frustrated too quickly. Oh Father help me, as my fruit of temperance, and long-suffering are definitely  in need of cultivation.
I had a headache that grew with my impatience. I grew hot and irritated- maybe it's the hormones- but i had to turn off the fan in order for us to hear one another well during our devotions.
I just wanted to get it over with.
 I don't want to be strong today.

my strength is made perfect in your weakness


But God that seems like an excuse for me to not try. I mean I want to do nothing that demands my attention, responsibility, my delegation; I want to kneel on the floor by my bed and hope for an audible voice from heaven to direct my every step today. I just want you to say, hear do this, it's laid all out for you-- like the step by step directions in the "adult assembly required" furniture box.

*sigh

<------ That's a pressure builder. Who came up with that quote? I know my feelings of heaviness are related to my inability to control my children's happiness and contentment. I can't keep them from crying, from fussing at one another, from having disagreements, from taking pleasure in less-than-godly things ( like right now one is laughing and pointing and sharing a pic of an immodestly dressed cartoon  female heroine). I can't control their resistance to cleaning up the messes they make, or their need for me to constantly keep them focused on a task at hand that can barely reach completion unless  I am breathing down their necks ( making me want to just do it myself).

I can't control that they just don't seem to understand my passion when it comes to their salvation and protecting them from the obvious and subtle evils of this world,  especially those oozing from this tube of hypnosis called the television.

I can't control it. And trying is tiring.
I'm tired today.
I'm too tired, and I wish I didn't care so much.

As much as I try to just say "forget it" or "do what you want", I can't keep my mind from thinking on them. I can't keep my mind from being concerned with their care, and their growth and their needs. I can't help redirecting their emotional reaction to ones that are more Christ-like, having had  personal experience with those reactions and their consequences.

I've  been around and have seen the result of irresponsible, un-caring, selfish parenting.

But today I'm tired- mentally
 It's overwhelming- this responsibility of other human beings with varying personalities, and preferences, and dispositions, and maturity levels.

And then how can I demand of them, what I am still working toward?

*sigh

my grace is sufficient- for you and for them
my strength is made perfect in your weakness


Maybe in my weakness there is a a testimony to grace. In my short comings, they see that mommy is imperfect, but striving, no, pressing, to perfection by God's grace.
I pray that the times I am short-tempered, God's grace fills in the cracks. I pray that when I am in a less-than-sociable mood, that God's sufficient grace provides them comfort.
I pray in those times, that I too find grace, and the strength to carry on , after I have found rest for my soul.

"When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I"- Psalm 61:2