This morning started out like many of my mornings do. My alarm went off at 6:10. I hit snooze. My alarm went off at 6:20, and I drug myself out of bed. I went into the kitchen and started making wheat toast with Nutella for my kids. This was my secret weapon to get them to rise from their beds whilst it was still dark outside - Nutella for breakfast. So basically dessert for breakfast (with whole wheat bread to make me feel a little better about myself). Then I went to wake the 3 school kids, and my secret weapon worked. One child drilled me about whether or not the bread had "seeds" in it, and I assured him it did not. So they ate. And then they started fighting. First thing in the morning. Before I can even see straight I am in tears because my beloved offspring cannot seem to get along - ever. I pull myself together and pack three lunches, and toddler arises from her bed. I present her with her dessert for breakfast, and she has a total crazy person come apart because I had the nerve to cut the toast in half. Obviously this is the unforgivable sin of mothering so she throws her plate on the floor in a blind rage. Nutella lands face down on kitchen floor. So she got to clean it up and no longer got any dessert for breakfast. Oh, did I mention that yesterday I picked up a large order of frozen cookie dough from the kids' school fundraiser? So I had to take some stuff out of the freezer in the basement to have room for it. I was rushing to get Ansley to Girl Scouts when I brought it home. I pulled out a Ziploc bag with a frozen duck that was way past useful and a bag of frozen strawberries that were freezer burnt and sat them on the stove next to the fridge. Guess who forgot to go back and throw them away? So when I went downstairs this morning to get something for the kids' lunches I discovered a large puddle of blood and a large puddle of strawberry juice on top of the stove. Plastic bags - You stink. And also, why do the kids get the prizes for the fundraisers instead of the mothers? This is unjust. All of this occurred before 7:00 AM.
I got the kids on the bus at 7:10, and then went on to the next thing - get every single thing in the house picked up. Here's a dirty (or clean) little secret of mine that I used to be ashamed of, but now I realize is just good sense. Every other Wednesday I have a sweet precious soul come over and clean my house. When I say clean I mean all the stuff that I never get around to - dusting, vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing showers, etc. I started having her come when I started my job that requires a lot of my time. At first it made me feel like some kind of Stepford wife who should be able to clean her own house. I hated the thought of people finding out I had a "cleaning lady". I mean, they might think I'm lazy or that I am over privileged or that I don't have it all together (gasp!). But let me tell you what having someone come clean every two weeks does for me. It makes me pick up the entire house every two weeks before she comes (Except for the basement. I never ask her to enter that wasteland of plastic toys and legos). I need that accountability or stuff would just get WAY out of control. Having her come every two weeks keeps me sane, and it keeps DHS from taking my kids away because stuff is growing in my house. I hate cleaning. Hate it. I love working at church. Love it. Because I work I can pay someone to take one thing off of my plate that has 1,345,678,789 on it. Done! One of my best decisions ever! So, anyway, I was trying to get all the last minute things picked up before taking Brinley to school and heading to work. I managed to do that, get myself ready, pack her bag and lunch and get her ready to leave by 8:45. Off we went. Thoughts flooded my head about how not together I am . How I am a mess. How I am failing at parenting. How I feel like a hamster running on a wheel who will never ever EVER catch up with her life. After taking her to school I would still have to go to the elementary school and fix a cookie order mix up, get gas, and put oil in my car that had just alerted me it was low before I could get to work. I dropped Little Bit off with her sweet teachers and headed back to my car. In order to ease the pain of being a massive mess of a human being I decided to treat myself to Starbucks. It is a bad thing when there is a Starbucks literally next door to your child's preschool! Usually when I order Starbucks I get a skinny, decaf, soy latte of some sort. I am the most annoying orderer ever. And lame. How lame does that drink sound? Skinny cause - calories! Decaf cause - heart arrhythmia. Soy cause - gas and eczema. Well, I noticed today that they now have almond milk, which is what I usually drink. So I decided to try that out today. Well, friends - Don't do it. It wasn't good. So I spent $5 on a drink that was kinda gross. But I drank it anyway, cause I couldn't bare the thought of the $5 going to waste. And off I went to the rest of my morning. Good news. This is where the play by play of my morning ends, and I get to the point! Yay!
I was driving down McCrory Lane on my way back to Kingston Springs thinking about ALL THE THINGS when I looked up and realized that I was surrounded by amazing beauty. The trees here in Tennessee right now are absolutely incredible. It is breathtaking when you look around at them. And as I looked at the beauty that God had created something happened. All of the stress and worry, the failures, the not good enough, the running behind - it suddenly didn't matter. And I had this thought run through my head. Those leaves are the most beautiful that they will every be, and they are dying. They are showing color and change and brilliance and God's glory, and they are dying. And how can dying be so beautiful? And I thought about my life. I thought about how Motherhood is a repeated act of dying to oneself over and over and over again. I thought about how Christ calls us to die to ourselves and the Bible repeatedly reminds us that in order to truly live - WE HAVE TO DIE. And this death isn't a one time thing. It is a daily, drag yourself out of bed, live your life fully for Jesus kind of dying. And I thought about the most beautiful people I know. And like the brilliant red and orange and yellow I was witnessing in the trees, the people I know who are constantly dying to themselves are breathtaking and something to behold. They bring joy and light and reminders of God's goodness. And they make the dying look not sad or painful, but lovely and purposeful. And I am reminded that the dying doesn't have to be in my own strength. The same God who created the trees created me. The trees don't stress about the dying. They just do what God created them to do. And when I abide in Him all the dying is really all the living. And when I try to live without the constant dying to myself - my life feels empty. And God will never ask us to do something that He won't give us the strength to do if we abide in Him. There are lots of things that we are not promised in the bible. We are not promised ease of life, we are not promised stress-free days or kids that don't fight. We are not promised health or wealth or certainty. But we are promised this - He will never leave us. He will NEVER leave us. So on the days when we don't feel like we can do it - He is strong enough. Those leaves that are dying, they will soon fall to the ground. The trees will relinquish their beauty and release the leaves to the earth. The letting go is always part of the process. If the trees didn't let go of the leaves in November we would never appreciate the beauty of April. And if we never let go of the things God asks us to relinquish - we will never see the beauty of what He has to offer in the springtime of our life. Letting go, even of what seems like the most beautiful thing we have, is part of the process of God making us new. And if we hold onto those things and refuse to let them fall to His will they will turn brown all over us and the beautiful will become the ugly. And I realized that God said His creation would show us who He was, and He was showing me this morning that just like the trees if I allow His plans to rule my life then every season has a purpose. Everything I relinquish becomes something beautiful in His time. And if I accept His seasons instead of trying to forge my own, like the trees I can provide life and oxygen and beauty. Fall is my favorite time of year. Today I realized that is more true than ever. And today I'm breathing this lesson: Let go and let yourself die. It's the only way to truly live.
No comments:
Post a Comment