I Know

Why is it always so surprising?  Why do these days sneak up on you and catch you unawares after seven short years filled with long days of motherhood?

Every two or three months I come to sit down, facing the computer screen, reaching out to you - the weary warriors of parenting.  For I know.  I do.  And I feel the need to remind us all that we all have days when the tears come easily, when you call a friend at 9:00 in the morning and say I am already tired of the day, when you shut yourself in your bedroom with children yelling, calling out your name and you think......I warned you, I have my limits too, my dear ones.  And so I come to you once again and tell you that I know.

I know what it's like to walk against the weight of a mighty, mighty child who's only wish for the day is to do the exact opposite of everything you are asking her to do that day.

 I know what it's like to hear the whines and screams and demands of what surely must be the most spoiled, privileged child in the world - DO THEY NOT KNOW HOW OTHER CHILDREN LIVE (well, of course not, because really do I WANT them to know the devastations of this world at the tender age of 5.......a bit of it but not all)!?!

 I know what it's like to have a child who is done, who is sensitive and hurt easily and has moments of crying easily and those moments can last the rest of the day due to weariness, due to this world just being too much and too filled, due to everything feeling like it's spiraling out of control.

So I know.

And I know that I, too, am that child.  I know the list that I have for today and everything in me is crying out NO, NO, NO.  Even the simplest things I just don't want to do.  I have activities to plan for Sunday, e-mails to send, laundry that needs to be folded, closets to organize, food to be cooked and I just don't want to, no good reason, really.

I know that I am SO spoiled and privileged.  I have a home.  I have a wonderful husband.  I have three healthy children.  If that was ALL I had then I would be SO BLESSED.  But I have MORE.  I have an abundance of family in the area.  We have no debt but our house.  We have amazing friends.  We have a church body that embraces and loves us.  We have freedom in every important way.  We have SO MUCH.  DO I NOT KNOW HOW LUCKY I AM?

And I know, oh my, what it feels like my own tiny world is spiraling out of control, when my feelings won't stay in the places I want them to - when my happy, calming thoughts quickly slide out of range and my overwrought ones replace them quickly and without warning.  I know what it feels like to have the very presence of people seem to be too much and I don't know why, all I know is that I must have a few minutes to breathe.

Oh, my dears, I know.  And when I say, my dears - I mean you and I mean my children.  We expect so much from our little ones, at times.  We expect them to be better than we are - to show the world what good parents we are, what good children they are.........all the while behind closed doors we are all just human, relying on the grace that God extends to us as His children, desperately hoping that others have known the same grace so that they may extend it to us at those times when our private persona leaks out into the public eye.

And so this is my space, the place where I pull back the curtain, the place where our private selves become a bit more public so that you can know, too.  You can know that grace is for everyone.  That grace comes from a perfect place but is not reserved for only the perfect, rather it is given freely to ALL who come and say I know.  I know the hard days.  I know the good days.  I know that I need more than I have, more than I can do, more than I can muster myself.

I love you all.

Please call or write or come over if you know, too.

Thank you for being on the other side of this screen, on the receiving end of my words.  It helps.  I love hearing your stories, your hearts.

So on this dreary, weary Friday................what is it that YOU know?