Archive for category: Grace For Moms

I feel like a fraud, and I hate admitting that – out loud, and online.  A fraud – sounds sooo awful, but I really do feel like a fraud – and a fraud not only in mommy hood, but with my friends, and at church, and with my spouse and with my family.   I’ve really been struggling this summer with a lot of my inner emotions – not sure what’s up with the summer, but I’ve spent a lot of time deep thinking (don’t laugh, a lot of people will assume all I do giggle and smile and that I couldn’t possibly ever have a bad day, or think a deep thought…WRONG….it’s those people that I guess I can say I have faked out the most).

While at church this past weekend our awesome pastor was talking about hope.  It struck me that hope it exactly what I’m missing right now.  Big time.  In my limited world view, at this time in my life, I feel like hope is a total pipe dream – and would describe my heart at feeling completely hopeless – but part of the problem is that I’m not even sure why.  Call it mid-life crisis, or boredom, or being 35, I’m not sure, but hope is totally not there.

My pastor described hope this way: hope is a confident expectation – not just wishful thinking.  Have you ever actually thought about this though?  There are some things in life right now that I’m wishfully hoping will get better, like, I wish I could lose another 15lbs, and I wish I could go on a vacation, and I wish my business would grow faster.  Deep down though, those things really resonate with me as well and when they don’t come true, somewhere in the back of my brain I chalk them up as failures.  Then there is a whole other side of hope that runs so much deeper – all the way back to my childhood.  I grew up with parents that were amazing and they told me constantly just how amazing I was.  I grew up hearing on a very frequent basis that I was “special” and that God had very “special” plans for my life someday.  Now I feel like I’m still waiting for that something “special” to happen, and every day that goes by and I’ve not accomplished that something “special” I feel like my hope dwindles and my failure rate increases.  Quite honestly, it’s a terrible place to be living.

Have you ever watched yourself from the other side of the room?  I feel like I do this all the time…like I’m watching myself have an experience that I’m not really part of.  Almost like I’m on autopilot and my body is off doing something that I’ve not told it to do…I’m going through all the motions of my daily life as a mom and there are moments during the day when I stop myself and I wonder, why am I doing that?  I heard a great quote, “Try less and give more to God.”  How hard is that to really do though?  It’s like I feel so many things in life are no-brainers, total common sense, but why are they so hard to actually do?  Partly because I’m a total control freak.  I’m living that right now, and again it’s one more thing that I tend to chalk up to my failures.

I feel like I’m buried in just being.  I have no idea anymore what to even hope for.  But, for a bunch of you out there, I know you are going to say, “But, Katrina, aren’t you a believer in Christ? He should be your hope.”  You are right.  I’m absolutely a Christ believer, but the reality of how I feel right now is that I’m lost and feeling totally hopeless.

Do any of you listen to Thousand Foot Krutch?  Seriously one of my favorite bands and I love the message of one specific song called, “Lift It.”  I was driving to Target yesterday and this song was on – the lyric says:

In my temptation to walk away
And through the endless troubled days
There’s a hundred million ways
For me to release Your praise
And by and by, through the tears
And things You’ve taught me through the years
My whole life was designed by You
I’ll never know anyone half as true

The line that really resonated with me was “My whole life was designed by You” – even this un-special life that I feel like I’m living right now.  He’s designed this turmoil that I feel by just being me, He’s designed my days where I’m a referee and taxi driver all day long, He’s designed my body and how it looks and knows how incredibly frustrated it is when parts stay one size and don’t function like they should, and He’s designed my business and only He knows when it will succeed.  You know what?  I’m so glad that I’m not God and I don’t have to know the outcome or the lessons that lie in store for me.  Goodness can you imagine the stress of that job?

The key to hope is perspective.  I was so relieved to know that hope is not something that I can create for myself – it’s all from Christ.  Just take a moment to read Psalm 62:6-8.

“God, the one and only— I’ll wait as long as he says. Everything I need comes from him, so why not? He’s solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, An impregnable castle: I’m set for life.  How long will you gang up on me? How long will you run with the bullies? There’s nothing to you, any of you— rotten floorboards, worm-eaten rafters, Anthills plotting to bring down mountains, far gone in make-believe. You talk a good line, but every “blessing” breathes a curse.  God, the one and only— I’ll wait as long as he says. Everything I hope for comes from him, so why not? He’s solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, An impregnable castle: I’m set for life.  My help and glory are in God —granite-strength and safe-harbor-God— So trust him absolutely, people; lay your lives on the line for him. God is a safe place to be.” – The Message

Christ is where you will find your hope, He’s a safe place to be and for me that is all I need to hear.  If I’m in Christ, then I’m exactly where I need to be and hope will be found, even if it takes me a hard to find it. If your hope lost, ask Him for it, especially if you can’t see it on your own.

Photo credit to : Pol Sifter

It was one of “those” days. Seriously, it was bad.  I absolutely failed at just about every single thing that makes me a “mom” today. Here’s how it all began…It all started over the weekend…the kids were still trying to bounce back from their 4th round of illnesses since Christmas and the onstant coughing is all you hear in our house – ALL NIGHT LONG…it’s never-ending and I’m serious, it goes on all night long.  But, I digress…

Somehow, I’ve managed to stay semi-healthy since Christmas and have only gotten really sick with the stomach flu for a week, along with my youngest (and that was not fun).   We have had pink eye, conjunctivitis, stomach flu, coughs, colds, for months now and it very slowly makes the rounds causing the “ick”to  stretch on for weeks….by this past weekend I had absolutely had E-N-O-U-G-H of it.  I needed a mommy break from everything – the house, the cold weather, the coughs and especially from the kids.

The weekend just didn’t go like we had planned, kids were still coughing and I started to notice on Sunday night that my throat was starting to ache a bit, but it was Day Light Savings and therefore we had lost an extra hour or sleep…I kept hoping I wasn’t getting sick, but by Monday, I was really dragging.  By the time I woke up that morning, I had a very serious sinus headache… the cold was coming on…and I was so tired.

Besides feeling crummy, Monday morning started out ok…hubby and I got up early, did our T25 workout workout, made my coffee, did my daily Bible Study and had breakfast hot and ready for all the kids when they got up at 7am. But, the headache persisted.  I got kids to school without incident – phew!

My youngest and I then headed to a friend’s house for a playdate and really enjoyed our time. The day really started to take a turn for the worse after lunch.  I was really starting to feel crummy and knew I needed to take a little nap when the other two were napping.  Napping is such a relative term in my house these days.  My 5 year old daughter always asks to watch a movie instead of taking a nap and my 3 year old usually sits in his room opening and closing the door over and over so you can hear the squeak it makes.   All of this is fine and dandy when I’m not trying to take a little nap myself, but that squeak sure makes it hard to actually fall asleep. Today, I somehow managed to close my eyes for probably a whole 20mins, but did my kids sleep?  Nope.   Did that mean my afternoon felt like an eternity?  Yep.

Since sleeping didn’t happen I got them both up and they played.  That was nice actuall,y and I headed to my office to get in a hour or so of work before having to go pick up my son from school.  I was pretty proud of how much work I accomplished in an hour and then we all made a mad dash, and I literally mean dash, to get my older son.  My youngest likes to push his little yellow shopping cart in a full sprint the half mile to school!  It’s a sight to see – me and my daughter chasing him all the way down the road yelling the whole way to slow down, but his cart wheels are sooo loud, he can’t even hear us. Why I put myself through that torture day after day I have no idea.

So let’s continue on.  We finally get to school in our usual record time and as soon as I got there, a good friend of mine politely reminds me that my oldest has Science Club after school and I really don’t need to pick him up for another hour.  Oh A-W-E-S-O-M-E.  And yes, I felt like the laughing stock of all the other moms standing there.  Was lovely.  Yep, I felt like a total idiot.  Not only was I annoyed that I looked like a total idiot, but annoyed that I could have stayed home and got a little bit more work done, and even more annoyed that I forgot something so silly.  Embarrassing to say the least and somewhat humbling for sure.

I realized then that I had left my phone right next to my computer and was pretty sure it was going off at home reminding me of Science Club.  Since it was finally nice out, we decided to go to the park.  On the way there, since is March, and there is a ton of melting snow, my youngest goes running through every mud puddle he can find and is soaked with wet mud in minutes.  He’s crying because he’s cold, but still insists on going to the park.  As soon as we get there he manages to fall off the side of the slide and takes a total face plant in soaking wet bark.  It goes up his nose and in his mouth and he looks like a minion trying to scrape that gross jelly off his tongue (hours later he still had a nice strawberry on his face from his fall).

We headed home soon there after and what does he do again?  Falls and totally loses his shopping cart into the street because he was running like his life depended on it…I’m telling you, he never learns.  Anyways, we made it home in one piece and we still had to go get my son from Science Club.  Because I didn’t have my phone, I really had no idea what time it was and we were already running late.  Needless to say, by the time I packed up the kids and got them in the car along with all the library books (we had planned to hit up the library after school so my oldest could pick out the books he wanted and because a bunch of the books we had were due), we were only a few minutes late, but late enough that my oldest son was crying because he thought I forgot him.  Oh awesome, good job mom.  Oh and did I mention that today is my 13^th wedding anniversary and I totally forgot to get my husband anything – even a card.  Yep. Good job – again.

It was just one of those days when I felt like an epic failure on every front, as a mom, as a wife, as a business owner, etc.  And I still feel like I’m getting sick.  Thankfully it’s also one of those days when I’m reminded that the Lord is so much bigger than everything – me, all my problems, and all my failures.  Thank goodness.

Psalm 40:5 came to mind since we had been studying it in my weekly Bible Study I attend:

“Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us.  None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.”

I’m sure you are wondering why I’m oogling about how amazing the Lord is when I’ve had such a rotten day?  Well, it’s nice to know that someone has it all figured out and that He holds me in His hands and even though I feel like I failed all day long, I should focus instead on His wonderful works and how He has my life perfectly planned for me.

So, how was your day?