This has been a really busy semester.  Taking care of the kids, running the household, church, helping lead life group, teaching classes at the gym, volunteering at church, volunteering at the school, Allie’s sports, Shelby’s therapies and doctor’s appointments and various other things that come up.  I feel the urge to take a nap just looking at the list.  I am a very task oriented person.  I feel a deep sense of satisfaction when I complete items on my to-do list.  If my list gets too long, it stresses me out, so procrastinating is out of the question.  But I am also an extrovert.  I am energized by relationships.  These two aspects of my personality are often counterproductive.  I made the mistake few months ago of adding a couple of committments to my schedule without releasing any of my prior responsibilities.  I reluctantly took on the task of coaching my daughter’s volleyball team.  And I am so glad I did.  I LOVED it.  And I’m not suggesting that I definitely needed to shirk anything else on my plate, but I should have at least evaluated, prayed and sought counsel on it.  Even if I determined that God was in all of my current endeavors and needed me to continue to serve; I could have prayed for a helper or given Allie more responsibilities at home or asked Chuck for more help with paperwork or household tasks.  Instead, I chose to fasten my super hero cape on a little tighter and shoulder it all.  Lest you think this sounds noble, you should have seen the fuming and stewing and stressing.  You should have heard the words uttered under my breath.  If you have been reading my blog for long, you know that asking for help is not easy for me.  I’m working on it.  But it’s still not my first instinct.  So instead, I to started cutting things out of my life that nourish me.  Not chores and tasks that stress me out.  Noooo.  By all means, let’s hang onto those.  But I stopped finding time for yoga except when I was teaching it.  And in case you are wondering, neglecting your personal practice does not a very good yoga teacher make.  I stopped blogging and doing word search puzzles (don’t laugh – they relax me).  My time to read – which I TREASURE – dwindled to a few minutes in bed before I would pass out with the book in my hand.  I still had my daily bible reading and prayer time with God (I AM a task oriented person after all), but it became much shorter and hurried.  And I slowly began to loose my intimacy with God, my husband, and my children as I became this flash running from here to there.  I barely recognize that person.  

One of the most crippling mistakes I made was eliminating time with my friends.  I did not initially consciously make this decision, but rather it evolved as I felt myself stretching thinner and thinner.  I had become the social planner in the group, tending to me the one to extend an invitation to lunch, or a girls’ night out or dinner at my house.  But as my 24 hour days started feeling shorter and shorter, I decided to stop planning – because that takes time and effort that I didn’t think I could afford.  I would, however,  certainly still accept invitations from others if at all possible.  Except the invitations didn’t come.  As weeks went on, I began to feel lonely, isolated and withdrawn.  I began to question whether or not I had overestimated the quality of my friendships.  I became so miserable that I put my to-do list on hold and asked a friend to coffee – one I knew would speak truth to me.  She helped me see that I was making some assumptions.  One assumption was that my friends would pick up where I left off with extending invitations when they were accustomed to them coming from me.  Who knows?  When I stopped calling and texting THEY may have assumed that I was too busy or didn’t care to spend time with them.  And I also assumed that friends my age with kids the same age as mine were not as busy as me.  When in fact, some of them are busier.  Sigh.  You know what they say about assumptions…  “…the tongue of the wise brings healing.”  Proverbs 12:18b.  So thankful for this sweet sister in Christ who also spoke to me about the importance for someone like me to have hang time with friends who build me up, encourage me, and make me a better person (“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”  Proverbs 27:17 NLT).  This becomes even MORE important when I am pouring myself out in ministry, in volunteering, in the lives of my children and their friends and into my husband.  Lest I become empty, I need to set aside time to be filled – to spend time with those who make me feel energized, not drained, when I leave them.  This is not just fun time for me.  This is necessary refueling for the minitries of my life.  I’m writing this as a reminder to myself, but also as a warning to all my mom friends this Mother’s Day weekend.  I think Moms often tend to do for others until they are done – leaving little time to rest and replenish.  This can be especially true for mother’s of a special needs or medically fragile child.  We can tend to feel alone and isolate ourselves as we focus with laser precision on our child’s issues and neglect relationships, hobbies and interests.  Although determining to make time for yourself won’t give you another hour in the day, realizing how important it is to your emotional health and functioning may help you prioritize it.  I’m praying for rest and fulfillment for you, friends.  And if I haven’t said it in a while, thank you for allowing me to share with you what I’m learning in this journey.  And MAYBE with your prayers and encouragement, I can stop shooting myself in the foot so I can RUN this race instead of limping along.  

Boy have I been busy – mostly doing mommy stuff.  So busy that I haven’t posted here in about 3 months.  But now that it’s Mother’s May (did you catch that?  I expect to be celebrated for the entire month), I have a confession to make.  And this is one of those confessions that I feel I must offer up to make my point and then hope that you quickly forget lest you decide I am a horrible person.  Deal?  Ok.  We have a deal.  On most gift-giving occasions, I have impossibly high expectations.  Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, my birthday, Christmas, my anniversary, Columbus Day (ok maybe not that one) – I have a perfect rom com script playing on the movie screen of my mind about how I will be honored.  Gifts are my love language, which sometimes suprises my friends.  It’s not that I want or need lavish, expensive gifts.  What I want is thoughtfulness.  What I want is for a gift – no matter how much it costs – to scream that the giver thought of me and spent time finding or making just the right thing.  It’s about the thought and effort.  I want my husband to be romantic, I want my kids to be loving and grateful and I want my friends to be sweet and appreciative.  And for the most part, leaving a little room for human flaws, I have those things 365 days a year.  But life is NOT a Hollywood blockbuster.  So every special occasion I am inevitably disappointed at the amount of fawning that takes place, because nothing could possibly live up to a Hallmark commercial.  And then I spend the next day or two in a funk – not disappointed in my family, but disappointed in myself that I believe I need and deserve so much.  Whew!  Talk about a crazy jumble of emotions.  I KNOW all this is unrealistic and I try to temper my desires and prepare myself for a holiday that real, live human beings can deliver; but a piece of this girly girl always holds out hope for the fairy tale.

Are you seeing how ridiculous I am yet?  I sure am.  I’m feeling even more rotten having written it down.  I had to stop typing and take some deep inhalations of God’s grace to resist the urge to erase this and close my computer.  You see, I had a conversation with Jordan (not her real name) this week.  I have been aquainted with her for a few months, but knew so little about her.  I knew she had a baby, but what I didn’t know was that there was no husband, no family, no support system, and no education.  She is working as a bartender and barely paying her bills.  Her eyes welled up with tears as she told me how she struggles to buy food for them after all the other bills are paid and how much she has to pay a baby sitter.  The baby’s father, his family and her family all turned their backs on her when she got pregnant.  And now she has a back injury that causes her constant pain (something I can relate to) but has no insurance or money to go to a doctor (something I can’t relate to).  And as she started to drop “f-bombs”, I realized the depth of her spiritual needs as well as her physical and emotional needs.  Unfortunately, our conversation was interrupted and she had to leave.  After she was gone, I began to cry and beg God for forgiveness for my selfish desires and petty complaints.  I was overwhelmed by the pain and hopelessness in Jordan’s face and the ungratefulness in my own spirit.  My prayer is for God to make me like Paul in Philippians 4:11:  “Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.”  I know as I sit here that I want for NOTHING!  May God continue to open my eyes to the needs of others and show me how I can use my many blessings to meet those needs.  And if I may ask a favor, please join me in prayer asking the Father for me to have more opportunities to minister to Jordan.  Oh – and to all my mommy friends – Happy Mother’s Day.