Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss the best way to deal with the stress that comes with motherhood.
It’s Not The Time To Be Selfish
It’s been a long two months in our house. I can feel the weight of our family responsibilities — school projects, sports and each meal — every day when I wake up. And couple this with my husband going to the hospital and dealing with the emotions from the Charlie Kirk assassination, it all feels like a never-ending cycle of doom.
When I was complaining to one of my sisters the other day about all the stress I was carrying, she asked me how I dealt with it all. Jokingly, I answered, prayer and shingles. (I know the shingles comment sounds pretty random, but I had a pretty traumatic birth with my third daughter, which caused me to get it, and now anytime I get too stressed, I get it again.)
And while I was joking (kind of) about the shingles, I wasn’t about prayer. I wish I had known when I was younger how powerful it truly is and how important it would be to me as I became a wife and mother.
Every day, my family prays together. Even when my husband is out of town for work, we wait until his day is over to sit down and pray a rosary together. I find myself in the quiet times when everyone is at school calling on our Lord to remind me of my blessings and, most importantly, for Him to love my family through me.
The other day, it hit me that my selfishness, the fallen part of me, wanted to live in the stress and embrace it rather than let it go. As a Christian, I am supposed to lay my worries at the cross, but I had been holding onto them for dear life as if they had become a safety flotation device.
So I added a new part to my daily prayer life. Instead of asking God to remind me of my blessings, I started listing them.
I am grateful for my husband’s health and that we have a second chance with him
I am thankful for my children and the blessing of being their mother
I am grateful that my children need me to help them with their projects, and that it creates special memories with them
I am grateful I am there for every volleyball and soccer game. And that I am the face they see when they look into the crowd
I am grateful for my family. I can always count on them to make me laugh when I want to fall into a pity party
I am grateful for my job. That there is a place for my opinions and that they value my voice as a regular mother
The list goes on and on just like that until I feel the weight slowly lift off my heart. Sometimes I only make it a short way down the list of blessings, and other days it feels like I just keep going and going.
I know I am in the season of life where our schedule is all-consuming. Someone always needs something from me or for me to take them somewhere. This stage of life can feel so isolating, which sounds odd because you are almost never alone.
But I also know that there will be a time, sooner rather than later, when my days are quiet and no one will be asking me to sit down and color poster boards with them.
I could choose to let the stress gobble me up, but then I would be wasting my time feeling sorry for myself. And that is no way to live. I feel angry at myself for allowing the stress to cloud my mind so badly these past two months. But I am letting this realization drive me to do better. I want my children to know that being married to their father and being their mother has been and will always be the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me.
The only way I can make this happen is by showing up for them every day with a smile on my face. There will be easy and hard days to make this a reality, but that’s why I pray. I am not strong enough on my own. I am humble enough to realize that I don’t have to be.
There’s something incredibly freeing about knowing that I am weak and need help. I am not God. But I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
WHAT I SAW THIS WEEK:
Erika Kirk once again showed the world what it meant to allow the full weight of God’s grace and mercy to shine through her when she was brave enough to forgive her husband’s assassin on stage at his memorial service. Several people didn’t understand how she could have done that, but I think that stems from a lack of understanding about the difference between justice and forgiveness. Our judicial system is set up to punish Charlie’s murderer. God will handle his eternal judgment. Her job here on earth is not to seek to be judge, jury, and executioner for her husband’s assassin. Her job is to let go of the anger and pain his murderer caused, forgive him, and allow God to handle the rest.
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