Holding It Together

I've had quite a week.  I've managed to hold it together through a series of circumstances that should have made me panic.  I held it together through parenting difficulties and even worked to make progress with some kid struggles.  I held it together through all the big stuff, only to crack this morning over a tiny thing.

First, the big stuff.

You should be warned: this blog post contains embarrassing details from my life.  Proceed with care.

This may be a bit awkward to blog about, but we had a bit of a pregnancy scare.  I mean no offense to any of you who would give anything to find yourself pregnant, but that news wouldn't be a pleasant surprise for me and Jared.  We are terrified of screwing up a fourth kid.  We are very satisfied with the size of our family.  We have already taken measures to keep our family the size that it is, the size we feel God created it to be.  However, I've heard plenty of stories of surprise pregnancies even after surgical preventative measures have been taken.  After enough time had passed without, uh, monthly evidence that I wasn't pregnant, we had to consider the possibility.

Panic started to creep in, so I prayed.  I felt God say, "Timing.  You have to trust my timing."  Then my Scripture reading for Monday included Psalm 27.  Verse 14 says, "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."  So God's peace won out over my threatening panic.  And in case you're wondering, I'm not pregnant.

Next was Tuesday, the day I had an important doctor's appointment.  I had found a lump in my breast the week before, and Tuesday I saw my doctor about it.  (By the way, I think "lump" is such an undignified word.  How did that become the term used in these cases?)  I had spent a week thinking about the possibilities and settling my mind and heart on whatever might happen.  In case you don't know, my paternal grandmother and great-grandmother both had breast cancer and my maternal grandmother currently has it. 

Even though panic should have been high on my list of possible reactions, it's not the one I went with.  From the moment I found the lump, God whispered to me that everything was fine.  I chose to hold on to his peace through the time waiting for my appointment.  (If I had all female readers, I would write you a hilarious post relaying the details of how things went at my appointment.  Like when the nurse asked me the date of my last period and I practically did a choreographed cheer because I'm not pregnant.  Or what it was like to sweat wearing nothing but a paper vest while waiting approximately 7 hours--give or take--in the exam room with nothing but a magazine I'd already read.)

Anywho...good news from the doctor.  All is well.  (Aren't you glad I took this time to discuss all my private parts with you?)

Finally, on the same day as the Lump Appointment, I lost my wedding rings.  Believe it or not, this little situation is the one that caused me the most panic.  I managed to take a breath and calm myself down before I went looking for my rings.  I calmly searched and found the rings on my bathroom floor.

So all of the big stressful stuff turned out fine.  And I think I managed to hold myself together and trust God to work it all out.

I shielded my kids from all of this stress.  I prayed for help as a mom, and God gave me some new ideas to make progress in my relationships with my kids.  I felt good about the mom I've been this week.

Then this morning I ended up snapping.  Over one little thing that one of my kids did.  I screamed at said child in the car on the way to school.  That's the absolute worst time to have a fight with a child.  I had to put on a happy face, kiss and hug him, and send him off to school to think about what a crazy yelling monster his mom is.

So after holding it all together all week, today I just feel tired.  Tired of spending all my free time exercising (bleh).  Tired of counting my calories/carbs/protein, and I'm tired of it not making a difference in how my jeans fit.  Tired of glancing at my white board to-do list that doesn't have any white space left on it. 

But there's still plenty of this week left, so I'm going to pretend that I don't desperately want to lay on my couch and eat cookies and be lazy.  I'm going to go back to doing all the things I'm supposed to do and trust God to take my measly efforts and turn them into what He wants me to be.  In the big stuff and the small stuff.

Jessica