I Reek

Most of the time, I think I'm a well-adjusted sick person...but sometimes, it really gets to me. 

I just need to say that it is disappointing to be a sick mom. Usually, I tell myself that I'm doing my utmost, so it is enough, and I am happy. But sometimes it tugs at my heartstrings, like almost every night when my husband tucks our children in bed without me, and I feel sad that I am not more involved. Like when he is massively overworked as the mom and the dad, then he uses the time when he's not working or taking care of our little people to do laundry or dishes. 

I joked with him that I would love the kitchen floor to be mopped for Christmas...but that's like asking someone who babysits for you every day to babysit for you one night so you can go on a date. I can't ask. So I have to be happy with a dirty floor. Our dog walked muddy feet through the dining part of the kitchen a couple months ago, and it is still smudged with streaked mud from when I feebly tried to clean it up. Someone keeps dripping something on the floor next to the barstools. If I have energy, I use it on our family, not on the floor; that's why it's dirty. I read books or snuggle or watch the kids play outside. The floor is just a symbol of lots of things I don't do as a mom and homemaker and how those "I'm failing" feelings get to me. 

Then there is the world. I am impassioned about the refugee situation in Europe, but do I do anything concrete? No. Money donations. I almost went to humanitarian Wednesday at a nearby church building, but did I get out of bed? No. I was grounded to my bed. My only consolation is that we gave an SUV full of clothing and stuff to DI in the summer, and hopefully some of those articles have made it to the people in crisis. We also gave modest clothing to Brazilian missionaries who can't afford or find anything suitable to wear in Brazil. I search for things to do. I feel so selfish for having it so good here. 

Then there is the self-loving piece. It's Tuesday night, and I am wearing the same thing I went to bed in on Sunday. I am a gross, disgusting mess. There is vertigo and nausea and absolutely no energy. I lay in the dark until 3 this morning trying to fall asleep, tortured with my disappointed brain chatter. I felt guilty that I didn't help more the day before with our son who was sick, that I barely saw our daughter, that I hadn't the energy during the day to crack open a book or even watch a movie. I wasn't safe to drive the kids around. 

So when I get the whim to do something for myself, like maybe it will lift my spirits and therefore help my family, or maybe it will help me be more productive so I can start cooking or helping in the house again, and then it falls flat, I'm consumed in scolding brain chatter until the wee hours. 

I'm just having a hard week. I can hardly move. I am stressing over my book and Christmas and some big decisions, yet I feel incapacitated to act. It's dumb. 

We met Brad Wilcox a couple weekends ago, and I whined to him. "I want to the the girl who is putting up chairs right now. I want to be powerful enough to be who I used to be." Brad said, "But you're doing everything you can. God isn't concerned so much about how much your offering is. He doesn't shake the tithing envelope by His ear. He is more concerned with what your offering does to change you." Brad told me I'm doing just fine. I don't feel powerful or proactive, but He said God thinks I'm good enough. "Remember that," he said, then pointing at my husband, said, "When she forgets, tell her that Brad told you to." He gave me two hugs and held my hands and made me feel like maybe I'm okay...even on weeks like this, when I reek and think I have nothing to offer and that I'm a miserable, selfish, lazy person. I have to believe that Heavenly Father views me more compassionately than that. I know it, even if I can't always bring myself to believe it.