Motherhood: Patience & Denial of Self

I was just reading this post by Candace from Laughing Daisies. It is a wonderfully honest post that deals with the struggle between self and motherhood. We've ALL been there as mothers, and yet we can feel so alone with our thoughts. Motherhood is THE training ground for Patience and Denial of Self.

For example, take "sleep". Unless I want to plant my children in front of a video game for 2 hours, taking a nap during the day to make up for lack of sleep just doesn't happen. The thought of letting my children be babysat in the afternoon by a video game every day doesn't sit well, so I don't usually nap. And when all the kids are finally down for the night, I'm tired and spent, but I want to stay up until 11:00pm just to get a couple hours of ME time before I start the day again in the morning. So of course, by the time I am nursing Faith at 3:00am, this decision bites me in the rear, and sometimes 80% of me wants to cut her off and pull her away from her nourishment just so I can crawl back into bed. I still want my ME time of this and that, but if I was a little less selfish, I'd get my rear in bed at an earlier hour.

And then there is the "F" word. FAILURE. The mother-who-can't-pull-it-all-together. The other day I found myself trying to hand sew on 4 large patches for Jack's Tae-Kwon-Do uniform an hour before he was supposed to test for his yellow belt. I had been scrambling all morning, we were to be at the gym by 9:30am, I was dizzy from not getting any breakfast, and trying to sew on stinkin' patches with a needle and thread while my littlest sensing my tenseness struggled and fussed at the breast. With only minutes left to get the patches sewed, I tossed the uniform aside, and settled Faith for better nursing time; announcing my surrender with, "I can't be friggin' SuperMom today!"

And then the ENEMY saunters in, trying his best to muddy the waters even more. I haven't been able to attend a Bible Study with my favorite group of Women in the last two weeks because it falls right when my little Faith has her fussy time. And I'm on the leadership team, so I feel like I need to be present. In addition, my quiet time is out the window, so I am now two weeks behind in our study, and I keep returning to this stupid idea in my mind that if I can't pull my quiet time back together, the Lord will cease blessing me with children. It is a completely ridiculous and illogical thought. But it buzzes in my ears with the word "Failure" echoing in the background.

I'm not sure where I am going with this post. Honestly, I have forgotten my point entirely. Perhaps that IS the point. But then again, that is what becomes of a blog post that is written by a mother who should be in her bed, but doesn't want to because she wants her ME time. Even if it is mediocre ME time.

*sigh*