Laying Down the Hard

Right now my days are hard. There are many days where I am stuck sitting down with a tantruming child who is hitting, spitting, trying to bite me, and screaming not nice words like ‘shut up’ and ‘you’re stupid’ at me. When I am sitting with her I am unable to do anything else. I can’t wash my dishes or sweep up messes or do laundry. I can’t help my kids with schoolwork, change dirty diapers, or play peekaboo with the baby. When I try to do something else other littles in my home are targets. It has been a hard season. Therapies and medications are doing precious little to curb the profound effects of early childhood trauma. It is exhausting and overwhelming and scary. I have to work hard every single day to leave my fears at the foot of the cross. I have to grit my teeth, bite back tears, and praise my way through the tantrums. Quite literally fighting my battles with praises blasting to drown out the screaming. This is my unique set of hard and yuck.

Insert yours here.

We all have the hard stuff. Sometimes I wonder why it has to be this hard. I try to figure out what I’m doing wrong and how to fix it. I am not the only one to wonder and try to figure out how to connect all the dots. In Luke chapter 2 we can see that Mary wondered and puzzled through the things she was living through too.

Luke 2:19 “But Mary treasured all these things, giving careful thought to them and pondering them in her heart.”

Mary had just lived through being visited by angels and a miracle pregnancy but I get the vibe that she didn’t quite get what she was living through. I am sure she was so immersed in her own story it was hard to grasp the bigger picture. Even with direct visits from God and angels she was still questioning and wondering and mulling about all the events unfolding around her. Amazed at what she was living through. Trying to figure out what was going on with these shepherds and all they shared with her after giving birth in a stable.

I think in the thick of life it is easy to get bogged down in the inconveniences of the nitty gritty of what we are living though. I can’t stop thinking about laboring in a barn. Dirty. Noisy. Smelly. Not at all the birth I would choose. No birth plan would include scratchy straw, smelly donkeys and lowing cattle and yet all of these inconveniences were part of a bigger purpose. They helped pave the way for what happens later on the cross that changes everything for all of us. It was not about Mary's birth experience. It was all about Jesus being born.

I didn’t think parenting would look and feel like a war zone. But it isn’t about my parenting experience. It is about giving a baby family and stopping generational trauma.

I’m sure you didn’t expect your hard thing to look the way it does. But I reckon to bet it isn’t really about how it effects you. There is a bigger picture.

We are egotistical humans and we make it all about “me.” But we are just supporting actors. I need to stop focusing on me and focus on Him. I don’t have a good grasp on what God is doing through me because I am so micro-focused on myself that I am missing the bigger picture.  

Lord, help me to focus less on myself and more on YOU. Help me to live victoriously and not as a victim. I lay it all at the foot of the cross. My questions. My fears. My shortcomings. My baby girl. Fill me with your joy and show me what You are doing so I can focus on You and not all the ways my involvement is hard and inconvenient. Be with everyone who reads this blog. Help them to lay their hard at your feet. Help them to focus on you.