Ways I feel inadequate today:
My oldest child has a broken toe, I'm pretty sure. She didn't want to go in when the youngest had a checkup yesterday, and I didn't make her. The doctor said you don't have to bring her in unless the toe is crooked. Well, it is. It is also purplish gray an inch into her foot. But the same toe on the other foot is crooked too, I think the same way. I feel inadequate because I don't know if I should take her in and because I'm pretty sure they can't do anything to fix it.
My youngest daughter ate a cough drop tonight, but for a few frightening moments I was afraid she had drunk half a bottle of benedryl. She came to me with a cough medicine smell on her breath and a sticky hand with the same smell. Scary. I'm imagining ipicac and stomach pumping and trying to keep her awake. S'ok, just a cough drop. But that's where I went.
I feel like my babies' skin does better with disposables, plus I'm about a decade behind on laundry, so I have a whole supply of cloth diapers I'm just storing right now. And I feel bad about that, inadequate.
My children have been listening to Adventures in Odyssey and my husband has been Netflixing The West Wing, both of which (along with ALL television/movies/radio drama/plays/commercials) I cannot handle the suspense of, so I feel emotionally manipulated and not myself. I know it is all made up, but tv stresses me out.
I did about a B- job of eating the way I want to today. There are just honestly moments that I want comfort from food, and even though my comfort is in the Lord, sometimes I forget. And sometimes I make poor choices. It is especially hard to resist the healthyish but not completely beneficial to me food that I make for my kids, things like chocolate whole wheat chia seed zucchini bread and chocolatecoveredkatie.com's totally addictive cornbread.
My baby did not gain the weight my doc and I thought he should since his last check up. This hasn't happened to me in about 7 kids, and even though I've learned a lot since then, part of me just wants to give up and do the bottle thing. On the other hand, if he is the last baby I have, I'd hate to have quit nursing early without a fight.
Fifth daughter has a cough I can't help with, the kind a 3 yr old gets that would be so much better if she just knew how to cough and wasn't afraid to do it, but instead just keeps coughing and puking because she doesn't know how yet. I wish I could cough for her.
Little physical things wear down a mom's confidence, her feeling of 'all's well'. Little character things, lack of discipline, fights between siblings, unforgiveness, do the same.
And I'm back in that place of mistaken identity where I think being a good mom (or wife or human) is about how healthy or diligent or kind my kids are or how organized or thin I am, when in reality, my value is something calculated in the eyes of the One who formed me.
That He can love me and cherish me in that Psalm 139 kind of way, having searched me and known me, my down sitting and my uprising, being intimately acquainted with all my ways, knowing my words, thoughts, actions, and days before there is yet one of them, that escapes me. I spend my life trying desperately to earn love and acceptance THAT I ALREADY HAVE.
I have laughingly considered (laughing because of how very angry it would make my mother) getting a tattoo across the knuckles of my right hand, in Hebrew, "Belonging to the Lord". Isaiah 44 - poplars that spring up like grass, with resiliance, saying belonging to the Lord, written on their hands.
Ok, I'm not getting a tattoo on my hand. But I wish it was written there, to help me remember that before and after and in the midst of everything else, I am His.
What I say, what I do, what I eat and drink and feel. He is intimately acquainted with all my ways. My soul knows it very well.
All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give
I will ever love and trust Him
In His presence daily live
I surrender all
I surrender all
All to Thee my blesses Savior
I surrender all
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