According to my husband, it's the fourth time this has happened. Right around three to five months,when the congratulatory gifts and new baby meal offers have ended,the baby blues begin. It's subtle, so subtle. Tiny disappointments. Feelings of insufficiency that pile one on top of the other to an insurmountable heap that only a fresh batch of tears can relieve.
Today, teaching my almost 6-year old to read his first sentence is overshaddowed by the one who's 2 1/2 year old is already readying BOB books on her own. What was such a mighty accomplishment yesterday, today suddenly seems so small. Then on Facebook there's the mother who can do it all, and do it all so well. Not only is she feeding her family, she's harvesting a herb garden and canning 10 pounds of organic peaches; not only is she homeschooling half a dozen children, she's writing her own curriculum while pregnant with #7.
And here am I not even able to pass basic home-making 101. Barely a day after I redeemed my husband's baby gift to me - a house cleaning - a relative came over, took one look in my kids' room and said with great consternation, "Oh my, What happened?" I had no answer, except to say either "Atomic bomb" or "Life." But with all the perfection around me, "atomic bomb" seemed like the safer answer. Afterall, Life doesn't look so messy, so disheveled, so chaotic in other homes. How I long to be that mother with the placid demeanor oozing with talent and abounding in energy. Giving her children the best of all she is. Instead my children have me. A very ordinary mother with a very dirty kitchen floor.
I'm thinking all these thoughts, wondering why some are gifted with so much while others with not very much at all, and I'm feeling not so much "poor me" but "poor them" for having only me, and not a better version of myself. And yet all the same, I am required to use what little I have for good, for them, for Him. And then I read a wonderful quote from Elder Ephraim, reminding me of the goal of the Christian life which (thankfully for me) has nothing very much to do with talent at all, but humility, "true and genuine humble-mindedness," as he calls it.
"Satan tries to make those who struggle forget their goal. . . In this way, the labor remains without a reward - a struggle without hope, work without pay."
In a tangle of sorrowful thoughts, I do not despair, for He whispers to me Without me you can do nothing, and Unless the Lord builds the house its builders labor in vain. Suddenly I am thankful. Oh so thankful for being a very ordinary mother with a very dirty kitchen floor. If it were any other way, I just might forget that I needed any help at all.
I can relate to this all too well. There have been many a time recently when I've said to my husband, "I don't know how you can love me. I can't do anything right..." This adjustment to four children has been much more difficult than I had imagined. I dealt with a bit of baby blues myself, and it was most affected by the fact that we were under a lot of stress because we thought we were moving and then we weren't. On top of that, my infant was (and still is) incredibly high needs and difficult.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this encouragement.