This has been a bad week. Especially yesterday and today. I've been really struggling. It's been a grueling almost-3-weeks since the first signs of illness in our family, and I think I've only had 2 or 3 good night's sleep in that whole time. Combine that with the monthly hormonal fluctuations that are part of being a woman and life hasn't been pretty here in at the Soapbox. Following my mom's advice to us as kids -- "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it" -- I haven't posted much this week.
This morning I think I was actually wallowing in my pitifulness. I spent my entire shower composing blog entries about how I thought I was actually going crazy (there's a kind of insanity that germinates within sleep deprivation) and trying to creatively describe the misery that has been my existence this week.
Then I took some time to read my Bible. I'm in 2 Chronicles, so it isn't easy to apply what I'm reading. But somehow, by spending that time focusing away from myself, I began to realize what's been going on with me.
I've been worshipping at the altar of myself.
All I can think about is how I feel and what I want and how horrible these people (my family) are who keep making demands of me and what would I give to just run away from it all or curl up in bed and disappear.
I've felt intense physical reactions to the needs of my family -- a fist-clenching chest-tightening rage at being asked to stop what I'm doing to serve someone else, or a desperate light-headed panic at having one more thing go wrong, or a crushing black-cloud depression of fatigue that traps every thought in glue.
Pretty ugly, isn't it?
Then, this afternoon my husband called to pass along some tragic news. One of his coworkers and his wife lost a baby today. I had met them a couple years ago, and we were asked to contact them a couple days ago because their newborn baby had heart problems. We learned this afternoon that the baby didn't make it.
We've come about as close as you can get to this without actually losing a child. Sometime I'll write more about it. But the spectre of death lurks perpetually in the darkest corners of my mind, even now, almost 6 years since our oldest daughter was born with severe heart defects. I know a teeny fraction of the experience they are in right now. I'm so grieved for their loss. And I'm so sickened by my own thoughts and behavior over the past several days.
God has blessed us far beyond our wildest dreams. But I've treated those blessings as curses.
I know that a big factor in this is my physical state. My cold from last week is morphing into a sinus infection. I'm not getting enough sleep, and haven't for a few weeks. So I'm physically run down in many ways.
Another big factor is the physical state of my children -- they are not sleeping well either. They are much more needy and much more prone to melt-downs.
But I can't blame my sinful reactions on these circumstances. In the end, I am responsible for how I respond and I do have a choice. I can pray for God's grace to continue to love my family sacrificially, or I put myself first and lash out because my needs aren't being met.
I need to take care of myself, yes. But every time I read in Scripture about how we are to love one another, it's a sacrificial, others-first kind of love. Sometimes serving my family isn't convenient. Sometimes it isn't what I feel like doing. Sometimes -- oh the horror -- I have to lay aside the knitting, the book, the meal, the nap, the blog entry, the music for church, the thing that I want to do so much. In doing so, I tangibly demonstrate in a very small way Christ's love-even-unto-death-on-a-cross to my family.
So. What am I going to do today? I made myself a doctor's appointment for first thing tomorrow morning. I took a nap this afternoon. And now I need to bless my family with clean dishes, a clean house, a warm meal, and a mommy/wife who is choosing to be joyful and not wallow in her pity party. Because God sacrificed much more for me.
