Still Loving Him Anyway

Raising my little angels has been a journey with challenges I never anticipated. Just the other night I was commenting to my GG, “Man, this is the hardest job I’ve ever done. And I had to take organic chemistry!” Concepts like polymerization and hydrolysis sound energizing? and fun?! O Lord, help me!

I have to be honest, though, it really isn’t motherhood as a whole that has been putting me into tangles lately. It’s the challenge of mothering one of my children, in particular, that confounds me.

I really am trying. I am praying a lot. I am consistent. I am creative. I am energizing and encouraging. I am mean when I have to be. Every day is a new day with hope and possibility; with opportunity for success and obedience. Though for some reason or another, I lose it. I start each day with new, refreshed patience and by the end of it, I’m toast. I’ve lost all hope for his future. I’m bummed, whipped, and depressed. This is so hard. It’s always been hard with him. And I’m here to report that at age 4, it still is.

I deal often enough with my fair share of mommy guilt, feeling like I’m not doing what I should, slacking in certain areas, raising my voice too often. It can be difficult to wade through and can pull me down into its quagmire. I hate the thought of my mommy self-esteem being pulled so low to the point of guilt. But, really, when one is working as hard as this, shouldn’t I be seeing more results? Can anyone out there relate?

I am spent and discouraged. My downtrodden tone pulls others down.

My brain begins to wonder: when will this end? Will it end? Will this be the child we endure for a lifetime? The one that we’ll wince at when he embarrasses us by his rude adult behavior?

But, gosh, I love him more than the world.

I will not give up.

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:12-14