What I Need

The reasons for the long absences from blogging are many-fold, complex, and tiring to even think about let alone explain. Suffice it to say that 2007 was the year Mom tried everything in her power to be super-mom. Suffice it to say that "her power" wasn't nearly enough, and God had to step in, take a few things off of the plate, and replace them with a hearty serving of grace. Thankfully, my family is chiming in on that, and we are happily uncommitted at the moment to anything but learning and living.

When I got so busy that I felt depressed, I realized that I needed my kids perhaps even more than they need me. I need their simplicity, their happy delight in just about everything, their lack of concern for material things, their constant desire to paint, sketch, play, giggle, tickle, read books together, play pretend and eat popcorn. I didn't need to wear business attire, attend meetings, pound the pavement, suggest alternatives or make projections. I was emotionally stretched by the tension, not to mention the other two or three major family and personal issues I had brewing in the proverbial pot.

The attempt to be super-mom, and the subsequent abandonment of said effort has left me with a super-strong desire to do the spring cleaning and organizing and to get ready for next school year. I want to purge, simplify, reduce, focus. Whenever I have a few moments, I find myself going through things and throwing stuff away without any thought for sentimentality or if I may be sorry later. It's all gotta go! (The good news is that I usually do make the right call on not being a pack-rat...it's rare that I throw away something that I'm sorry for later.)

This is what I have learned from all of this--we tend to fill up on junk, grasp at things that we have no business holding on to, seize control of things that we really have no control over anyway, so it's like trying to steer a runaway train, and worry ourselves to death over things that mean little. I heard in a sermon recently: "Our greatest fear should not be that we not succeed, but rather that we succeed at something that doesn't matter." Last year I filled up on junk, held on to empty things, ran around trying to succeed at something that was not my calling, and ended up an exhausted heap. Then the Lord asked me if I was ready to let him handle things. (chuckling to myself) oh, ya...That's what I need.