I spent last night trying to find a sitter for child #2 so that I could take child #1 to an appointment today. We raise the stakes high when it comes to finding a sitter as they need to be of the utmost health. We stress the importance of, "Well do you think it's just sniffles or a cold?" Because Chloe. I thought of one more person to message at {cringe} midnight, and they responded this morning that yes it'd work!
And then my son threw up. And has a temp of 100. And a few other unmentionable bodily happenings.
And so began my day. Text friend, "Oops, nevermind." Call and reschedule appointment. Inform nurse of a bug in our home and suggest she wait this one out {so yep, I'm the nurse today!}. Firstborn is nestled snug in his Disney Planes fleece with iPad and headphones and barf bucket nearby. Child #2 ate sugar for breakfast. Child #3 is pooping. Seriously, she has about 4 morning diapers, each of which are intense for her to make, so it's kind of a thing for everyone to endure her morning diapers.
This is not the day I had planned out. This set of circumstances was not scripted onto my daily planner. Just like flying Chloe to the hospital last weekend for possible seizures was not on the family calendar either (we're home now, she's OK, update to come). Our days can only be planned so much, and today was one of those days. I sat down with my steaming small cup of Apple Cider Donut Coffee and had one simple revelation: If I was going to survive this day, I needed Jesus. I parked myself in front of my home office, complete with organized bins from Target home section and a beautiful fall bouquet, the blooms of which were catching the morning light streaming through the window above my daughter's white IKEA crib.
I added the sun glare so that one of the statements above was true, and by adding it, it somehow managed to disguise my Dove chocolates that were consumed last night while editing photos from a recent session. Why yes, that is a Yoda mouse pad. Nope, that's an average 6oz coffee mug. And doesn't everyone have a pill crusher on their desk?
Turning to my friend YouTube, I searched from a quick video devotional to kick start this day in the right direction, then ten minutes later posted this plea to Facebook:
Trying to find a quick 5 minute video devotional to watch to jump start my day. Needs to be video so I can listen while helping with Chloe or I'll never get through reading it. But alas, alack. Just once I want to see a woman sharing a devotional video where there's a poopy baby in the background, sounds of a screaming child, and her sitting on her bed surrounded by piles of dirty laundry. Bonus points if she has old cups on her nightstand and a few fruit flies flying around the screen for good measure. I don't know if I can take any of the devos where there's a picture perfect room flooded with trinkets and frames from Hobby Lobby and the host has perfectly cut hair that doesn't move from the pound of hairspray.
Ok. Rant over. Now whatcha got? Any good video devotional sites? Cause I got nothin' but all I know is I need Jesus and refill on the coffee.
So there it was. I laid it out. I needed real. I needed someone to relate to the messy.
As I was taking temps and changing diapers, replying to responses on my FB rant, and commiserating with other mamas about messy houses, I realized I wasn't sure if I'd done something on my morning checklist, so I quick google chatted my hubs to ask his opinion on something. Conversation as follows...
Yes. Truly. You see it, don't you? "Can you send me a pictures of the master bathroom..." {awesome grammar by the way}. In the middle of my muddled messy morning, he's asking for pictures of my bathroom. We rent from the church where my hubs works, and the secretary was requesting images of the bathroom so they can order new tile. Great reason. Bad timing. Here's what I sent back, after I laughed out loud and said, "You're kidding me, right?" {To which my husband responded, "Well she asked if she could just come over and look, and I said no."}
You'll notice my husband just didn't have words to respond with on that last one. And no, not a real Squatty Potty, just a five year old who refuses to put her stool back after she's used it to stand on and steal my jewelry. And yes, that's TP that made it 2 inches from the trash can. It compliments well the TP in the other picture on the counter that made it 2 inches from actually going on the roll.
Want to hear the punch line? Want to know something funny? This week's bible study challenge was to think on who God is and that we should rely on Him. What it looks like to rely on Him. Which was exactly what I tried to do this morning when I sat down at my IKEA desk next to my daughter's crib. And then proceeded to fumble through the pre-lunch hours.
I think this happens so often with young moms, and others as well. We have these good intentions of spending time in the Word and with the Lord and then chaos ensues and we're left hours later in the aftermath of the day wondering how it passed so quickly without us taking much time to spend with Him. We give. To everyone. We answer the kids, answer the phone, answer the emails, answer the oven when it's beeping, answer the beeps when they're ringing off {in our house at least}. We answer the door in our sweats and unbrushed hair and unbrushed teeth to receive the package of daily injections for our daughter. I really wonder what FedEx Man thinks of stay at home moms, who answer the door often disheveled with bags under our eyes. That, my friends, is why they run back to their trucks. It's not because of some time schedule. It's because of us scaring them off. Try it next time. Try striking up a conversation with FedEx Man at your door. I guarantee he'll run off. {And I had to look up how to spell scaring or scarring. Typing scaring into Google results in scaring goats, which is actually a really funny thing to watch. You should try it sometime.}
So here I am. Reflecting deeply, obviously, about my day and how in the midst of answering to everything, how do I rely on Him? Because as a mama, it's hard to sit still and focus for any amount of time. And all I can come up with is that I rely on Him because He is my only source of strength and support. At the end of the day, the coffee didn't truly fill me up. The chocolate didn't truly fill me up. The kids and husband, even with all their fun joy and laughter and moments do not fully fill me up. I need Jesus. I need the One who made me and knows me better than myself to fill me up. "He hems me in, behind and before," says Psalm 139. He knows me enough to know what I need. I'm preaching to the choir here when I say all this because I need reminded of this daily as well or I'll stray away. I need a tribe of women to text me and keep me grounded in the Word and in Him when I feel like I'm floating and drifting into the sea of overwhelminghood and the waves of the daily mundane.
If you scroll back up, closing your eyes past the pictures of our master bathroom, and open them again on the image of my office, you'll see the image on the far right screen as that of the Sea of Galilee. I Googled that image specifically because my children didn't believe Jesus really walked on water or calmed the storm. They're in that phase of asking if actors and stories are really real. No, Tinkerbell is not real. Yes, the Wild Kratz brothers are real. No, not the cartoons of them, just the real people of them at the beginning and end of the show. Then I put that image up as my desktop wallpaper, because I need reminded too that Jesus is real.
So yes, kids, Jesus is also real. He did calm the storm and walk on the water of that very sea. Because when His people called out to Him for help, He showed up. Regardless of the fact that the Miracle Man was just. trying. to. get. some. sleep. (can we all relate). He still woke up and showed up and calmed everything. When His buddies in the boat tried to save themselves before waking Him, it was to no avail, but when they called upon His name, He made the seas to still, the lightning to cease, and the thunder to stop roaring all because He is God. And lest we forget, there was indeed a storm first. It wasn't all just dribbles of rain. We're talking downpour. Illustration for life, perhaps? Just because they walked with Jesus doesn't mean they didn't have storms. But they had the Calmer of the Storm with them.
In response to my bible study question, I rely on Him because I'm broken and tired of relying on myself or others. I rely on Him because He shows up. When everything and everyone else lets me down, He shows up. If the number on the scale in that bathroom image lets me down, He shows up and reminds me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. If I lose it with the kids, He reminds me to forgive myself and show more grace to my kiddos. If I have a crazy day, week, month or year to the tune of F*R*I*E*N*D*S, He shows up and reminds me that He is good, and that He works all things for the good of those who love Him. Because He is bigger than me.
And in that truth is where I find rest.
*Sea of Galilee image as desktop image credit: shalomholytours.com
