Real life is harder than you want it to be

Image Source: Pinterest, taken from Etsy

After last week's parenting post, I spent a lot of time thinking and feeling confused about how on earth to keep writing about this wonderful and incredibly hard thing called being a parent. A friend suggested that perhaps writing in a storytelling style keeps things from sounding braggy or boastful. Which was stressful because I definitely do not want to sound any of those things! And I think she is right, the posts I benefit from the most have been personal stories, admissions of failure, of confusion, of the struggles involved in motherhood. I have actually found the "10 steps to being a better parent" posts hard to swallow, with a very small amount of exceptions.
I struggle with storytelling, because on the one hand it's something I really really want to do. On the other hand, I feel that a lot of my history that informs my life isn't my story to tell. It would be an invasion of other peoples privacy. So how do I tell some of the story, without telling the whole story, while still being authentic. Vulnerability freaks.me.out. Yet I know that it is the path forward for me in a lot of areas of my life. Don't you just love how God does that. Humph.

So this week I'm just going to lay it bare a bit, by saying that good intentions are so often just that: good intentions. We can write lists, make plans, write family purpose statements, have beautiful "We say we're sorry, we hug, we love" artwork on our walls, get up each morning determined to not say one mean thing before breakfast - and how often does it all just go to pieces within a few minutes. Lots of times.
Because - sheesh! - it's so tiring being a parent! Sleep deprivation is a killer and when you are exhausted it's so hard to follow through on anything other than to just survive. For everyone to be breathing at the end of the day.
And you know what? I think we deserve a medal every single day by just managing that.
Out of bed, clothes on everyone, food in mouths (mothers always last, if at all), lunches, out the door on time, car seat tantrums, I-don't-like-shoes/those-pants/hats/sunscreen/jackets tantrums, sign-in's, working out what to feed everyone, laundry: dear sweet Jesus help me, work, did I do enough hours, does my brain even function anymore... and that's only by about 10am.

It. Is. HARD. Really, really hard. 

So if you feel like your brain is made of cotton wool? Me too.
Feel like just quitting sometimes but know that just ain't an option? Me too.
Feel like you can't just admit any of this because people give you that look or stop talking or there's an awkward silence where you wonder if they're going to report you to someone for admitting you're having a hard time? Me too. 
Feel like every other mum has it together? Me too.
Feel like it's groundhog day and you just cannot see an end to the repetition? Me too.
Feel like just going to bed for like a whole day and a whole night without talking to anyone or having anyone touch you or ask anything of you? Me too. (Let's face it, for longer than a day).

You're okay. I'm okay. Our kids are OKAY.
You love your kids, you're trying, you're being a real person and you're doing it, you're doing parenting, and you're awesome and amazing and a superstar for it.
Go and feel GOOD about yourself. Go and tell those condescending, bullying voices in your head to SHUT UP for once while you have a cup of something that's your favourite and a plate of something else that's your favourite.
Because you will always look back on this time and be amazed that you made it through. And you're going to make it through. And so am I. And our kids will be just fine. And there's no point worrying about the "what if's" because they steal our moments from us.

Love and grace and peace and happiness from me.

xx Sarah

The other side of the street

After my last post I began to feel a bit paranoid. I am pondering whether I have unwittingly turned into a sort of abundant-life-faith-filled-nothing-gets-me-down cheerleader, waving her christian pom poms in the air.
So time for some real-ness. Yes, I get inspired and excited in my spirit by things I read or heard, or by God stirring feelings and dreams in my heart. Yes, everything I have written in this blog so far is true. But I wouldn't be honest if I didn't also say that still, fairly regularly, I have those moments, the moments where it all feels a little... shall we say "farty" (To use Megan at Sorta Crunchy's term!).
Tonight I hark back to the days where I felt very much an observer of the "excited Christians". In those times I was not one of the excited. I was one of the ponderers, the morose, the down-and-out, the questioning, the doubters. And that is and was okay. Because that was me, it was where I was at, it was a crucial point on my journey. And the fact that I felt that way was proof that I cared. If I didn't care I would have lived however I wanted, done whatever I wanted, and forgotten about my faith. Instead I trudged. Slowly, heavily onwards through what felt like an eternity of emptiness in my soul.
It is bizarre to feel empty. To search inside and just find a blank space. To pray and talk to God yet lack any certainty at all about whether you are heard. That was me, for years. Thankfully within those years I had defining, miraculous moments, moments that I treasured. But there were also many, many more moments of heartache, disappointment, and the most common for me - the sensation of being overlooked. In second place, chosen last, in everyone's shadow, never noticed. And oh, how I grieved.
So, for those of you who identify.

For the times of unanswered prayer, the times where not only was it not answered but the opposite happened, and the opposite was an unimaginable tragedy.

For the ones who look in the mirror and can't recognise themselves.

For those who stand in line at the altar call, the prayer line, the prophesy line - and get passed over, time and time and time again.

For the mothers who haven't slept for over three, four, five months and resent the sight of every person who walks the planet who dares to say that they are tired when they have NO IDEA what tired means, no idea at all.

For the wives who watch their husbands live lives full of opportunity and purpose and long to do something, anything, "just for me", but lost themselves so long ago that they can't even think of what they would like to do.

For anyone who just got the phone call, that phone call, the one with the news you were dreading - the health update, the marriage breakdown, the death of a family member.

For the woman who sits at home alone, longing to talk to someone, longing to share her heart, desperate to be heard, who plucks up the courage to make a phone call only to be met with an uninterested tone of voice, a dial tone, a busy signal, a gruff response.

For those of us who lie in bed at night, jerked awake by the tiniest noise, terrified out of our minds about the terrors that surround us and the evil lurking in the hearts of bad men.

For anyone who thinks of their childhood and longs for things they never were able to have, and grieves for the child that just wanted to be told they were lovely, just as they were.

I see you.

And from my heart to yours, I hand you these:

"Those who believe they believe in God

but without passion in the heart, 

without anguish of mind,

without uncertainty,

without doubt,

and even at times without despair,

believe only in the idea of God, 

and not in God himself.

- Madeleine L'engle

If faith never encounters doubt, if truth never struggles with error, if good never battles with evil, how can faith know it's own power? In my own pilgrimage, if I have to choose between a faith that has stared doubt in the eye and made it blink, or a naive faith that has never known the firing line of doubt, 

I will choose the former every time   

 (Gary Parke, taken from "A Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel)

xx Sarah

P.S: If all has gone technologically to plan, you should be able to hit the play button below and listen to a song. I hope.

Hold On