Well, Christmas has come and gone, and I made it through with no panic attacks and no tearful meltdowns.  I’m thankful for the Grace of God and Zoloft.  Come to think of it, that should be the title of my memoir, “The Grace of God and Zoloft”…pretty much sums me up.  Now as the end of the year is fast approaching, I’m contemplating my goals for the new year.  I’m the nerd who has literally written my resolutions down in my journal since I was 8 years old.  Some are quite comical to look back on.  Some I look back on and cringe, and thank the Lord for redirecting my plans, even if it meant me crashing and burning in a huge way.  In recent years, I’ve tried to simplify my goals and make them a little deeper than just “lose weight”.  Oh weight, that’s a whole other issue for a whole other blog post.  I don’t have the energy to tackle that story just yet.

Two days ago, I spent the entire afternoon in urgent care with my second respiratory infection in a month (fun!), which allowed me to finish two books I’d been reading.  It reminded me just how much I love reading, and not just mindlessly scrolling social media and whatever random junk shows up on CNN and Yahoo.  I know I cannot be the only Mom out there who finds some mental relief in mindless internet surfing.  Bonus points if it has something to do with education, then I can justify it in my mind as research for homeschooling.  I read in a magazine where one of the big trends for 2016 is ‘going old-school’: writing actual letters with pencil and paper, using notebook planners, reading books you hold in your hand-basically getting away from the blue screen.  I’m all for this, and desperately desire for my time behind the screen to be worthwhile and beneficial.  The verse that comes to mind is I Corinthians 10:23: “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.”  Oh, I cannot even count the areas I need to apply that verse!

I’m in the process of mixing things up with our homeschooling.  My girls are both gifted at Math, but hate it.  I’m switching up curriculums and trying to find the right fit to make it as fun as possible.  I’m not naïve enough to believe that I can make school one big party, but I am going to try my best to make learning fun.  I cannot say how much prayer has gone into this year.  If you homeschool, you are very familiar with the ups and downs.  There are days I feel on top of the world, like the Lord Himself is beside me affirming that we are doing great, and then there are days where I’m convinced the best thing is to send them to school- they’ll have fun and I’ll have peace and quiet.  Recently, we made the long-debated decision to allow our oldest to move up a grade.  Looking back, it was a no brainer, and something that should have been done long before now.  However, we never had peace and were relying on too many conflicting opinions.  I’m sure you know if you ask 10 people their opinions, you’ll have 10 different answers.  The reality was staring us in the face and it was just a matter of us making the jump.  All of her work was above grade level, her social group was in the next grade level, and the only reason she was even in her original grade was because of her birthday being one day after the cut off.  I will say once we took the official leap, there was immediate peace.  I love how God works!  I’m just trying to not think too hard about this next semester and how I’ll have a fourth grader next year.  If you’re a Mom who has it all together and feels 100% like you’re fulfilling your child’s every academic and social need, I would love to meet you.  Seriously, please get in touch with me, I need your confidence!

I’m pretty sure I qualify as OCD.  I’m probably off the chart OCD.  I hate clutter, I hate messes, I hate disorganization.  This doesn’t bode well when you have 3 small children.  I constantly battle being ‘that mom’ who has an anxiety attack over the state of her house instead of spending quality time with her children.  (cue: Zoloft)  My horror scenario is for my child to one day be on the therapy couch saying, “It all started when my Mom insisted I make my bed every day.”  I need balance.  I also struggle with what to give my kids.  I’m so beyond sick of little toys.  The kind you step on in the middle of the night and have to get your prayer life in order.  I literally have two trash bags of these toys currently in the back of my car waiting to go to the Salvation Army.  They’ve been there for 3 days and my kids have yet to notice.  That’s just embarrassing, sad, and such an eye opener for me.  I’m committing to focus more on experiences than material goods.

I’m convinced traveling is good for the soul and no one can ever, ever take memories from you.  Once I assured my hubby that I wouldn’t be dragging him back to Disney this year, he agreed.  I mean good grief, the man spent 10 days with us there smack dab in the middle of prime hunting season, so he’s definitely earned time away from Mickey.  I want my children to see the world beyond the bubble of rural SC.  I believe it was Mark Twain that said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice.”  I’m not exactly certain where 2016 will take my family, but I just want us to make memories together.

Time with the Lord is precious.  Unfortunately, I don’t treat it that way.  It’s so easy to get distracted with the endless things that Moms get distracted with, and devotions get pushed to the backburner.  Or maybe I’m the only one.  I teach a precious class of pre-teen girls on Wednesday nights, and I’m constantly telling them the importance of daily time with the Lord.  Not just praying.  Not just reading the Bible.  Both.  Unfortunately, too often I’m preaching what I’m not practicing.  I’ve learned in recent years that the best way for me to spend uninterrupted time with the Lord is to get up way before my kids.  Ideally, I’m up long enough ahead of them to do devotions and work out.  Ideally.  When my youngest was a newborn, it never failed, as soon as I cracked open my Bible, he would start screaming.  Tell me the devil doesn’t try whatever he can.  I am not a morning person.  If I had zero responsibilities in the world, you would find me staying up half the night painting, and sleeping most of the day.  I’ve just had to deliberately make the effort to drag myself out of bed before the sun is up and spend that time with the Lord.  On nights when the kids have had nightmares, or someone is sick, and sleep is desperately needed, I learned to give myself grace.  Grace.  How sweet it is.  I’ve learned that the Lord is still there for me to talk to and spend time with during the day if I’m up with my sick child at 5:30 instead of reading the Bible.  I equally need to be more disciplined and give myself more grace.  I’m a complicated one.

Maybe grace is the key word for 2016.  It’s become cliché to make resolutions and have them all be shot to pieces by February.  The feelings of failure set in and we just resign to nothing ever changing.  Maybe giving ourselves grace and realizing perfection is unattainable will help us stay the course.  There’s a quote I realize has been taken out of context, but still ranks as one of my favorites from CS Lewis.  He was referencing Heaven, but many have applied it to the turning of the new year: “There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”  Wishing everyone a very grace-filled 2016!

 

 

 

 

Did you know the holidays were stressful?  Or am I the only one that feels like that?  Oh, I know they’re not supposed to be, but despite my best efforts, they always seem to turn out that way.   Every.Single.Year. I say I’m not going to stress, I’m just going to enjoy the time with my family, and Every.Single.Year. I end up a ball of nerves.  I’m one who shops all year for gifts and plans ahead, but it seems the execution of things is what gets to me.   I happen to be artsy.  I love everything creative, and especially painting.  While it’s a blessing in that I can often make my own gifts, it turns into a double edged sword when you know people almost expect your gift to be handmade and doing so requires time.  Oh time, the most precious thing.  Am I the only one who feels like there is just not enough time?  I think that’s what stresses me out the most: feeling like there is too much to do and not enough time.  It seems for me, once November hits, the whirlwind begins.  Gone are the days when Thanksgiving and Christmas were separate and distinct, now I see people putting up their trees the day after Halloween.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it just reminds me that the countdown to Christmas is ticking fast.  It’s all just very overwhelming.

My family has even simplified Christmas the last couple of years.  Less gifts, more focus on family time and making memories.  And despite this, I still feel short of breath.  Maybe it’s the pressure.  I mean, look around.  The pressure to have the ‘Pinterest-perfect’ Christmas is everywhere.  Stores, television, social media, all plant the ideas of what Christmas should look like.  There’s few things that will rob a parent of joy than seeing what Santa brought someone’s little ones and it’s twice as much what yours have.  Or visit Toys R Us this time of year.  If you can walk through those aisles and still feel like an awesome parent, God bless you.  I am not materialistic and try to be very frugal, but I admit, it’s tough to see all the ‘cool new things’ out there for kids and not feel a bit guilty that your kid is left out.  I’m not talking necessarily about finances, I think even when parents can afford the entire store but deliberately make the choice to limit their children, they may still feel that pang of guilt.  Maybe not.  Maybe I’m the only one who feels guilty no matter what.  I don’t know if it’s my personality or fatal flaw, but I swear no one can make me feel any worse about myself than me.  Maybe it’s a Mommy thing.  I don’t spend enough time with my kids.  I spend too much time with my kids.  I don’t do enough for them.  I spoil them too much.  We should be reading books by the fire while Christmas music plays softly in the background instead of the kids watching their second (or third) television show in a row while Mommy is in the other room attempting to wrap presents as a guise to get a sanity break.  That’s what Pinterest tells me anyway.  Oh Pinterest, I love to hate you and I hate to love you.

On top of this madness of the ‘perfect Christmas’, is the constant posts popping up about how Christians should be doing Christmas.  You know, how Christians shouldn’t even entertain Santa or do the Elf on the Shelf, because after all, “Jesus is the Reason for the season.”  Nothing says ‘peace, love, and joy to all’ like self-righteousness.  I’m not going to get into it here, but if you’ve sought the Lord about what He wants for your family, by all means, do your thing.  And understand that it’s not necessarily what He’s told other families.  Peace, love and joy to all.  We have enough to deal with in this crazy world without Christians turning on each other.

The pressure to be perfect.  Story of my life.  No one can put more pressure on me than I can on myself.  I remember in one of my therapy sessions,(another story of my life) the counselor showed me a pair of Chinese handcuffs and had me try them out.  Obviously, you know how they work.  The harder you try to get out of them, the tighter they become.  He made the point that I was stressing myself to death.  (Did I mention I was 12?  And people think I’m joking when I say I have a bucketful of issues)  I think Christmas just magnifies everything, because we do want it to be magical, especially for our children.  I have in my head how things should be, and when inevitably they don’t turn out that way, I feel like a massive failure.  And you know what?  My kids could not care any less about what their crazy Mommy deems perfect.  Some of our best memories are when things go the exact opposite of perfect.  You would think I’d catch on by now and just go with it.

I am really, really good at not applying to myself what I teach my kids.  My oldest daughter is a worrier.  My younger daughter constantly compares herself to others.  Both traits they inherited from me.  I can preach an awesome sermon to both of them about how there’s no need for that, and they are children of the One True King who loves them just as they are and He will never, ever leave them and will carry their burdens.  Saying and doing are two very different things.  I make the conscious effort for my children to not see how anxious I am, but I’m pretty sure the time I had a full blown panic attack in front of them kind of gave it away.  Not my proudest moment.  I KNOW the Lord is always with me and will never, ever leave me.  That doesn’t mean I always FEEL that way 100% of the time.  The times I do feel good about things, I start to worry that I’m forgetting something.  Yep.  Then I feel guilty when things are going good- I’m reminded of countless others who find Christmas the most depressing time of the year.  I’m convinced guilt is one of satan’s biggest weapons.

I’m so glad the Lord loves messed up people like me.  Can you imagine if He only accepted the ones that had their acts together?  I have a feeling Heaven would be very sparsely populated.  This year, I really, truly do want to focus on Him and stress less.  Those that know me and see me on a regular basis, feel free to hold me accountable.  Seriously, I will not be offended!  If for no other reason, think of my children and their future therapy bills.  Ask me if my priorities are in order.  If I’m saying no to things that will add stress to the family.  If I’m making the effort to not sweat the small stuff.  I do pray for this Christmas to be special.  If absolutely nothing goes as planned, it will be okay.  It’s not about me and my crazy plans, it’s about Him and the birthday of the King.  Peace, Love and Joy to all.