No. 55: Every Inch a Grace

We weren't going to have this conversation today

Last week, I scheduled a post called, “The Ultimate Cheat Code: Traveling with Kids.” October is incredibly busy with O traveling and gone a few times this month, check-ins at the new house more than ever, fall break and all the things. How do you cope with a busy schedule? Type and type and type before the dream feed and at nap time and in the school pick-up line and on walks to try and get the teensiest bit ahead. For the first time since Enakhe was born, I was able to write a post early. And now, a week later, it feels wrong.

If I had to choose a single word to give this past week a name, it would be “overwhelming.”

Thank God that I don’t have to choose just a single word,
that’s why I have a newsletter.

O was out of town last weekend to support a friend in California. I wanted him to go. I championed him going and made him a snack pack and wrote him a card to thank him for doing this thing that will make him feel human and loved and free in the way that only solo time with a great friend for the first time in a year can do. Usually we do these trips together, but it’s not the season for that. An embarrassing thing I withhold telling anyone who isn’t incredibly close to me is that when O is out of town, I tend to deal with panic attacks and accompanying symptoms come night time. Many people are nervous or even terrified when their partner isn’t home in the night, but this anxiety literally prevents me from sleeping more than maybe an hour or two once I know it’s 4am and the sun will come up soon enough.

What’s the single thing you need more than anything when you have four babies—two of which will most certainly rise before the sun—who need all of you in the morning?

Sleep.

We had birthday parties to attend, soccer games to play in and the rhythm of putting a baby down to sleep over and over and I did the thing we all do as mothers when life won’t cater to your needs; I just kept going. And going. And honestly, I ran myself into the ground.

With my autoimmune disease, wires start to cross and eventually fray when I mix a lack of sleep with stress. I started to notice that creeping feeling that starts as a drop of a thought in my brain and before I know it, I feel it in my chest. My eyes. My fingertips. The feeling that rises when I feel trapped in a cycle I recognize is uncomfortable and unsustainable but also inescapable.

It was the realization and forced acceptance that the only non-negotiable in my entire life is my children. When I have a baby that needs help to fall and stay asleep seven times a day* or a child who is sick or while I simply live out my daily reality of life as a work-at-home homeschooling mom, they are the non-negotiable part. My shower is up for grabs. Our date night isn’t guaranteed. Sleep is a toss up. Time with friends or time alone is the first thing on the chopping block. Of course some seasons are much easier than others and of course I wouldn’t have it any other way. That goes without saying (and yet needed to be said.) Despite that, in the depths of a hormonal anxiety surge and irrational thinking, I started to think this phase would last forever. That this feeling— this, “I’m not a human, I’m just a caretaker for humans" feeling was inescapable**.

I felt weak for being overwhelmed. I felt frustrated for feeling weak. I shared it with O in a whisper in the dark with his arms around me and tears in my eyes.

And then I woke up to the news in the Middle East.

As much as I have tried to educate myself, (this is always my first resource) I’m not qualified to discuss this through a political lens. I won’t claim to understand the tension and relationship between Isreal and Palistine since the beginning of time. What I do feel qualified to discuss is the way my brain simply couldn’t wrap itself around the depths of evil and hatred and darkness I was witnessing. It wouldn’t compute. But there it was.

And in that moment, my own overwhelm felt repulsive to me. How dare I be frustrated with my own circumstances? What was wrong with me? I couldn’t get it together. I couldn’t stop thinking of those babies. Those mothers. Those families. The hostages. Those now suffering in Gaza.

How can I help?
When will it end?
Will this happen again?
Will this happen here?

The spiral,
down
down
down.

And then sometime midweek I remembered that the newsletter that was ready to go suddenly felt like the most frivolous, unnecessary information you could possibly absorb right now. I didn’t know what to say, but it certainly wasn’t that anymore.

When the news of tragedy reaches the ears and eyes of a mother already in overwhelm here in her own small, safe world, it seeps out and threatens to spread itself over everything she touches in body and mind.

So I’m here to tell you that while I don’t have anything profound, I do have a reminder for you and for me: the difficulty you’re facing is real to you. It doesn’t need to be measured up to the pain of another and put up for consideration of whether it’s lesser or greater—it’s yours alone. The Lord has given us each the measure of grace we need for our own battles each day. This is truer than true.

But.

We also have a chance every single day to look at the world around us for the much needed perspective we often lose when we constantly take inventory of the ways we feel things are coming up short.

The war currently raging in the Middle East doesn’t eliminate my problems here in My House, USA in the sense that it doesn’t make them less real or less difficult. It does fill me with an immeasurable amount of empathy and gratitude and humility and remembrance that I don’t deserve a single beautiful thing in my life. Every inch of it is a grace. And as I pray for those I love who are suffering and those who I’ll never know who are suffering just the same, I can see my own suffering withering in this new light.

I see the truths in the Word afresh, putting to death the battles rooted in a desire for comfort and ease, bringing to life a desire for more of Him in this world.

I’m not sharing any recommendations in order to keep this space pure and simple this week. Next week, I’ll be back with two handfuls worth along with that post that wasn’t right for today, but will be more helpful then.

I’m forever here to provide your Friday morning delight and sometimes that has to look like just sharing my heart without a neat gold ribbon on top. Thank you for making this a space where that’s okay.

One last closing thought—

My kids watched High School Musical for the ninetieth time today from a fort under the coffee table saying, “I’m Gabriella” and “I’m Troy” and that’s the sort of scene that makes me weep when the world is on fire. The gift of the mundane is more beautiful than we realize.

Have a beautiful weekend, friends.

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*Enakhe is a phenomenal sleeper 99% of the time and I’m so grateful. He used to, however, have days where he needed help going to sleep or being put back to sleep for entire days at a time and for any mom who has been through this with one or multiple children, you know it causes a very specific sense of dread/hopelessness. It’s shortlived, but it’s real.

**I’ve felt this way many times in my nine years of motherhood and somehow never learn that the feeling is temporary. If you’re battling this thought just remember that while our kids are non-negotiables, motherhood doesn’t curse us to half a life. Our lives are enriched by our kids, not tarnished by them. Offer this feeling up to the Lord and ask Him to help you to walk in the joy and peace that are yours through the Holy Spirit. Hang in there.