This morning I woke up and it was one of those mornings where everything that I needed to do/wanted to do piled up in my head and I exploded with anxiety. I lost my cool and started to stomp around the house throwing toys in bins and tossing shoes in buckets.
I then realized that I was being ridiculous so I went to shower and get ready for the day. While getting ready I was able to sort out the tasks in my head and tried to prioritize them. I then went to apologize to Dan for my bad mood and explained my game plan.
30 minutes later I "fell" again. I started the "stressed out stomp" around the house. I was scrambling to come up with a grocery list and trying to get out of the house before lunch time. I got in the car and heard the words, "We raise our white flag and we surrender all to you." The radio was playing the song "White Flag" sung by Chris Tomlin (written by Matt Maher).
And that was it. The clouds parted and I felt God telling me to calm down. I had to pray and surrender to Him. And isn't that what Lent is all about? Really, that's what this life is all about. But I was reminded that during this Lent I need to "give up" trying to be Supermom. Kolbe does not have to be potty-trained this week to meet the "before he turns 3" deadline. Emma's birthday party will be planned and it will be fun no matter what. Joshua will one day stop eating every crumb he finds on the floor. I will get my retreat talk written. The house does not need to always look perfect...I need to daily surrender my imperfections and frustrations. The other sacrifices that I make do not mean anything unless I am pairing them with prayer and love.
So when I got home from the store, I immediately went and apologized again to Dan and told him about my thoughts. I made lunch and we sat down together to eat. After lunch, I waited to clean the kitchen and instead we made a simple crown of thorns. I used the idea from Catholic Icing to make the crown with old play-doh. It definitely looks weird, but it does the job and Emma is very excited to perform little acts of love to help take away the thorns from Jesus's crown.
Then I prayed a rosary. I took some quiet time while feeding Joshua to pray and mentally prepare for the week. And then, for the moment, all of things piling up in my head didn't seem as overwhelming after all.
Now I know everything I have just written is simple and maybe to most, quite obvious. But it's what I needed today.
So I'm not a total creeper, allow me to introduce myself, I'm one of Jenn's friends from Auburn. I really appreciate this post as reminding myself to surrender my struggles, weakness, and concerns throughout the day is a major failing of mine in which I am trying to get better at doing. My humanity gets the best of me almost every 2.5 seconds. You're a beautiful mom, to a beautiful family.