why i cry.....

It depends how you look at it.  There are the ‘surfacy’, life-happens reasons for my tears: 

*I’m pregnant… and hormonal.

·         *I’m raising 2 VERY strong-willed toddlers that push every limit they find and test me at every turn in the road

·         *I can’t sleep. If I start the new day with 4 hours of good sleep under my belt, I consider it a good start.

·         *I hurt. For the last 2 months I have had continued back pain that will not go away no matter what I try

·         *I miss breathing on my own terms. I cherish the moments there is not a head or some other appendage lodged in my lungs.

But the more I look at it, I feel like the reasons I cry go a bit deeper than that.  The Lord has given me passions. Passions rooted deep in my heart. Passions that I want to live my whole life for. And right now, I feel like I am hitting nothing but road blocks when it comes to living out those passions. I love being a wife and a mother… I take both of these roles very seriously and I long to do them to the best of my ability.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mom. My heart beats stronger for this desire than for anything else. So, I was less than pleased when conception didn’t come ‘easy.’ But, nonetheless, it came.  And I was blessed with a beautiful baby girl to raise. And then another.  And soon a third! But after each birth comes the unfathomable emotions of PPD. Why?  Why give me a passion to raise children, but then make coping with them nearly impossible due to a highly unstable emotional state?

And pregnancy… I LOVE being pregnant. So why does this one have to be so hard?? I felt so blessed when all the symptoms of my depression were swept away when I became pregnant, but now I just feel like they were replaced with physical hurdles. I can’t play with my kids the way I want to because I am either struggling to breathe or struggling to walk. My patience with those closest to me is cut short because I’m tired and cranky.

Everything I want to do or try to do for my family has to be stopped or changed or put on hold because of two things I love very much… Pregnancy and Motherhood.  It just doesn’t make sense to me.

And of course there is always the longing to be a better wife. In an attempt to ‘step up my game’ this summer, I decided to do a personal study on the Proverbs 31 wife.  No better place to look if you want a good role model for how to be a better wife, right??  It all sounded good in theory, but instead I felt defeated. How could I ever live up to the standards this woman set?! She’s perfect. And she certainly doesn’t have toddlers.  I get the fact that she is an ideal. Something to work towards. But still I was left with the feeling that I can never even come close to being ‘that’ wife… and if that’s the case, what kind of wife am I?? 

This is where my tears come from. From the inability to be the best at the few things I long to be the best at.

As I have rolled these feelings and emotions over in my mind over the past week, I have been reminded again and again that God refines us like gold and silver. It’s not an easy process….  Gold and Silver are refined by FIRE. Not by grooming and patting and hugging…. By hot, intense fire.   But the end result is so beautiful. And long lasting.

So, refine me Lord. Test me. Strengthen me.  Make me as gold and silver.  And I promise to be patient and faithful through this process. Because I know on the other side of this fire I will be the women I need to be in order to serve my other passion…. Helping mothers that feel  just like I do right now.