Help-meet??

I read a book a while back about being a husband's "Help-meet" as I guess is the appropriate translation of the Genesis account of what a woman was created to be. Tonight, I just feel a little bit overwhelmed by that task and am reminded that it is in God alone that true comfort, help and restoration is found.

My husband is struggling tonight with frustration, guilt and shame for a small financial situation we've found ourselves in. Like so many Americans, the downturn of the real estate market has effected so many, including my little family in these walls tonight. We, like many others, are possibly going to lose a house, hopefully to a short-sale, but certainly to something, and it is currently at an unknown cost to our current home and/or assets. It is not in this realization that my husband has found his frustration tonight, but in the factual, grueling hardship letter that had to be composed detailing the downfall.

Although I am not a man, I understand that financial provision is up there among most men's "must-do" lists and I can assume that any litany of my negative decisions and actions typed out in Times Roman for all the world to see would be humiliating and overwhelming.

I lack the ability to cheer him up tonight, and he went to bed quite solemn and exasperated.

I am reminded of a story in Tina Fey's (not-very-Christian) book (that I found greatly enjoyable!): Bossypants. She recounts the story of her mother watching two small Greek children while their parents went to a wedding. The baby cried non-stop in the playpen the ENTIRE time the parents were gone, and after hours and hours of this torture, the 7-year-old brother couldn't take it anymore. He eventually burst and yelled out in Greek (which Tina Fey's mother understood) something along the lines of, "What will come of us!!???" Privy to the situation in the scope of the human existence, their situation was not very horrific, and Fey's mom ran to the kitchen to hide her laughter at this situation.

Although her connection was not spiritual, I agreed with her point: many times in life, we are that small, 7-year-old boy, running around thinking the entire world is crashing down on us in a not-so-tragic situation. I believe this must at times be what God sees of us--running and scrambling and crying out in frustration, anger or shame at the situation we have found ourselves in, when really, He is with us. He is in control.

I am grateful that whatever situation we find ourselves in, just by aligning ourselves in Him, we are never removed from God's presence, love and plan for our life.

Rough Mom Day

Recently, I've been struggling with my identity as a mom.

I am not sure who I am other than "mom" and many times I feel like my former, non-mom self is such a faint memory that I don't even recall how I felt. I look back on decisions I've made, journals I've written and letters I find that seem to evoke thoughts from someone I've never met.

Maybe everyone does this as they age and it has less to do with mom-dom and more to do with the passage of time and maturity.

I just wonder when the Katie I remember and the mom I've become will join hands and work together, or will there constantly be this perpetual pull in two different directions as if one of them is in the wrong and needs to be let go.

I love my girls. I can honestly say that before having them, I never thought I could love someone so much that your whole life would be encompassed in them. I am just in the beginning stages of becoming that uber-involved mom. I run and lead a playgroup for my littlest two and worked 6 hours/week in my oldest daughter's classroom. They are hardly ever away from my side for more than a few minutes while I potentially have a second to myself or to share with my hubby in the evening. They even still join us in our bed in a nightly parade of pitter pattering feet walking across the hall. Next year, my middle daughter will start Kindergarten and I am sure I will be with her every step of the way. I love being involved in their lives, I love spending time with them, and I love watching them grow.

Yet, why do I feel sometimes that with each give of myself toward their lives, that I lose a little bit of my own identity as a person?? Does it have to be this way? Are the two connected on a line that pulls and pushes in directly opposite directions, or is this connection just in my head??

I had a hard mom day today. I felt frustrated by my children fighting, crying, fighting and crying again. An outing to the park was delayed and eventually we ran out of time, my lofty dinner plans went awry as the chicken that I bought expired a few days before. None of those individual frustrations add up to the way I felt today: suffocation. After the chicken date check, and the all too casual F-bomb that I dropped loud enough for all ears to hear, I lost it and sobbed for 30 minutes. My dear children and husband tried to comfort me, but I felt very confused and lost in my own thoughts that I wasn't quite ready for comfort.

Is there another job in the world that causes so much inner conflict, love, joy, pain and sadness all at once? I can't imagine it.

And I can't imagine my world without my beautiful girls, either.

Bad day or not, they are the most amazing thing I've ever been blessed with.

Before they went to bed, I heard them laughing and playing in the other room and I was reminded of myself as a small child making up a store and then "buying" different items. It brought a smile to my face to end the day, and I am thankful for little bits of joy in the midst of anything.

For that God, I am thankful.