Pressure mounted on my chest making it hard to breathe. I didn’t want my tone of voice and attitude to be dripping with annoyance and anxiety, but it was. I planned this morning to be a fun morning. The girls and I were holding down the house this week while Loren attended a conference in Texas.
When dads away you party right?
Each day we did something fun to pass the time, but today was Good Friday. Double reason for lots of happiness and fun right? A celebration of what Jesus did for us. I planned to weave fun into each moment. I had alot of moments planned. More moments more fun, right?
Yet my plan was crumbling before my eyes.
Whining, crying, and fighting grated on my nerves. It felt worse than nails on a chalkboard to my ears. The pressure was pushing on hard on my chest. I knew all too well from past experience that if I didn’t change course quick, something mean would come out of my mouth.
The sentences were already bouncing around my mind like a caged animal: “Why can’t you people just stop! I don’t want to do anything with you if all there is going to be is this awful behavior! Arn’t you grateful for anything?”
Clenching my teeth so the words wouldn’t slip out, I backed away from the situation. With a calm click of the lock on my door I escaped for a moment. Squeezing my eyes shut I took a deep breathe and prayed for wisdom and for Jesus to live through me. My mind did a quick skip over all I promised the girls today.
- Set up a pretend store. Fun for the girls and opportunity to practice Kina’s money counting skills (without overtly teaching). Killing two birds with one stone, check and CHECK.
- Make “fairy treats” from the book Renly checked out from the library. In the back of my mind I knew I could give some away to a friend with an upcoming birthday. Another double check mark. I was feeling pretty productive.
- Play games.
- Make buttery popcorn and watch a movie.
I am not sure about you, but in my mind my plans are alot more glittery and doable than reality allows. I realized as I scanned the list in my mind the pressure on my chest could not only be blamed on my girls ungrateful bad attitudes. I took on too much for the day. Cooking stresses me out and I didn’t want to teach school today. But the store idea hadn’t ended up going as planned and my feet were deep in teaching moments.
After that deep breath and quick prayer, I realized that I over promised. I yearned to keep all the promises, but I knew that if I tried I would be an annoyed grumpy mom the entire day. The entire point of today was to enjoy each other and celebrate what Jesus did for us–not pack in all the things to try to bring happiness.
No, happiness is found in the wonder of the moment. Not the amount of moments I can attempt.
After one more huge inhale I left the room praying God would continue to change my attitude. Facing my girls I said, “you know, I think I overcommitted today.” I turned to Renly, “I don’t love cooking and I found out I don’t have the cutters to make the fairy treats. It won’t turn out well without them. Instead of one game, let’s pick two to make up for the fairy treats.”
I then faced Kina and said, “we have had some fun with the store, but let’s finish by focusing only on the money exchange so we can have more time for games.” As much as I didn’t want teach I knew Kina needed the concepts more than fun.
Of course melt downs followed. Cue another incredibly deep breath.
I wanted to push them away and put noise canceling headphones on, but instead by God’s grace, I drew them close and continued. “I am disappointed too. I wanted to do all those things but if I try I know I will be an angry annoyed mother. There wont be fun and happiness, just annoyance.” I kissed their heads. “Do you want that?”
“No,” they both murmured against my side.
We proceeded to huddle in a big group hug before all the disappointments were overcome and we could follow through with the new plan. As we walked through the day the anxiety and pressure on my chest lifted and happiness and excitement permeated our activities again.
I didn’t want to surrender to the new plans either. I lost productivity and pride. I could no longer pat my back for killing two birds with one stone and I no longer felt like super mom.
Yet, a new understanding dawned on me. I may have sacrificed a few tasks in order to honor my limits, but I gained something far greater. I gained peace.
It is so easy to try to achieve and do in our fast paced society. We think it will bring us peace, if we are somehow able to extend ourselves past our limits and attain our lofty plans. Lofty plans are in no way a bad think…unless they steal our peace. If we pack too many moments into our day we have no space to breathe. If we can’t breathe we feel pressure, not peace. We must leave margin in our days for life to happen.
My friend, I am giving you permission today to take a deep, deep, DEEP breath and really analyze your plans. Is there something you can let go? Is there something that seemed more glittery and doable before you sat down to do it?
Breath it out, let it go. It may be really hard to let it go, I get it. But I promise you, if you are brave enough to let go of what you can’t do right now, you will gain something even better. Peace.
Take a deep breathe. Let it go.
