Hanging On

I was so excited to write earlier today. I had all kinds of fun interesting thoughts that I wanted to explore on paper. Now I find myself hanging on and needing to write about the struggle this evening has been.

Church was enjoyable as was fellowship time after church. I enjoyed hearing the Word of God preached by our Pastor. Worship was uplifting and a time where I could thank God for his goodness and faithfulness. We sang a song “More Love” with the words “I will worship you with all of my mind. I will worship you with all of my heart. I will worship you with all of my strength. You are the Lord. You are the Lord.” God has been teaching me about the importance of my thoughts. The importance of what I allow to occupy my mind. The song speaks of worshiping God with all of our mind, heart and strength. I think the mind is where it all starts. The things that we think about affect our heart, attitude, actions and much more. Anyway God has been showing me that I must choose to have positive thoughts. I must choose to think truth and not lies. For example, I choose to think about how I am a blessing to people rather than how I let people down. I must choose to think about all the good things I have rather than the bad, the good aspects of my health rather than the not so good and so on. Joyce Meyer talks about how we have to get rid of that “stinkin thinkin.” She also talks about how where the mind goes the man follows. Wow is that ever true. If I let my mind think crabby thoughts then I start acting crabby. If I let myself think about the areas that I think my husband needs to work on then I end up being critical of him. It is so true, what we think about in our minds directly affects how we act and how we interact with other people.

We had communion which is fascinating to me. I have many thoughts about communion but I do not have the energy to write about it now. In any case it was a time for me to examine myself and to ask God to forgive me for the many ways that I fall short. Communion is a time that we are reminded of how Jesus died to cover the penalty for our sins. Jesus died (but rose again) so that I may be forgiven. It is always good to take time to examine our lives, examine the things that we are doing or are not doing that are not glorifying to our awesome God. So I looked at my life, confessed my sin and then celebrated my forgiveness. I celebrated the life that I have in Christ Jesus. I ate the bread that represents His broken body and drank the wine (juice) that represents his blood that was shed for me. I did this and was thankful. Thank you Jesus for taking my punishment for sin, for making it possible for me to spend eternity with you and for making it possible for me to live a victorious life.

After church I really wanted to not take a nap. We have so much work to do around the house and I really wanted to get some of that done. The carpets are clean. But everything that was in or on furniture is now in boxes or plastic garbage bags. It is so frustrating. I hate not knowing where things are. I hate having bags of stuff lying around. I need to get some serious work done in the house because it is driving me crazy. I want to do it. I am ready to do it. And then once again I am overwhelmingly tired. The kind of tired where I cannot think strait and I cannot function properly. If I had made myself stay up I would not have been very productive at all and would probably have become very depressed because both the house and my tiredness were overwhelming. So I napped. I slept hard. Really hard!

I am getting really tired right now. It is late and I should go to bed but I want to flesh out this evening that was so disheartening. We decided to go to Target to exchange our new tent that has a hole in it. While in Target I had an episode. There was all the stimulation of the store, we were trying to make a decision about what tent to get and Nate was not telling me what he wanted. I was trying to read his mind. Too bad that NEVER works. Then as Nate was talking to me, Vienna was talking at me and I was surrounded by business I started to feel like the walls were closing in on me. I felt very anxious and out of control. I could not handle all of the stimulation. I stopped Nate and addressed Vienna who had been telling us how hungry she was since the moment we got out of the car. Then I told Nate we needed to make a decision or leave. He was not in a decisive mood. I wanted to get the tent picked out and be done. We left without a tent and with me very on edge.

Then we went to a restaurant. I have been having trouble with this lately. I can’t seem to handle keeping Vienna occupied and trying to have a conversation with Nate. I can’t seem to multi-task anymore. So I end up having to focus on Vienna and Nate gets neglected. That is a problem but I just can’t seem to do both. As soon as we arrived at the restaurant I went to the bathroom by myself. I went to pray and do my relaxation exercises to try to get a hold of my emotions and rid myself of the yuckiness that I was feeling. Deep breaths, in and out, in and out. I kept telling myself, “You are ok, you can do this, and you can do all things through God who gives you strength. I then I said, “Lord help me, Lord help me, Lord help me do this, help me calm down and be able to handle dinner.” It sounds silly that I would have to plead for help to make it through a dinner at a restaurant but that was the state I was in. I was very frustrated and sad about the state I was in. I felt out of control but I was desperately and determinedly grasping for control. I did my deep breathing exercising repeating, “I relax. I let go. I am still and I know that You are God.”

I made it back to the table. Phew we made it through dinner without me falling apart. I think Nate was a little disappointed with my poor conversational skills but he also understood. Vienna has been very challenging this weekend so keeping her under control has been a daunting task.

We then decided to go to Wal-Mart to check out their tents. Bad move. Bad, bad, bad move. We all were tired so why did we go? We are leaving to go camping Thursday evening or Friday morning so we need to get a tent without a hole in it. Why did we go tonight? We made a bad decision. Vienna wanted to run around, I wanted to sit in quiet and Nate, well I am not sure what he wanted. After Vienna ran off for the second time we decided to leave. Thank God. The indecisiveness about the tent was driving me nuts and Vienna was driving me nuts too.

When we got home I sat in the car by myself for ten minutes. I sat in the quiet and thought about what had happened. Why was I incapable of making it through an evening like this with my sanity intact? I was doing my best to not berate myself for not being able to handle a simple trip with my family to the store and restaurant. I don’t think it is a good idea for me to shop with both of them for a while. I can’t seem to shop, keep track of Vienna and answer her constant questions and converse with my husband. I think I will be taking a sabbatical from family shopping trips for a while. Later in the evening I told Nate about how I had a really hard time in the store. I asked him to please stop talking to me if Vienna is talking to me also. I cannot handle both at the same time. If we were talking first then we need to stop and ask Vienna not to interrupt or deal with her immediate need. Nate tends to tune Vienna out. I cannot do that. If we tune her out she just continues to ask her questions more frequently and much more loudly.

After my respite in the car I dragged myself into the house, into the Vienna not wanting to go to be chaos. I went into the bedroom, closed the door and worked on relaxing. Breathing in and out, slowly in and out. I then barely made it through reading V some books, tucking her in, having her go potty again, her asking for more books, asking for songs and singing two songs. I ran to the bedroom and closed the door. Quiet. I was alone! All I wanted to do was binge eat and watch TV or go to bed. No I said in my head. No I must do what will help my health. I must fight. Don’t give up Carly fight. So I did my relaxation exercises. I felt better until I left my bedroom. Then I was bombarded with the messy unorganized house. I thought, “Ok relaxation is not enough I will do yoga. I don’t feel like doing yoga. I am tired and I just want to watch TV b but I will do yoga.” I had to ask Nate where the yoga tape was. He could not find it in the many garbage bags filled with our stuff. So I did this other yoga type tape called Praise Moves. I did the 10 minute walking warm-up and was in tremendous pain. It was walking along with some gentle aerobic moves. OUCH it hurt. But I did not give up. I persevered and pushed through the stretching/yoga like workout. After a few minutes I had to stop and simply stretch. I could not believe how much pain I was in. It made me sad.

I am sad. I miss running and doing Ta Bo. I want to get back into good physical shape but when I try my body screams with pain after 10 minutes of an easy workout. But (deep breath) something is better than nothing. A few baby steps forward is better than moving backwards. Baby steps Carly. It is ok to take baby steps.

Right before I started writing this Nate and I talked briefly. Almost every time I have called his name this weekend he has answered with “What did I do? What did I do wrong?” It is breaking my heart. I have asked him several times what I am doing that is making him feel that way. It was not until tonight when I made him sit down and talk to me that I got an answer. He said that he can feel my frustration with the house all of the time and he knows that it is his fault. I apologized for making him feel that way. I don’t want to make him feel like he cannot win no matter what he does. I held back tears as I promised that I would try to not act frustrated or disappointed with him. I want him to feel loved, secure and supported. I have got to deal with my frustration with the house. Deep breath…..I am letting my frustration go. I think that there is something deeper going on. I think I have really hurt him with my crabbiness and irrationality and feel defensive all the time.

Lord please help me change how I am acting and reacting to Nate. Please help me be the loving supportive wife that he needs. Please help me to be gentle and loving with him. Please help communicate openly and lovingly. Please help us work through any issues that are prying us apart. Lord I want to be close to my man. I want to be a blessing to Him. Please help me do this. Please help me hide any frustration I have with the house. Please give me lots of energy and endurance to get the house under control. Please Lord. Please I need your help.

I read my friends blog last night and I have pasted a portion of it here. After I read it I thought to myself do I love both Vienna and Nate in this way. Am I?

My friend wrote:

I find I’m asking myself lately whether I’m truly loving my child in my behavior/responses/reactions to her.
The 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love…
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

Am I loving her like this? Like I have been called to love her?
Most days, I’m sad to say, the answer is no.
And it shows in her behavior.

God has such high standards of love. I did not do so well today but tomorrow will be better. Let’s see….Love is patient love is kind. Love is patient. Love is patient. Carly you can do it. Carly be patient and kind. Lord Jesus please help me be patient and kind as you are so patient and kind.

Tomorrow is a new day. God’s mercies are new in the morning. My pain will be better in the morning. The joy of the Lord is my strength. I just keep telling myself the joy of the Lord is my strength. The more joy the more strength.