Baby Blues

I'm just going to be painfully blunt for a moment. Life is hard right now. And even as I'm writing this, there's a part of me that's feeling like a whiny baby. I don't want to seem that way at all. I know that there are plenty of women in the world who would trade places with me in a moment. Missionary moms raising four young children in the jungle, for example. (Thank you Shirley) All the same though, I find myself struggling fairly often these days.
Isaac has brought so much joy and wonder into our family. He is such a beautiful addition. Words can not do justice to how I felt the moment I first held him in that delivery room. Rachel just adores her baby brother, and he thinks she's pretty neat as well. She can get the biggest smiles from him. I already can't imagine our little family without him. I'm so thankful for the blessing that he is to all of us. And I try so hard to keep all these truths at the forefront of my mind during the day, but it is difficult.
I'm learning that I prided myself on how "together" I thought I was. I found more comfort and security in keeping my schedule and routine than I realized. I felt as though if I could tick all the bullet points off my to-do list, then that meant I (and the children) had had a good day. If I could do all that with minimal discipline drama, that meant not only did we have a good day, but that I was an exceptional mother. This was the reality that I was failing to see. See, I thought that I was depending on God to get me thru the day, trusting in His sovreign plan. I'm sure that there were moments when I was doing that, but overall, I was trusting myself and my organization of my plans for my day.
With all the joy that has come with having this new little man in the house, there have also been a ton of kinks thrown into my plans. Pretty much every day has gone nothing like I thought or even wanted it to go. But God is patiently bringing me to the place where I can not only say, 'thats okay,' but that I can also fully be at peace and embrace the plans He made for my day. "Submit and trust" has become my little mantra. It is a hard, hard lesson to learn but it is good.