Something I often have to remind myself is that surrendering to God is not something I do because I’m lazy or irresponsible. I surrender because I’ve learned what it feels like to reach the end of my own rope. I’ve learned how it feels to force things, only to watch them backfire immediately after. I’ve spiraled enough times to know I’m usually better off riding the waves with a little more ease.
At least in this phase of life, I feel the options are to either drive myself into the ground trying to get things to go according to my plan and my desires, or to surrender to the Lord’s greater plan.
The way this article panned out was not my intention, but to keep it as real as possible I’ve decided to keep the original starting point and continue writing in present tense from there. I’m not certain this makes a ton of sense, but we’re just going to roll with it…
You know how last week I said spiritual attacks can feel like being attacked by fire ants because everything seems to hit at the same time?
Well, it’s happening again.
This past weekend I sat in Church counting my blessings and feeling full of praise. I even got just the slightest bit prideful as I started to think “Hold on, maybe I do have this all under control”.
Not a chance, Alex. Not a chance.
I write this to you with my baby feeding on top of me as he recovers from a bug that left him projectile vomiting for 8 hours and with my daughter laying next to me as she sleeps after throwing up for the last 3.
Not that we would attempt to send them to school tomorrow anyways, but knowing we cannot until at least Friday & that work demands don’t stop because someone gets sick triggers a slight feeling of helplessness mixed with stress and a desire to escape or control.
Why does life have to be so humbling all the time?
Fortunately, I’ve seen this movie before.
If the opening scene is kids throwing up and my husband and me frantically trying to sanitize and rearrange our schedules, the climax is usually a near falling out over who’s gotten more sleep and who’s contributed more. The closing scene is all of us waking up one morning busting out of the house and me internally asking God, “What the hell was that?” before just jumping back into all the usual things. We always survive and we make a good team overall, but the tension between us can last for weeks.
Experience has taught me the storms are inevitable, but what if the amount of havoc they create could be slightly mitigated?
I’ve been on this quest to purify my home for a few months now, and here are a few steps I’ve taken:
-I’ve taken TVs out of the upstairs bedroom and my bedroom.
-I’ve read scripture and prayed over our front yard and backyard.
-I’ve been more intentional about swapping scrolling for reading the Bible.
-I’ve stopped using times like today as a reason to fall into bad habits again (too many sweets, not moving my body, buying things we don’t need).
So if my next move would normally be to hurry and get everything done that I need to while they sleep,
I’m going to swap that for sitting here and praying over them and/or reading instead.
**Update: right after I stopped writing this I read the following:
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
Romans 5: 1-5
Once I read that, I knew I was about to be in for it. About 3 hours after sweetly snuggling my babies and thinking the virus might just miss me because God was so pleased with my gracefulness, I began violently throwing up. The same thing happened to my husband 24 hours later, and we all puked and stumbled our way through the rest of the week.
It was so bad.
There is nothing like a stomach bug to bring you to your knees begging God to rescue you. And I cannot pretend I was the most graceful person when He didn’t immediately make me feel better.
Yet, I can see that there is growth in how we handled this. There is an undeniable small shift in how we’ve managed this time around, and I’m going to do my best to capture it because I’ve been trying to make this shift for years.
The growth:
Instead of seeking fairness, we sought healing.
Instead of killing ourselves to make it to meetings, we slept.
We didn’t waste much energy arguing. We accepted what the other could do, and just did the next thing that needed to be done.
I didn’t allow myself to entertain any mom guilt. I just prayed.
We limited our time on social media. I saw several posts that normally would have sucked me into the sentiment that either everyone is doing better than me and feeling sorry for myself or posts that would make me think life is dark and desolate and that I should be grateful I am merely dealing with a virus. I opted to put my phone down instead of feeding any of the falsehoods the enemy likes to feed me when I’m already down bad.
I don’t share these things with the intention of saying what great Christians we are. I share them more as encouragement that when we set our intention to seek the Lord–even in our weakest moments–we naturally start to make better choices. This again reminds me that surrender is a choice.
It’s not an apathetic giving up, it’s leaning in to the only person that can really help us in those moments where you have no idea how you are supposed to get through the night.
How we finally broke our cycle:
Prior to being so intentional about putting God first, I would’ve attempted to put my partner first in hopes he would do the same for me. Then I would’ve been disappointed at how selfish he seemed.
If not my husband, I might’ve tried putting my kids first and wound up way too depleted to take care of myself.
I have tried so many different ways of approaching sick days with my husband so that we can both be better stewards of our marriage, and it turns out the answer was simple–
Pursue God and do the next right thing.
That’s it.
How God responds or doesn’t respond may not make sense to us, but the very act of it seems to do something greater–it keeps us focused on a higher purpose.
Without that, I’m starting to think it might just be human nature that we start fighting with our partners as some type of backwards survival strategy when we’re sick.
Without God, maybe I could discipline myself into making better choices, but my resentments always boiled back to the surface the minute I saw my husband rested. Maybe he could try being more doting, but his irritation was always written on his face and that was enough to make me doubt his sincerity. We were both caught in an endless “never enough” negative feedback loop while running on E.
This time was different. When I focused on God, I stayed hopeful for healing. When I’m hopeful for healing, I do the things I need to heal. I take medication, I stay hydrated, and I eat something besides Oreos and goldfish.
When I’m focused on recovering, I recognize the need to sleep. And when I’m worshipping God, I’m not worshipping my job. I’m pleading with God that my best is enough. And if my best is enough–I’m going to sleep as much as I need to.
When I know my husband is praying just as much as I am, I trust God to guide his steps towards being a better partner. Full disclosure, I have tried to get my husband to be more nurturing for years. It turns out, all I needed to do was let go. When I surrendered that battle to the Lord, more change occurred than I could produce in years of trying on my own.
Finally, when I’m focused on the Lord–I honor my limitations. I remind myself that being human and less productive isn’t a sin. We are actually commanded to rest. When I rest, my kids rest. When I am restless and trying desperately to keep everyone happy, they are restless.
It turns out my over-functioning was not helping anyone, it was actually just making the situation worse every time. I had no more control when I over-functioned, I just had more frustration about my lack thereof. The more I tried to establish boundaries and expectations–the more we ended up at the mercy of whichever way the cookie crumbled. This time my focus was so much less on how hard it is to be the mom, and so much more on if God would time things in such a way we might be able to pull through. And He did!
The best part? When it was all said and done, we realized we had both been asking God for the same things. Do you know how huge it is for us to get on the same page about what we need?!
Admittedly, we are still scratching our heads at the moment as to why some of our prayers have not been answered, but I think the real moral of the story here might be that even when God doesn’t answer our prayers or reward us in the ways we think He should–the path towards Him changes our hearts.
This week I wasn’t acting selfless but secretly raging and angry on the inside. I was acting selfless and selfishly enjoying my time with my family.
So with that–I’m off to watch Boss Baby and see when the next new episode of Chad Powers will be released. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and if you’re a longhorn fan–Hook ‘em!
A prayer for when sickness wreaks havoc on our houses:
Lord,
Thank you for the hope and healing that flows through you.
You are so perfect that even the pursuit of you is holy.
We thank you for always drawing near, even when we don’t understand it or can’t feel you through the pain (or nausea).
We know that you are the Great Physician, capable of miraculous healing,
and we accept your will when you choose not to heal us immediately.
May you grant us grace and mercy on the weeks we can’t bear fruit,
and may we remember that we are not commanded to produce–we are commanded to abide.
Lord, we abide.
May we always find rest and refuge in you.
Amen.
