OCTOBER 22 “LOVE-MOTHERS”

 It went a little easier the second time around, the hormone fluctuations did not. I found myself spiraling downward in a sea of depression that seemed to rob me of all logic and rational thought, and I’m afraid I became a bit difficult for my boys to live with — both my little one and the one I’d married.

I just didn’t want to be the caretaker and carrier anymore. I wanted desperately to be taken care of, to be carried through life and not have to be so responsible and so needed.
It seemed one day I was crying because baby Maddie wouldn’t sleep, the next I was crying at Chuck E. Cheese because I just didn’t feel like playing with Nicholas, and the next I was crying because I didn’t think I could handle being their mother for one more day.
When I wasn’t being ridiculously irritable and angry, I was desperately sad and weepy. My sole joy in life was sleep. It was all I thought about and all I wanted to do. Everything else just seemed pointless or too difficult to manage. I was drowning in the irony that though I loved my children so much I’d give my life for them, I resented having to make their meals and wipe their faces.
How could any good mother loathe parenting so much? I felt horrific guilt on top of my depression.
Then somehow I found the energy to cry out for physical, emotional and spiritual help, and God began to show me through His Word and through His hand of compassion in my life that I really could make it through another day.
Paul said, "I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:13, NIV).
Granted, Paul was never a stay at home mother with a strong-willed child and a breastfed baby with jaws of steel, but I believed God’s promise to me and clung to His power, seeking His strength each day.
What He showed me was that these children He gave me came with a guarantee: If I rely on God, He will always provide the strength and resources I need to be a good mother.
He brought individuals into my life — both doctors and friends — who helped me get my mind and body back in order, and I began to gain the confidence that through Him I could rise to the occasion, as difficult as it sometimes seemed. These children were not given to me by accident; God handpicked them for my arms.
There are still mornings when I wake up and wonder how God will see me through the day and how I can ever overcome my own sin and selfishness to be the kind of mother I feel my children deserve. But I know God is faithful and I know He gives strength to the weary and grace to the humble (Isaiah 40:29; Proverbs 3:34).

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