Feeling Better

I was fully expecting this morning when I woke up to get Gabe to school and head the rest of us off to MOPS that I’d discover one or more of us was too sick to go. It’s been around 6 weeks after all since I’ve last been able to have something akin to a normal schedule because of all the sickness going around the family. I was pleased that I didn’t feel worse, no symptoms to add to my fever from yesterday and I was too busy this morning to take my temp so if I was warmer than normal I ignored it.

It was great to get back to MOPS. I was nearly ready to throw in the towel as a table leader having missed two meetings in a row and if I missed a third… what good is a table leader that’s never there?

But we got there and it was fun, I loved seeing all “my” ladies and we watched a great Julie Barnhill video about managing anger. Not that moms ever have reason to lose their temper or anything. I confess it is a huge relief to hear someone speak who has actually had major issues with temper (this mom threw her two-year old across the room to her bed where she ended up hitting the wall) and who has come back from it and learned to do differently. Because of the way I was raised, by an angry, abusive mother who was always ready with hurtful words and hurtful hands, I have often struggled with how to handle certain stressful situations. There was a time in twenties were I very nearly made up my mind to NEVER have kids because I was so worried that I would follow her footsteps. (Oh, how I’m glad I didn’t commit to that decision.)

At times this has felt like an uphill battle and I have been far from perfect but watching the video (again) today gave me great encouragement. I felt further removed from the emotions that bring me to that brink of exploding than I ever have. Julie mentions in her video that she did not have children to fix them but so that she could become more like Jesus. Well, I don’t know how close I’ll get but I can say that I am more like Jesus now than when I had kids and I don’t think I would be, at least not in the same ways, than if I hadn’t had children.

I also think about how much Zion is like me. She IS me. Only she likes pink. When I was pregnant with her and thinking on names it was a song that brought me the name “Zion”. And then as the pregnancy progressed I felt as though I was hearing God say over and over that she was going to be my healing. The kind of healing that usually occurs only in heaven, in Zion, would be here for me on Earth through her. I have often wondered what kind of person I would have turned out to be had I not heard such awful untruths as my mother ingrained in my head about my self worth or what I would be like if I never had to worry about being struck or kicked. I get to see that, in a way, through her.

This is not at all what I’d planned to write about but I guess that’s what happens when I sit down and don’t really have a plan at all.

On a lighter note I had a tough time choosing My 365 today. I went with this:

Our precious pup beat the cats to the sunbeam on the living room floor today. He’s such a handsome guy.

But I could have gone with this:

Another handsome guy. Only this one likes to pretend to cook and wash dishes in the kitchen sink. And I let him because he will happily play there for a long, long time. And the floor gets “mopped” at the same time. At least a half circle in front of the sink does anyway. Yep, that one’s good for my soul, too. ALL my kiddos are, salve to my wounded soul.