Overwhelmed?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Like no matter how much you get checked off your to-do list each day, you’re swimming in tasks to do tomorrow? There’s never enough money in your pocket to take away the need to think about it (or lack of it). Not enough time in each day. Not enough energy, for that matter, to make the most-effective use of each God-given hour.

Some times life is just blah. Not really bad and not really good. Just a cycle of days, tasks, bills …

I have a tendency to see the “glass half empty.” I work daily (sometimes hourly) to pull myself out of these pits life seems to throw me in. There are days when I have to just claw myself out of the pit, and with fingers still bleeding slap myself and say, “WAKE UP!!!!!”

See I don’t have time to wallow in self-pity, let alone drown myself in my overwhelmed tears. My four children get up older every day, no matter if mommy feels like being mommy today or not. And despite the fact that I do struggle, like most people do I’m sure, with wanting to crawl in a hole and never come out, I want something else more.

When I look back on my children’s childhood — and let’s face it, my own youth — I want to see days filled with the excitement of Kadence’s first loose tooth, Rylan lost in the blackberry bushes, Bella’s love of her “piggy” and Masen growling like a lion.

Most importantly though, I want my kids to think back on their childhood and see my face smiling. Instead of me pouring over to-do lists, I want them to envision me filling their plates with their favorite foods. Rather than worrying about money, reading book after book after book. Bible times with mommy. Picking out treats at the store. I want the good to overshadow the bad.

Life is short. Life is temporary. It is busy, hard, hectic and it stinks a lot of the time. But I only get one. Thankfully, one life blessed with four little souls. And one day when I wake up, they will be graduating, getting married, having babies and I’ll be left to sift through the memories I’ve stored right now.

In light of that day, which will come sooner than I can imagine, I purpose to live each day the best I can. Sometimes that means leaving a load of dishes in the sink and a load of towels unfolded in the dryer. It might mean that the next morning I am left to transfer my leftover “to dos” onto my new to-do list. So be it. My chores will wait. It’s the kids who won’t. I will never be able to pause or rewind this time in our lives.

Because this too shall pass. With or without me.

As seen in the Lawrence County Record
www.lawrencecountyrecord.com