What I learn from my children Part 3

I have really had to make a conscientious effort to sit down and Blog or else my mind would have exploded with all the raging thoughts going through my head. I thought I would be able to blog a lot more, but contrary to popular belief a stay-at-home mom doesn't have that much time after all. It has been a very big rude awakening to my system as in the past 5 and a half months I have been able to watch only one movie and I still don't have a french manicure :)

I always think that when family or close friends read my Blog they are in such shock because I hardly speak about this stuff and the reason is because I find it very challenging to express myself in words. I make way more sense when I write.

Anyways this Blog is not intended to whine about the challenges of a stay-at-home mom but rather part 3 of what I have learned from my children and today's BIG gruelling lesson is one us woman ALL struggle with - SELF-WORTH!!!! What a b...ee sting!!

You open up the Glamour magazine and hear you are not groomed enough, pretty enough, thin enough. You watch Top Billing and notice you are not rich enough, uber trendy enough and swab enough. You go to mom's group and realise you don't have enough gadgets, your child is not in routine enough, your child is not in Kindermuziek enough. You go to church and you hear you don't serve enough, attend enough, give enough. You go to the doctor and you hear you are not healthy enough. Your children get ill and then you are not taking care of them enough. You open up Living and Loving and find out you are not a good enough wife. You walk past people that you once shared every possible dream with and realise you not good enough. You discipline your child and wonder if your efforts with your children are good enough. You mess up with a friend and think you are not a good enough friend.

I don't know about you but at the end of the day after all this external orbit of experiences flying around me I just don't feel good about myself and it seems as if my best just wont suffice.

I know our struggle with self-worth all stems from different places and roots and mine mainly stems from my recent decision to resigning my work of many years. I had such an identity in my work and what I did that; take that away from me and I am like: "Who am I"?. This past five and a half months have been a roller coaster with more downs thans ups and I can only thank God for my ever patient husband, my sisters calling in every day and few girlfriends who have tried understanding. I have never felt this exposed before.

I never knew my identity was so wrapped up in the department I used to lead and the people who "needed" me. So going from Hero to Zero in a matter of seconds, one could imagine I "cold turkied" HARD.

The Facebook comments such as: "Weez your are the best and we look up to you" and "Thanks for helping me today, you are so special", started drying up and I was like Noooooo, that was my personal heroin. My personal drug that gave me constant highs. Of course I did not realise this at the time because I was too busy saving the world for Jesus or maybe for my own self worth it would seem.

Now sitting at home and not feeling very useful to the world and changing yet another crappy nappy, being vomited on so much that it smells like your own personal brand of fragrance and cleaning another toilet and reading the praise reports of others I realise that my self-worth was mainly based on what I did for God and not who I am to God.

At present the only element that I can open or confront and feel good enough about myself is the scriptures. At this point in time I am learning so much from the life of David. He is sooooo emotional for a guy :) In all honesty what an unstable mess of a man, and I am like; "Why would God want to use him?" But somehow David get's the title of God's blue-eyed boy. David's auto-biography in the Old Testament gives me hope that God will love me no matter what current mess I have find myself in or no matter how angry or sad I am at times or no matter what I do.

That's what's so great about His unconditional love, it's UNCONDITIONAL!!!

The picture of Lexie-Grace in her undies is PERFECT and it teaches me so much about self-worth as Lexie is so secure in the love that I have for her as a mother that she doesn't care about the ugly tantrums she throws at times, or the copious amount of times she has jumped on the couch after I have told her not too.

What I am trying to say is that Lexie-Grace knows that no matter what she does I will always love her unconditionally. And that is exactly what I am learning about God's love, no matter what my profession, where I move, how many times I go to church or what I do, HIS love for me remains constant and that makes me FEEL GOOD ENOUGH.