Learning to take grace in the middle of the mess

I am learning about taking grace in the middle.

When I’ve already messed up. I already yelled at my baby, I already slammed the door, and the kitchen floor is still quite dirty.

I feel like going on like this, and behave even worse. I might start behaving again tomorrow after the night has washed this day away and after I cleaned my kitchen floor and cooked my family a healthy dinner. Maybe torture my husband with a cookie that is sweetened with stevia.

Making a cookie with stevia for your husband who is pining for some Spicy Doritos totally redeems your rotten attitude from the day before, right?

But I’m learning to ask for grace and forgiveness before it gets worse.

To say sorry to a toddler who really doesn’t get it and pray together and start behaving like a child of God right away instead of following the very appealing desires of my flesh to slam the door REALLY HARD and look REALLY MAD and say some mean things in a poisonous tone of voice with sparks of fire flashing from my eyes, when my innocent husband comes down from the office to get a glass of water.

Sometimes, I feel like I have a right to act mean. I only slept for 3 hours. I had a spit-shower at 6 a.m. I have a whiny toddler clinging to my skirt which is too wide and if the toddler is gonna pull any harder my skirt will surely fall off.

So, I think everybody will understand that I now have the right to panic and freak out and get mad.

However, nothing does give me the right to act like momzilla.

I haven’t figured out yet if it is all right to feel like momzilla.

Either way, I must stop and ask for grace and whether I feel a holy, shiny feeling coming over me or not, I need to go on, trusting Jesus to supply the patience I need.

He will always give me the grace to go on, His grace, and enough patience to deal with life. But that doesn’t mean He will make me feel like a saint, all holy and sweet, you know. And although He might take the headache away sometimes, other days He leaves it right here with me.

I may still feel ticked off, have a headache and be so tired I feel drunk.

I just need to trust Him that He’ll be right here with me, helping me get through the day. Say the next words patiently and not snappishly.

In the end, He really does help. Even if I’m still feeling gross and all I can think of is shower and bedtime and all I see is the seconds?ticking?away?to slowly.

I used to let Abel help me as much as possible, but then he decided to cut 4 molars at the same time and get some sort of flu-like thing. So I stopped doing that because it was just humanly impossible;
Now, I am trying to intentionally do things with him again. Like let him help with the dishes even though the kitchen is a swimming pool afterwards and let him help me mop the floor (he also mopped part of the countertop) and plant corn. (He totally killed one of my pumpkin plants. Too bad for him: he just lost the opportunity of having some stevia sweetened ?pumpkin cake made with wholewheat flour this fall)

Doing this is making me see the good parts of life again, the sweet moments of motherhood and the cuteness that my boys really are.

And Gabri?l had his first spoon of mashed fruit today! He was totally impressed. Also today, Abel has had his last. It’s become a fight to get him to eat anything but the bits of banana (which he digs out with his hands), so I decided to say goodbye to that battle.

Anybody have any advice on how to work in the garden with a toddler that loves picking flowers and makes a happy dance when he sees the strawberry plants… such sweet little plants full of the cutest little flowers! He also very kindly gave me a slug. A SLUG. I despise the creatures. Since I want him to grow up to be a cool stud that saves damsels in distress from slugs and other kinds of dragons, I very quietly took several leaps backwards and encouraged him to go give the slug to the chickens.

Yes. I made my son into a slug-killer. What kind of mother am I?