Convictions: Where did my joy go?

February 3rd, 2016

"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent."  -Revelations 3:19

My son showed me something recently that I haven't noticed, not really. He didn't do it intentionally. He didn't even say a word...but...it broke my heart. 

Sitting outside his school waiting for the doors to open I caught him wistfully watching as a classmate's mother playfully tickled and laughed with her little boy.  My son had a longing smile on his face, you know, the kind that creeps onto your face when you see a genuinely happy moment and you can't help but smile. I adore that smile of his and I found myself staring at him the same way.  Then he noticed me though, and his focus adjusted to my face and that beautiful smile vanished. He looked sad now and looked away.  

I hadn't been patient with him that morning, or the previous one, or the one before that...actually...thinking on it, I couldn't remember the last time I showed him any amount of consistent patience.  I couldn't remember the last time I had shown any of my kids any kind of consistent patience. 

...I couldn't remember the last time I had shown any of my kids any kind of consistent patience.

You see, I have all kinds of reasons for this too: good ones!! In the last three years I've lost my home, moved in with my parents, have had to share one bedroom with all four of my young children, had two babies, two c-sections, had relationship betrayal that shook me to my core, gone through marriage counseling, grief counseling, individual counseling, Hope After Betrayal counseling, had my beliefs about my family's integrity ripped out from underneath me, watched my parent's marriage struggle on the brink and come back a couple times over...and I could go on and on...husband with two jobs, no real help with so many small children, disabled mother, two autism diagnosis of my sons...really, it could just keep going. 

I told myself for three years that I had the right to be angry, and I did. I told myself that it wasn't my fault that I was suffering PTSD, and it wasn't. But, what I didn't see, was how little by little, I was allowing all that was being done to me and around me to steal my joy and my hope. 

...what I didn't see, was how little by little, I was allowing all that was being done to me and around me to steal my joy and my hope.

I had become bitter, hopeless, joy-less...patience-less. I had my emotional and mental reserves so depleted that hearing "mommy" one too many times sent me over the edge. I had become a mean mommy.  I was the mommy that punished too soon.  The mommy that didn't give the time needed for my child to listen and respond before I was berating them for not listening and responding. The mommy that quipped "just be quiet and go to sleep for crying out loud" impatiently when they fussed in their beds or asked for one more goodnight hug. I didn't give ready kisses anymore, I didn't tickle anymore, I didn't laugh anymore...not much anyway. 

Three years...I realized that over the course of nearly my twins entire lives, they had watched me slowly and steadily lose my joy...and they paid for it too. That realization absolutely broke me. 

I don't know exactly how to find joy and hope again...I'm trying.  I didn't think that I had given up, I just thought that I had "adjusted".  Turns out there's a fine line between those sometimes. I was living, I was telling myself that I hoped things would get better, relationships heal, hearts mend, but I wasn't focusing on the joy around me, I was smashing it.

  ...I wasn't focusing on the joy around me, I was smashing it.

The little faces who's eyes should have been lighting up when they looked to me instead were shutting down and it was all my fault. Not the betrayals fault, not the financial strains fault, not my reality crumbling fault, it was mine. 

Conviction hurts sometimes.  It's like ripping a bandage off a raw wound.  I post all kinds of memes on Facebook about weathering the storms. I'd always just assumed I was the potato only to find out I had been the egg.  Well, I'm not going to let circumstances steal my joy anymore.  Not only do my children deserve a joy-filled mama, God wants me to have a joy-filled heart too.  

"And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." John 16:22

I have sorrow, we all do at times, but I have greater reason for JOY in my savior and my hope. So from now on I'm going to actively seek joy.  Mean mommy is going away my sweet babies...and I am so, so very sorry.