Utterly and Fearfully Exhausted.

Since deciding to homeschool I knew mornings would be cruicial for me. I needed to get up early before the boys to make sure I had a few moments of peace before my day started. Just 30min even to clear my thoughts or have a thought without interruption. Yall. Its as though my kids know this desire and ensuring that they don't miss one second of mom (because I still have a couple of little guys who find their way into my bed, onto my pillow, and into my back, I swear if they could crawl back into me they would...) they are up at the butt crack of dawn. I try to be so quiet, I try to sneak downstairs, but I swear the atmosphere must shift and their eyes pop open because mom is awake...don't. miss. one. second. Must. get. to....MOM.
Be near Jesus. It is real.

So here I am at 11:58pm trying to calm my thoughts so that I can actually just maybe get a few hours of sleep before they sense the atmosphere changing again.  And know what, I am utterly and fearfully exhausted.

But here is the thing, I am utterly and fearfully exhausted both emotionally and physically and to be completely honest spiritually. I have to fight daily to find the calm, the peace, the soothing quietness of my soul. I have had so many "older" moms and when I say "older" I don't mean physical age, I mean stage of life. Older as in kids are in high school or graduated or married. Anyway I have heard from these older wiser moms in grocery stores, at sporting events, always at target, and of course FB and Insta. But these wonderfully older moms inform me many times as they watch me twitch and squirm and sometimes loose my cool at my child who is fussing about their sock or shoe or the fact that the sun is somehow chasing them down and tormenting them with brightness..... that the "days are long but the years are short," or "its hard physically now but just wait until they older...then its emotionally hard..." or "don't blink, its gone" or.. "fill in the blank you have heard it here.."  And believe me I DO GET IT. I do, STOP TELLING ME AND ENCOURAGE ME.... I see it going fast and I have written my rant about this...that is not my thing... no my thing is that it is not just physically hard right now...it is crucially emotionally and spiritually hard RIGHT now...and it if it is not hard right now then I think we might be missing something.

My boys ages range from 4 to 8, and in that I am juggling a whole lot...a WHOLE lot...and I can't even tell you how many sleepless nights and enduring days where I think I am failing them or missing it or screwing them up and it makes me paralyzed with fear. It is physically and emotionally and spiritually demanding right now. Throw in that what we moms are faced with daily now is comparison that comes full force with social media and every single flipping person has a BLOG and is writing out their "articles" on how we are screwing up our kids. I combat these fears by pouring my kid a bowl of fluorescent Cheetos and top it off with a big ol' cup of straight up red dye while making sure that EVERY single media outlet is BLARING in their faces and also making sure that every ALARM is set in every single corner of my house ready to alarm me when my kid breaths funny or sneezes snot that might be a color that is not normal....Glory. JESUS for the love would just hurry on  up and come...by the way, Jesus, incase you didn't know my kid loves Mindcraft and the last article I read said that he most likely will be a bomb maker in the future...so yeah...you better sound the trumpets NOW. Bless it to my bones Mamas, how are we even breathing?

And I can't even begin to start to tell you that when you have a child that is not like the other 20 in his class and starts showing some signs of things that might need "early intervention..." and you find yourself at midnight googling side affects of medicine your child has to take and you feel as though the red dye just has to be the reason your kid is like this or maybe its because all they want to eat is fruit snacks and graham crackers or maybe its because they spent 3 or 4 hours on media and not the recommend 1 that clearly this is all YOUR fault and you made your child this way...and because you google all these such things now every time you get on the stupid comparison Facebook page now all the adds are "dangers of red dye..." "10 unknown side affects of this medicine" "Going vegan and using this oil got my kid off his meds..."  and so you stuff all these fears down deep, you take a breath of muggy barely breathable GA "Fall" air and you hop in your car to take your crazy 4 to church and you ram into your husbands truck that has parked in the same spot the last 3.5 years of living here. Yeah that might of happened today. There are not enough bless its.

And you can barely breath. Jesus. Its all so much. And that lovely older mom says "just wait..." and I think, great...now all my fears are even greater, thanks.

BUT JESUS...

Lets take a moment and think of this. BUT JESUS sweet friend. You are not alone. Solace, read my words and take hope, you are not alone.  We will survive, they will survive, and Jesus is our hope. I do know this. And when I handed my child his first dose of medicine and I had to fight demons from ever corner and I breathed shallow every day as I watched for side affects or changes...and my child looks at me one day and says "mom, I just feel happy..." I breath deeper. And Jesus says to my fearful and overwhelmed spirit..

"But me, Child...I am the start of every morning, the middle of every darkened afternoon, and the greatest finisher of each and everyday."

And I breath.

Every single day raising children is hard and exciting and scary and rewarding...each season might bring on new and different challenges I am sure, but my journey with my 8,7,5,4 year old boys is just as much demanding spiritually and emotionally as it will be when I have 17,16,14,13 year olds. Parenting requires you to sit constantly at the feet of Jesus as you open and close those hands every single second of each and every day for your children.

We are raising children in a very big and scary and failing world. We are raising children where we have to teach them how to be different, see different, love different. That doesn't change from 8 to 16- that prayer, that screaming to Jesus that they would have hearts that love Him so they can love others well doesn't change.  I think my sleepless nights are going to become more and more as my boys grow, and I am sure my prayers will change, but the core of them does not. Jesus.