Yesterday was not a good day. Actually the past couple of weeks have not been good. As I've mentioned in previous posts I do struggle with discontentment and maybe even depression at times. I wouldn't dare trivialize true depression and anxiety that many people suffer so I will not put myself in that category. My depression, I believe, is self inflicted. If that makes sense at all. It's circumstantially based. As in- I'm not happy with my circumstances and I REALLY want God to change them RIGHT NOW. And if things are not going the way I expected and want I feel overwhelmed, angry, and depressed. There's a lot going on in our lives right now that I don't write too much about because it's personal and it involves several facets of our lives.
A lot of stuff that bothers me. And depresses me.
Rest assured, my marriage is fine, my kids are fine, our health is fine and we're struggling along financially as best we can in this economy. And with living in "Taxachussets". Which is part of my problem. Living in Massachusetts. But, I digress.
I've had my good moments of course. I've had funny things happen, I've had my emotional ups and days where I want to weep with gratefulness to God for my wonderful husband, my children that I love so much I can hardly stand it sometimes.And then I've had days like yesterday, where nothing seems to be going right, I'm not happy with anything I want to ship my children, my husband and my house....to China. But yesterday I just wept.
A lot.
Yesterday started out fine. I took the girls to the mall to get their pictures taken at The Picture People.As anyone with small children knows, it's hard to get them to cooperate with you while taking pictures. I seemed to have forgotten this yesterday. I figured I'd get Katelyn's three year pictures done and then we'd throw Madelyn and a Christmas tree in a couple of the pictures and call it a day. I'd have my Christmas cards all done and some lovely pictures of the girls to show off. Katelyn started out doing well in the pictures and but after about 3 or 4 shots she was ready to quit. The photographer had other plans for her. On and on Katelyn's photo shoot went. Madelyn walked around getting into things and trying to get in the pictures we didn't want her in. When the time came for Maddy to be in the pictures Katelyn was in a terrible mood and Madelyn no longer wanted to be in the pictures. The photographer had me doing all sorts of things to keep Katelyn and Madelyn in the positions she wanted them. May I also point out that she did not have the best manner with children and made her frustration very obvious. Pose after pose did not turn out right. I was ready to strangle both of the girls by the time we had some good shots of them. Madelyn just did not want to cooperate at all and cried a lot. I had to continually threaten Katelyn and demand she smile for the pictures so we could get it over with. It was finally done and I was frustrated, hot, aching and sweaty. Then came the waiting for the pictures to be on the large screens so we could view them. While we were waiting Katelyn asked to go play. I said ok, go play. The PP has a large, colorful ottoman- like seat in the front and an art easel and just plenty of open space to play around in. At that point I just wanted her to go play and let me chill for a bit. She kept asking me to come with her and I kept saying I didn't need to come with her . She could go to the front of the room and play while I sad at the tables towards the back and watched her. So she said "I can go by myself?" I said "Yes, Katelyn, you can go play by yourself."
Well, turns out we miscommunicated a bit.
What she was really trying to ask me was to go out into the mall to the Santa's Village area where Santa was taking pictures with the kids. She kept thinking that was a play area.
I did not understand this at the time.
So I busied myself with putting the girls' stuff back in their bags and giving Madelyn her juice. When I looked up, Katelyn was gone. I checked all over the big room thinking she had gone behind the counter or gone into one of the photography rooms. Nope. She was not in Picture People anymore. With mounting panic I ran out into the mall and started calling her name. I didn't see her anywhere. I ran back inside PP and grabbed Madelyn and headed out into the mall screaming her name like a mad woman. I was beginning to feel hysterical and like I was going to cry at this point. Then I heard Katelyn screaming my name. I looked to the right and she was running towards me with Santa right behind her. She had walked to "Santa's Village"(which to be fair, was not too far away from the PP) and apparently walked right inside to where Santa was. He apparently was trying to figure out who she belonged to and she realized she didn't like him as much as she thought she would. She came running and crying to me saying " IIII don't waaaant Saaaanta!!". I grabbed on to her and marched her back into the Picture People with a mixture of relief and fury that she had scared me like that. I let her have it in front of everyone in PP and then held her for awhile. We then had to talk about her walking away from me in public. At that point I was very thankful that -
a) she is loud, can out scream the best of them.
b) was afraid of Santa
c) remembered which way to run to get back to the PP.
So, our pictures were finally ready to just bed viewed and I labored over my decision of which pictures were the best. I then let myself be talked into buying a large, expensive picture package complete with framed photo collages etc. That whole process took awhile so by the end of it we were all starving and very, very cranky. Since the PP have your pictures ready to go in about an hour I thought we could eat, I'd let the girls play in the play area and we'd look at the Christmas displays in Target since Katelyn really enjoys that. Well, little things kept going wrong and Katelyn was being a pain about everything. I was really getting annoyed and angry with her attitude and behavior. I'd finally had enough and decided we were going to pick up the pictures and leave. It's was almost 2:00 by this time. The girls fell asleep in the car on the way home and did NOT nap once we got home. So the rest of the day was frustrating and cranky. When Mike got home he was not real happy with the amount I spent on the pictures and I almost had to take most of them back. I admit to having spent a ridiculous amount on a package that I let myself get talked into. But we did come to a good agreement by the end of our discussion. I almost didn't want to look at the pictures by the end of the evening I was so frustrated and discouraged. I got all emotional and began to cry and couldn't stop for awhile. I just felt down in the dumps about everything. Even stuff that didn't happen yesterday. Thankfully I have a caring, compassionate husband who just held me and comforted me for awhile. We had a nice talk and by the end I was feeling much better.
I woke up this morning and read Psalms and found a lot of comfort and wisdom in them.
God reminded me again that He is control.
That I'm an adult and days like this, even weeks like this happen.
That even when things aren't going exactly the way I want them, I'm still blessed way more than I deserve because I have my salvation.
That even though I want to hide from unpleasantness, confrontation, and mistakes I need to face them. He wants me to learn from mistakes, confrontation and unpleasant things.
He wants my character to grow and reflect Him.
I can't throw little tantrums about everything and expect Him to give me what I want. He's not going to show me new things until I learn to accept what He's trying to teach me and show me now.
Today was a much better day. Praise the Lord. As much as I want this blog to be full of funny stories and cute pictures, I have to share my reality too. I have to share what the Lord is doing in my life. And hopefully it will be an encouragement to you. I will shut it down here since this is so long.
If you've read this far.. thank you.
