Holding Fast...

To my last post. I appreciate your kind words, but you just don't understand the depths of my coveting. It is a joy robber and I am going to intentionally "nip it in the bud". I will have to be very diligent about it too. Already, no fewer than ten things have come to my attention that I have been "not included" in. IT would be easy for me to mope and complain about it. To feel hurt and angry. AND IT WOULD BE POINTLESS. Most of the things have already happened. It won't change anything to stew about it. Changing my attitude makes more sense.

I also went to the library yesterday to escape my family for a little while (after taxi-ing a kid to chorus). I am so angry and disillusioned most of the time. My expectations are almost always unmet leaving me in a place of frequent anger. My children and spouse are not going to ever realize the full extent of my sacrifices. They won't immediately "rise up and call me blessed". In fact, if my attitude consistently stinks, they may never.

So my coveting is really wrong for me. I cannot allow myself to compare what I don't have to what someone else has. It is killing me. It is stealing my joy to look around at all the wonderful "partnership" marriages and always rank mine less than. I don't know their struggles. In fact, they may not have any. They may be the happiest most perfect couple in the world. That should not mean anything at all to my marriage. I am crazy in love with my husband and he is a good man. I am a good wife. We have made it through some really tough stuff-stuff that would have unraveled a less stubborn couple. We have watched friends divorce and other friends survive even worse things than we have. Marriage is far too hard for me to bring a whole other dimension of struggles into it. So I have decided to love and appreciate my family more. REALLY. Especially my husband. Oh and in all fairness, thank you God for nudging Beth Moore to post that her husband doesn't always attend church with her and that her marriage has not always been good. While it should not have any bearing at all-I needed to know God was using someone who doesn't have it all perfect. God is much more about individual relationships than He is using "powerhouse perfect families". I know this but sometimes sitting in church feeling like I'm just not quite good enough wears on me!! Church is not about me. Why do I continue to make it about me?

I am also loving my children more, even when they fight, misbehave and are generally seeking to make me crazy. I must not allow them to succeed. They really just want love and attention. Repeat that last sentence 23 times before exploding.

Thanks for letting me rant a little.