Tomorrow is another day

I have had a tough day with the little ones and I have felt like my prayers for grace, patience, tolerance and sleep have gone unanswered. I have felt like an awful mother, a selfish person, totally underserving of my children.

Mum pointed out this morning that if I let go of the desire for 'me time' (and add to that an entitlement to sleep!) then I will deal with the lack of both a lot better on an emotional level. I have been working on the sleep thing this week (getting at most 5 hours a night for over a week now) and emotionally I am a lot better at dealing with the lack of sleep. Just the 'me time' thing to work on!

And then I came across this blog entry from Jess, who inspires me so much. She was talking about really loving our kids, not just surviving them! And she led me to this post which talks about cultivating a gentle and loving tone with our children, which is something I totally needed to read after today. And I am going to pray the risky prayer of asking God to help me speak in a gentle, loving tone to my children. Its the least that they deserve.

And thirdly, I came across this post. It made so much sense and challenged me so much:

In a talk called “Loving my Children,” Carolyn Maheny speaks about maternal love with special emphasis on the type of love the Bible commends to mothers. She focuses on Titus 2:4 in which Paul tells Titus to teach the older women to “train the younger women to love their… children.” The teaching centers on this word “love,” because Paul chooses an expected form of the Greek word for love; he uses “phileo” rather than “agape.” “Agape” love – which Paul doesn’t use – refers to sacrificial, selfless love. “Phileo” love, on the other hand, refers to warm affection and tenderness. Thus the instruction here is for moms to tenderly, affectionately love their kids. Maheny says;

“I found it interesting that Paul didn’t use ‘agape’ love, sacrificial love. Instead he used ‘phileo.’ Of course we know that we are to love our children with a sacrificial and selfless love, but I believe that Paul encouraged the older women to teach the younger women to love their children with a tender, affectionate love rather than a sacrificial love may attest to the fact that women are generally weaker in exhibiting phileo love than they are at showing agape love. I mean think about it with me: isn’t it a rare experience to meet a woman who doesn’t sacrifice for her children and daily lay down her life to serve them? Women are good at that kind of love.

But what is more uncommon is to meet a woman who thoroughly enjoys her children. She takes pleasure in being with her children; she loves being a mother. She relates to them with a tender, loving affection. Isn’t it uncommon to meet a woman like that? When was the last time you saw a woman like that at your grocery store, a woman who was really enjoying her children? Probably not recently.

Aren’t there days where, if someone was observing what was going on at our house, that they might see an unhappy, irritated, exasperated mom? Yet all the time- sacrificing for her family, doing the laundry, cooking the meals. We’re good at that kind of love, are we not? It’s loving our children (and our husband) with a tender, warm, passionate love, amidst all the sacrifice that is harder for us to achieve. That’s why I think it was phileo love rather than agape love that Paul exhorted Titus to have the older women teach the younger women. So let’s take time to consider how we can grow in this tender, affectionate love for our children.”

So this is where I am at.

Please pray for me :)