recovery in an email

This evening while clearing out emails I happened upon one I hadn't read.  It was my MOPS weekly e-mail.  Now I realize that MOPS is a group for moms, hence the name Mothers Of Preschoolers, but the email today hit me more from a recovery standpoint than a mom standpoint.  I have to share it.

The God of Sometimes

By Christa Hogan, mother of two

I love being a mom; I love caring for my family. I can’t think of anything more important, anything more worthy of my life. It feels good to be needed.

Most of the time.
But sometimes I wake up and think, “Do I really have to do yesterday all over again?” I want to shout, “Can’t you just do it yourself for once?” A voice whispers, “It’s all up to you. You don’t ever get to rest, because if you did this would all fall apart.”

"He made me to need
him even more than
my family needs me."

Inevitably, these are also the days that someone comes down sick. The cat coughs up a hairball on the carpet. The dishwasher breaks. Life starts to resemble a country music song. “It isn’t fair,” I cry. “Life wasn’t supposed to be like this!”
Then I hear another voice calling. My Savior. My Rock. He asks me to stop squirming beneath the weight of my life and give it to him. He reminds me that I have been trying to do it all again, and to do it all by myself. But he made me to need him even more than my family needs me, except that he never rests. He never tires of being needed. He loves my “sometimes” when I come to the end of my rope because then I remember that I need to rely on him at all times.

Dear God, thank you that you are strong in my weakness. Forgive me for trying to do it on my own. Help me give my family and my life to you

Of course I do feel the pressures as a mom that I have to get up and do yesterday all over again.  I do feel sometimes that if I didn't do it all, then it all would fall apart.  But I also feel it as a woman, as a wife, as a recovering individual. 

In recovery I wake up often and wonder if I really have to do yesterday all over again.  Sometimes the days feel like they are all the same, get up force breakfast, argue with the E.D in my brain insisting that Malt O Meal is making me fat, focus on something else, just keep going.  But the truth of the matter is that it is during those times of weakness that I call out to Jesus.   It is on the days where I dread facing yesterday all over again that I cry out to Him and it is in those times of desperation that I truly surrender to Him.  It is in those moments of surrender that His strength is made perfect in my weakness.

Lord, do forgive me for trying to do it all on my own!