It really all started yesterday morning. I did my quiet time, and I was admittedly proud of myself for getting through so much material. Ah, pride. It loves to rear it's ugly head in the most seemingly benign and absurd ways sometimes. The only reason I got through all that material was L slept most of the morning, having been up most of the night. God had blessed me with the time to get through it, but I somehow missed that while I was preoccupied patting my own back. Well, God likes to beat our pride out of us and remind us who is really in charge.
Before I knew it, we were running late to L's baby swimming class ("Wet Wigglers." Yikes.). I grabbed everything, cut the usual "NO-Mommy-not-the-car-seat-I-hate-the-car-seat" fight short, jumped in the car, and made it with barely a few minutes to spare. We had worn our swimsuits to class, so that saved us even more time. Guess what? In all that rush, I completely forgot a change of clothes for myself. I had worn my swimsuit to the pool...do you see what I'm getting at? I had nothing to wear under my oh-so-fashionable sweats and hoodie after the class. And of course, that's when I saw several people I knew. Talk about humility...
The rest of the day was a mess until John got home, and even then I had completely botched dinner. My wonderful husband ate it anyway, God bless him. I was so grateful to crawl into bed, snuggle my baby to sleep, and welcome sleep myself. Except I didn't sleep much. I had a nightmare, from which I awoke sweaty and terrified. After that, L was up several times, including an entire hour starting at 4:00AM which she had apparently decided was an appropriate time to play. By the time my 6:00AM alarm went off to roust me out of bed for my quiet time, I was completely beat.
But I got up and did my quiet time. I got through every page with plenty of time to spare for prayer and making breakfast. I arrogantly penned this in the notes at the end of today's study:
"I must initiate action in order to see Christ's victory in my life.
It starts with me.
It starts now."
Ha! Issue a challenge like that to the devil and he will respond. In my prideful state, I wasn't prepared, at least not like I thought I was. L woke up, interrupting my prayer time and effectively canceling my plans to cook breakfast for John (hoping to make up for that horrid dinner...). After he made breakfast (he's such a blessing), I got up from the table and promptly caught myself standing in front of the fridge, having completely forgotten why I got up in the first place. My brain was fried.
I sometimes wonder how any mother can be trusted to be alone with small humans when mothers have to operate on such little sleep, frequently missed meals, etc. This was one such morning in the Troja household. I thought I would be smart by refilling L's humidifier so it was ready to go when she went down for her morning nap. It was a good idea that took a huge, wide U-Turn for the worst. In my foggy condition, I failed to notice the "DO NOT FILL HERE" printed boldly across the top of the humidifier. You guessed it - I filled it there. I yelped, put down the distilled water jug and plopped L down as water spilled out of the base and all over the hardwood floor. As I mopped it up, I heard an ominous "glug-glug-glug..." L was dumping the rest of the jug all over the middle of the floor. I yelped again, which made L cry, and ran for more towels. While wringing everything out at the bathroom sink, I heard something fall and looked over to see L had gotten her hands on a squishy, poop-filled cloth diaper that I had forgotten to clean out yesterday. The same chain of events followed: yelp, tears, cleaning.
After I got L calmed down, I went for a refreshing cold beverage. Ignoring the wine rack in the corner calling my name, and the caffeine on the bottom shelf offering to help ease my exhaustion, I settled for a Sierra Mist. It was at this point that I remembered hearing a funny noise this morning...and that I had put a Sierra Mist in the freezer last night. You know where this is going...Sierra Mist all over the inside of the freezer. I took the entire shelf out, dumped it in the sink, and trudged upstairs, defeated.
As I sipped my disappointing Sierra Mist and pondered why all of this was happening to poor little old me, my words from my quiet time this morning taunted me. Even in my tired, near brain dead state, I realized exactly what had happened. I had allowed my own pride to take over and I had effectively issued a challenge that I was not ready to combat. The enemy had pounced on the opportunity and had thrown everything he could at me to try to discourage and frustrate me. He'd almost succeeded. But God had gently brought me back to the breakfast table and my own words. I needed to start over, let go of my pride, thank God for his grace, and humbly submit the rest of the day to Him. That was what I should have done in the first place. I could have avoided everything - the soaked hardwood floor, L's confused and frightened tears, the poop-smeared floor and cabinet...
So after L went down for her nap, I thanked God for a little spare time and sat down to share everything with you. Hopefully you can learn from my hapless mistakes. It may seem small, but pride seeps into everything we do and has the power to completely throw our lives off-kilter if we let it. The lesson here is this: I wasn't wrong - it does start with me, and it does start the second we wake up. My mistake was in thinking that I have anything to do with it, except to humbly give every day to God and "pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks." (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18a) So, with renewed vigor and new humility, let's try this again:
It starts with me.
It starts now.
Hapless but hopeful,Cassie
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