Hard

My husband is out of town for the third time in a month. We have had a lot going on and a lot to process and very little time to do so. And I have baseball all the days of my life.

I love baseball, I love watching my boys play baseball (most of the time), I love the game of baseball.

photo courtesy of Christy Martin Photography

But this family…this family finds it center around a table. Where we can eat food that is good tasting and good for our bodies. Where we can give thanks to the one who gave us the day and the food. Where we can catch up, talk and listen, laugh and be. And be together.

We have not been around a table in awhile, and what we have been was rushed and messy not slow and thankful.

So we are just all out of sorts.

I had a bad mommy night. I yelled and was frustrated and short. Tears were shed, faces were sad, and I felt like a failure. Apologies and forgiveness are good, but they can’t undo the done.

I wanted to come downstairs, flop on the couch and medicate with social media. Trade my world for a world of hyperbole, passive aggressiveness, recipes and articles. Drown my sorrows in someone else’s.

But after a social media fast for lent, I’m a little more sensitive to my propensity for that. The ease of escaping my world. The refuge I run to that is no safe haven.  I try to escape the hard…

And I forget the hardness that is marriage, and children, and just LIFE, is meant to be.

Sometimes, maybe all the time, God’s grace is found in what’s hard. To push us further into Him, to remind us of our need for Him. To help us remember, WE CAN’T DO THIS ON OUR OWN.

Because every darn day I try to.

So I’m making muffins, and cleaning the kitchen. Because our center is the table. And maybe not dinner because, baseball. But maybe breakfast. With more apologies and grace. More listening, seeing and loving. Maybe dancing to this song.

And hopefully more seeing grace in the hard. Running to Him for strength. Because I…I can’t. Nor was I meant to.