For the second round of “Just Ask the Wemmicks” (where several of us Wemmick-Moms answer a reader’s question), hosted by Visionary Womanhood, a reader asks an excellent question that I think every mother has asked:
“How do I teach each child their lessons AND cook 3 nutritious meals a day AND nurse the baby AND keep everyone in clean clothes AND keep the dust bunnies at bay, all on very little sleep?! Did I mention that right now I’m only teaching 3 out of my 6 and we are focusing just on phonics and math?”
Here is my answer:
Take a deep breath. Motherhood is hard and good. I am where you are–what I call “in the trenches”–so I know about those feelings of being overwhelmed.
My answer comes in two parts: having (and maintaining) the right perspective (theology) and then implementing practical ways to manage the multiple tasks.
1. I have learned how profoundly my thinking about motherhood affects my ability to cope. While denying the reality of our huge lists of responsibilities is not helpful, neither is dwelling on my insufficiency. And regardless of how much I believe in the importance of my job, the enemy can still hinder me in my thought life. Being aware of this temptation helps me to resist the tendency to falter under the weight of life.
As I ultimately desire to become more like Christ, I must learn to think like Him as well. He gave. He gave without a grudge, without keeping score, without expecting anything in return (knowing the harvest would come later). This must be our aim. When we give freely, as we have been given to, we don’t view motherhood as always having people take from us or “having the life sucked out of us”, but rather as a privilege and an opportunity to minister–to give as Christ did and to invest in eternal things. (I’m not suggesting you have had these wrong thoughts, but I have.) (A thanks to Rachel Jankovic for her thoughts in Fit to Burst.)
And as we give, daily renewing our minds with truth, keeping our perspective right, we must remember that God does not call us to something without His help. (1 Thessalonians 5:24) He delights in weakness so His power can be known. He delights in keeping us in a place that we are compelled to call out to Him. If this were easy, we wouldn’t need Him. It helps me so much to remember that it’s not supposed to be easy all the time.
Motherhood is a mission field, rife with challenges. But understanding its eternal implications drastically aids our ability to meet them.
2. Practically speaking, I’m learning some things that have helped me.
- Let some things go. For some this is easier than others. Whether it’s the thought that every child has to have a bath every day (they don’t) or that a child can’t wear the same clothes for more than one day, or that the house must maintain a certain level of clean, or that you can’t use paper plates–I’m just guessing here because every mother is different–but we would do well to relax some of our pre-conceived ideas about what “has” to be done. This is only a season; sometimes survival is more important than clean windows, especially where it involves helping us keep our joy. We must do what we can but look constantly to the eternally important. In ten years, letting some dust bunnies go for a time won’t matter. But how I reacted to them will.
- Make sure chores are being delegated appropriately. Sometimes we forget how much children can do for themselves, or even think it’s a bad idea to expect them to share the load. It’s actually an excellent thing for a child to learn to do age-appropriate chores, as early as possible. Part of our job, as soon as our children are born, is to begin moving them toward healthy independence. Unloading the dish washer, setting the table, taking out the trash, wiping down counters, sorting laundry, putting stray items in a basket–there are many tasks that littles ones can begin learning. Take the time and it will pay for itself.
- Meals can be simplified in a number of ways. A crock pot is a busy mother’s best friend. It’s worth the time to stock up on some crock pot meals. Cooking extra and freezing a portion is a great idea for easing the load on a super hectic day. Cereal for breakfast several days a week is a great time-saver and they won’t die 😉 . Planning and posting meals by the week lessens the mental load. Having a supper helper makes meal prep. easier and is good training.
- Multi-tasking comes quite naturally to mothers, but sometimes I like to think about how to do it better. Can a lesson be taught while you nurse the baby? Can a child read to you while you cook or do laundry? Also, having an older child help a younger child is not only a time-saver, but an excellent exercise for the older child. Nothing helps a child learn better than teaching. Math and phonics, especially can be reinforced as an older sibling helps a younger one.
- Another thing I try to remember is how important my health is in this busy season, especially while losing sleep. Taking a good multi-vitamin, getting plenty of sunshine and taking a few minutes each day to walk or rebound will go a long way to boosting the way you feel.
- Combing through your daily/weekly schedule might be necessary. Are there things that can be cut out or postponed to a later season? Are you saying “no” when you should to extra things that are not a priority for your family?
At the end of the day, if you have worked alongside your children (even if it doesn’t all get done), talked to them, read to them, been available to them and loved on them, you’re going to make it and they’re going to be just fine. Be encouraged! Do the next thing, let some things go, relax and enjoy this brief, busy season. When the days overwhelm and you blow it, ask forgiveness, then face tomorrow with renewed vigor and hope.
This is good work. Push through, call on the Lord, and He will daily bear you up.
Check out the links below for some other Wemmick answers (which I think are great!).
Natalie @ Visionary Womanhood
Terry @ A Mom’s Many Lessons
Kasey @ Walking Redeemed
Marcia @ eHomebody
Cindy @ Get Along Home
Bambi @ In the Nursery of the Nation
30 comments
[…] Kelly Crawford — Generation Cedar […]
[…] Kelly @ Generation Cedar […]
Such a timely post! I know for myself, what seems to stress me out is the keeping track of what we do for homeschool… My Superintendent in our District wants to see a daily LOG… I haven’t researched whether this is in step with state law… I would feel so much freer if I knew that I could just homeschool without feeling like I have someone looking over my shoulder… WE use a canned curriculum (MFW) which is nice in that it does combine subjects for older and younger… but I know there are days when I feel like I am dragging them through school, hoping some learning will stick to them… I’m not sure either of my kids like learning much… In that we have small desks for them, and follow a pretty structured book work pattern that may not be the best for wiggly boys… but I know having them at the table was too high for them to sit at without being uncomfortable. I’m afraid that if I didn’t make us follow some kind of structured pattern, NOTHING would get done at all…and I would have no goals etc…
Laura, my advice to you would be to research whether or not the daily log is actually required by law in your state. It sounds like you are questioning whether it is or not. You’re right to question it — it’s probably more common than people realize for officials within school systems to be ignorant of the homeschooling regulations in the state, and impose burdens on homeschoolers in their district that aren’t in keeping with the law. I think a lot of the burden you are now feeling will be released if you find that you don’t have to do that daily log.
As far as the structured book work pattern and wiggly boys, I would teach in very small spurts. Work with each child just up to the point where they can sit fairly still (notice I didn’t say perfectly still, LOL), then get them outside for, say, a 10-minute break, or maybe even just long enough to get them to run around the house the number of times that matches their ages. Or whatever. 😉 Then go back in and read to them or something. I would do a lot of alternating of mental work and physical activity throughout the day. You can gradually try to stretch them to engage in mental work for longer periods of focus, but for the most part, a homeschool routine, especially in the younger years, doesn’t have to look like a school routine — sitting in desks for X minutes before “recess” or the end of the “school day”. Let learning become part of your lifestyle, and not an isolated part of your day with physical and time barriers around it.
Not sure if that makes sense, but I think that would relieve some of the pressure you’re experiencing, and will make learning more natural and able to “stick” for your children, too.
Another thing that I have struggled with is what to do in the moment of desperation? What do you do in that moment when baby is crying, 2 kids are coming to blows, the macaroni overflows on the stove, the house is a wreck, mount laundry is bordering on earthquake, and on and on? What do you choose to do in that moment? And how do you deal with those circumstances if not every day, several days a week? I know for myself, there are times when I just want to RUN AWAY, or disappear, or question my sanity for travelling such a hard path… HOW do you not be resentful or bitter when you are constantly facing the above circumstances, and the bitterness just seems to engulf you?
Hi, Laura! I know you’re asking Kelly, and (font of wisdom that she is) she probably has a better answer than I do. 🙂
I think all of us have besetting sins that we have to pray away daily. It sounds like bitterness or resentfulness might be one of yours. Just keep fighting it, keep asking God to forgive you and grant a new perspective. Have you read Kelly’s book, When Motherhood Feels Too Hard? It’s a HUGE encouragement!
Cindy gave a great answer.
In those moments for me, I do one or all of several things.
1. Totally blow it and have to apologize
2. Force my mind to seize the moment by its horns and put everything in perspective: “this is temporary…my children are more important than any mess that can be cleaned up later…these problems of mine pale in comparison with the mom hovering over her dying child….” etc.
3. Quote Scripture out loud
4. Rehearse the voice of my older friend whose children are grown: “Even though these days seem so hectic, you WILL miss them being little, so try to relax and enjoy the days despite the work.”
5. Step outside (or in the bathroom) and pray aloud for strength.
I hope that helps!!
Thank you for this post! My season of this is over, but I will be saving it for my daughters – and having them read it now (before they are even married) so they are prepared. You are like the wise neighbor lady we never had! ; )
Smitti,
That is the sweetest thought 😉
[…] Kelly Crawford of Generation Cedar […]
That is just GREAT stuff right there!!!!!! Thank you for sharing and encouraging other moms! So wonderful….I shared on my blog facebook page!
I do not home school but only a few years back I volunteered at the elementary school my daughter attended….and I thought what a waste of 6 hours a day of my daughters time. I remember thinking that truly a few minutes an hour was used for actual teaching , the rest had to do with controlling and herding 30 children from one thing to another , then getting them refocused . So when math is taught for an hour , it is really more like 10 minutes. Homeschoolers must be doing much more it seems.
Karen,
That is a great point (and accurate, too) we need to remember.
Thank you for this timely post! I’ve kinda felt like I’ve been toppling end over end since our fifth child was born five months ago. Our five children are 7years and under and although they each help me very much by doing their chores and helping at meal times, there is still such a large portion of it all that is up to me. We moved out in the middle of nowhere (like nowhere as in 30+minutes to the nearest anything) which we are all enjoying, but along with the country li has come more responsibilities…like care for the chickens, goats, dog, cat, etc. Our goal (for a few years now) has been to bring my husband home. He’s working a full time job that entails much, much stress and very long hours, plus he does side work whenever he can (that he’s hoping can become his own business). So, all this to say that he’s home very, very little. Which leaves me feeling like (at least how I’d imagine it would feel to be) a single mom. I struggle with the childcare/housekeeping/homeschooling as it is, then I’m trying to care for the animals, the garden, the land etc and I’m just so incredibly overwhelmed with not a minute to spare, and I’m lonely, so lonely while my sweet husband is working himself into the ground. Moving to the country we were hoping to learn learn some self sustainability like raising some of our own food, gardening, butchering, animal husbandry etc and along with this my husband would quit his full time job to make the side work into his own business. So, we’ve been putting back every bit of money we can to start his business. And without exaggeration, every time we get money out back, something happens…like, the water pump has to replaced on our only vehicle, washing machine kaputs, etc, and there goes the money we had out back. And so we start over, again and again and again. And I try to come up with more ways to save a little more money, to help have some to put back. And I don’t know anything else that can be done anymore frugally than I already do. And it always means more work for me. I already cloth diaper, cloth wipe, hang out laundry, make all food, and I mean all food, from scratch, I mend any clothing that needs it, I sew/make gifts for my children rather than buying, I was shopping yard sales and thrift stores but cut that out partly because we live in the middle of nowhere, so it would use gas to do those things, and partly because I figured if I didn’t shop at yard sales and thrift stores then I (obviously) wouldn’t spend any money, so I would just make do instead. Sometimes I just want to throw up my hands and say I quit, but that wouldn’t exactly be a great helpmeet for my husband. Seriously, I’m just so, so lonely. I talk to no one, absolutely no one other than my children and I want to talk to my husband but he’s always working. And I’m a total introvert so it’s not like I want to be chattering with tons of people all the time but it would be nice to have a friend. Confusing, I know. I’m just overwhelmed. And there’s no one to turn to. (And I’m not belittleing prayer, I’m constantly crying out it Him). I don’t want to discourage my husband by unloading on him. Any advice?
I apologize for typos and misspellings. Typing with one hand while nursing the baby isn’t so easy.
Charity, I don’t have any advice. I just read your comment and just wanted to tell you that my heart is going out to you right now. You’ll be in my prayers this evening and in the days ahead as the Lord brings you to mind. I’m sure Kelly or someone else wiser than I will come along and share some advice. I just wanted you to know that I’m praying for you.
Well, I’m not wiser than anyone else, Melissa, but, more long-winded in print — yes! 😉
Charity,
My heart goes out to you…I wish I could give you a hug, sweet sister. I myself could have written a lot of what you did — especially as our husbands sound so similar — so I really identify with what you said and I feel for you. If I may, I’d like to offer you some advice — and hope, I hope. 😉
I’ll start by saying that I’m very concerned, reading your post, Charity, about the possibility you may be suffering postpartum depression. I’m no expert on the subject, but your references to being so lonely and incredibly overwhelmed, and your assessment of yourself as being one who struggles with childcare, housekeeping and homeschooling…I hear profound sadness and a down-on-yourself feeling, I think, resonating in those words and throughout much of your post.
I recognize the internet is not the best medium for conveying human emotion and tone, so I may not be “reading” you accurately, but I do hope you will seek help if you suspect depression. (Actually, reaching out to the online community is a form of seeking help, and I am glad to see that you didn’t keep everything you said all bottled up inside you. Everyone needs community, even introverts like you and me 😉 and the online community is especially important when opportunity for face-to-face, adult-to-adult relationships is lacking.)
HOWEVER! Don’t let online relationships become a substitute for communication with your husband. You said at the end of your post, “I don’t want to discourage my husband by unloading on him.”
Let my example serve as a warning. I’ve had a rough last several months, for reasons I won’t go into, but my online friends at the other site where I’m a “regular” knew more about my challenges and the emotions surrounding them than my husband did. I was feeling the same way you feel, that I didn’t want to unload on him when he was so terribly busy with other matters.
Well, guess what? Late last month, one more “stress” (in my perception, because it brought short-term difficulty, even though in the long run it would be beneficial) based on a decision my husband made led to my totally unleashing on him the pent-up frustration I had on so many levels. NOT. GOOD.
Trust me when I say this, Charity: You NEED to share your burdens, challenges, frustrations, what have you, with your husband before that proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back comes along. Yes, you are called to be a helpmeet to him, but he is called to love and protect you, as the weaker vessel. Don’t suck it up and decide you’re not going to burden him with your problems. Give him an opportunity to show the love he was meant to give to the woman to whom he pledged his lifelong love. Many blessings come from that (and they did for my husband and me, praise God, after the disaster of my ungodly reaction and the aftermath for a couple days after). Due entirely to the grace of God, our marriage is stronger now than it’s been for a long time, after having weathered that storm. But a blow-up and a meltdown is not necessary to building a stronger marriage, so don’t go where I did, even though good came of it.
Just a couple other random thoughts for you: You mentioned you were hoping to learn some self-sustainability — raising food, gardening, butchering, animal husbandry, etc. The word “learn” jumped out at me from that sentence. Think about it. Learning is a process, and we don’t learn everything we’ll ever know about something in a short period of time. It should really be done in bite-size chunks, not all at once. I don’t know when you moved out to the country, but perhaps you’ve taken on too much new learning in too short a period of time?
I understand your need for frugality, and your desire for self-sustainability, but not only do we need to be good stewards of our finances, we also need to use our time well, which includes REST. Please understand the importance of seeing to that need, Charity. We all have 24 hours in a day, and no more, and you can’t continue living with not a minute to spare for a break from the work without eventually experiencing deleterious effects. You and your husband, in my humble opinion, need to sit down and decide what will have to be set aside for this season. Read Ecclesiastes 3. To everything there is a season… Read the whole book, in fact! (Like I’m doing right now.)
I sound to me like I’m harping now, so let me be more gracious. 🙂 Like I said way back at the beginning of my post, I really feel for you. Do know that I am praying for you and want the best for you, Charity. I can’t bring relief like God can and does, of course, but I am willing to be a friend to turn to when things get overwhelming. I don’t post my real name, email, phone, or geographical location online, but if you would like to contact me, I give Kelly permission to give you my email, if you would like. Know that I’m not trying to stand in as a substitute for your talking with your husband, but I understand the feeling of loneliness when a husband is gone a lot, and woman-to-woman friendships, whether in person or online, are an important part of life that don’t need to be shunned, as if our burdens should only be shared with our husbands.
If that is not what you are looking for in friendship, though, I totally understand! I’m here with you in prayer, and will respond whenever possible if I have any advice or encouragement for you with anything you post here on the blog.
I pray God’s blessings on you, Charity. You are doing a work of immense eternal value, and God WILL give you all the grace you need to run the race well. Peace in Christ, sister.
Hello Charity,
While we aren’t in the middle of no-where, we are in a sense, in that we moved a few years ago to a new location where we knew NO ONE. After 3 years, we still know almost no one. We go to church but it’s 11 miles away and nearly all the mothers work outside the home full-time and we all live far away from each other. I know the feeling of every time something slips, gives, doesn’t work, you tell yourself,” Well, I guess I can absorb that too, somehow, cause there doesn’t seem to be any other way to fix it otherwise…” I too have gone the route of cloth diapers/wipes, hanging all our laundry all year long, cooking from scratch (I eat GF so I must), and so on. We too garden, homeschool etc. We have one car, and so when hubby’s at work, the kids and I walk to do errands to the bank and such–and lately, I’ve been dealing with plantar fasciitis in my foot, so that is rough!! I too have felt VERY lonely and sad and tired… not knowing how to do it all… Especially when you have the sense that all the scrimping and pinching is never going to end or ease up… It may be worth it to simply ask hubby if you could do a coupla things like 1)regularly buy paper plates to use for breakfast/lunches, 2)see if he could regularly commit to 1 small block of time (every week or 2)where he takes over the household for an hour or two, to allow you some rest time 3)Look at your budget and all the scratch cooking and see if you could maybe start buying bread instead of making it(sometimes you can get markdown bread at bakeries for a pittance) or some other ONE thing that would save you some time, but not break the budget. If we were nearby, I’d love to drop by! (I too don’t like large crowds, but prefer one good friend 🙂 )
Charity, My oldest is 10 y.o. and my youngest is 3 y.o. (I got 4 kids) I can remember a couple of years ago feeling just like you do. This past summer I decided to prioritize and let some things go. Like you we began gardening and raising chickens. We have been at it for 2 years now. But we began slowly. When we began we built 3 raised beds of 8’x4′. Then in the spring of the following year we added 3 more. Now I got 5 more. Slowly. We got 6 chickens 5 months ago. One died. We got 5 now and we are thinking of adding more. WE will see.
Don’t try to do too much. Communication is very important. Talk to your husband. Find a Sunday afternoon, after he has rested and let him know you need to talk. Do you go to church? Maybe you could find someone who would be willing to come by for a couple of hours a week and help you out? Watch the kids so you could rest. Look for an older woman or a young lady. Breath. If your clothes don’t get mended who is going to notice if you are 30 min. away from everybody? Keep one nice outfit for each family member to wear on going on outings or to church and the rest of the clothing don’t bother with fancy washing or mending. Don’t try to cook everything from scratch. Simple meals like soup or stews are easy and quick and are filling and great for children. There are so many crock pot recipes where you add meat and veggies and you got dinner or lunch. Breakfast can be as easy as peanut butter on toast, or scrambled eggs and fruit, or oatmeal cooked on the crock pot.
Breath. This will pass. I promise. But do implement some of the ideas.
I found out that as long as my kitchen is clean, and the house is picked up, I really don’t care how clean my windows are or how dusty my house is. But once a month, usually on a Saturday, everyone is recruited to help clean the house. For 2-3 hours we all help and clean all the bathrooms (I got 5!), vacuum, dust, wipe baseboards and put closets in order. Talk to your husband, find out how you two could work together.
I am praying for you.
Tereza, Your reply brought to mind something that has been very beneficial to me when I get overwhelmed. A while back, my husband listed the key areas that bother him when left un-done. #1: Sweet tea. He said, “I don’t care if the dishes are all washed, just please have sweet tea for me to drink!” lol. #2: A clear kitchen table. This is our school-hub, but I try to have it cleared when he gets home. It was so refreshing to know he was okay with letting certain things go, and also to be able to know what things really meant a lot to him. And Charity, I’m praying for you! I, too, have been through (and am not entirely out of) a season of extreme financial strain. But the stress isn’t worth it; God is always faithful to provide when we trust Him.
I’m commenting here rather than individually to each reply. I thank you each for your prayers. I’ve spent the last several days training my oldest two children (7 1/2yrs and 6yrs) in some areas of homemaking that will take a little more of the load off of me while in this season. I think we (I) often underestimate what our children are capable of, and I have seen over the last few days such excitement in my daughters that they are able to help mommy so much and have an even larger role in caring for our household. They love that.
I will continue to mend our clothing since we can’t afford to buy new things, and most of the mending I do is for my husband. He works around people, so missing buttons and ripped/worn hems isn’t the way he cares to represent himself. 😉
I’ve never rally thought about the possibility of depression. I’ve always heard “Christians don’t get depressed”. I’ve always struggled with being lonely, even as a small child. I come from an abusive home, and I just never fit in anywhere. I was always so worried at school or church of someone seeing bruising, or having to expIain a black eye or busted lip that I was horribly fraud to be around anyone. I was always terribly shy as well. I never really made friends well because of this as was just always nervous and timid. I was the little girl that ate lunch in the bathroom at school because I didn’t want to be seen eating alone. I would be so nervous and distraught over having to read aloud my book report to the class as an elementary aged child that I would literally throw up in front of the whole class, and this happened several, several times. I was just always a misfit, at all ages and stages. So being lonely is just something that has always been there for me. I think now it’s just that I’m lonesome for my husband more than just lonely in general.
I do talk with my husband, about everything. He is my best friend. Lately his work hours have been so terribly long that I haven’t seen him enough to be able to talk to him. My children haven’t seen him in 42 days, I counted, and I haven’t seen him in the daylight in 37 days. He hasn’t been home before midnight on any of these days and most days it’s after 2am when he gets home and he has to leave for work at 5:30am. That’s why I saw he’s working himself into the ground. There are no weekends, and he drives our one car, so it makes it very difficult on many levels. The hours will shorten as fall comes on, but I’m praying very hard something changes more permanently. Please pray for my hard working precious husband.
Also, we have faced an extreme amount of stress due to some “family situation” on both sides. Things I won’t/can’t go into, but have involved police, lawyers, court hearings, and has had me terrified for our safety. And these are well founded fears. So, added to just the everyday of life, I’ve been dealing with this too, which seems to make everything worse. Without this added stress, I think all the other wouldn’t seem so overwhelming.
Again I thank you each so much for your prayers. And since my little chubster is finishing nursing, I better end this. 😉
Charity–I”m just curious what your husband does that requires such extreme hours? My heart broke reading that. Not only for the raw lack of time he spends with his family, but 3 hours sleep, if that?! How does he function? I remember when my husband had to work several jobs to dig us out of debt and it felt horrible but he had more time than that. I can’t imagine. Wondering if there’s any possibility in changing his work situation?
My husband is a manager (low level) for the construction side of the phone company for his full time job. The hours have always been long, bringing him away at 5:30am and home between 9-10:30pm, sometimes longer. Currently there is a huge expansion in the market here, so it means super long hours. They have to have a certain amount done each day, and you don’t go home until the work is done. They are also hiring pretty much nonstop these days because of the overload of work. And then there’s the side work, which he wants to be his own business, but currently he’s having to turn down business for it because of the craziness of his full time job. Yes, something has to change. I worry constantly about him falling asleep while driving. He says he feels more like a machine than a person. It’s too much.
Charity,
You’ve got my continued, specific prayers for the situations you have mentioned in your posts yesterday and today, in addition to those from your original post.
I understand the fears you have about your husband falling asleep while driving. I worried about the same thing when my husband had a season (lasting about three months) where his work hours were very long and at a bad time of day. He started at 4:00 pm and, like your husband, he could not go home until the work was done. For a long while within that three-month period, he wouldn’t finish until approximately 7:00 am. Which maybe doesn’t seem so bad from a sleep standpoint, as that still left 9 hours (minus commute time) to sleep. However, after having worked either first or second shift his whole life, working overnight and trying to sleep during the day proved to be extremely difficult, and he’d usually wake up by 11:00 am or noon at the latest, so he was very sleep-deprived anyway.
I tell you this to offer you just a glimmer of hope, because my husband found that when the hours lessened slightly, so that he could be home by say 2:00 or even 3:00 in the morning, the quality of his sleep improved dramatically, because some of his sleep was during darkness, which leads to a much deeper sleep. That made a HUGE difference, having the quality of his sleep improved, even if the quantity didn’t change by a big amount. So it is a blessing your husband, as limited as his sleep is right now, can sleep when it’s dark out. I do believe that may be considered one of the ways the Lord is keeping your husband safe on the road.
I was encouraged by your report about your daughters’ delight in assisting you in homemaking tasks. What a blessing all around that is, for you and for them!
This next I want to say very carefully and gently:
First, thank you for responding to my comment about possible depression. I hope that I did not sound like I was trying to be an armchair diagnostician. That was not my intent. I mentioned it out of concern for the many stresses you are experiencing right now, Charity. I know stress can really wear a person down, and when you’ve got a fairly recent childbirth added into the mix (a REAL BLESSING! but a big responsibility at the same time, in caring for the baby) and the hormonal fluctuations that go with that, there can be some very real feelings of overwhelm and just wanting to throw your hands up in the air and say, “I quit”, as you mentioned.
But to get to the point of what I’m trying to say… Your comment in your September 19 post, “I’ve always heard “Christians don’t get depressed”.”, is a sentiment that I believe is incorrect (although I have heard that said, also, and believed it for a while myself).
Read the Psalms, Charity. I believe it is quite clear that David was depressed. David, the man who has been referred to as a man after God’s own heart. See especially such chapters as 42 and 43 where he asks several times, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” and in 42:3, “My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?”
Also in Psalm 51, verses 8 and 12: “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice… Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”
Clearly, this was a man who experienced much anguish and cried out to the Lord to have his joy restored.
I think there is a tendency to feel that Christians can’t get depressed, but I believe we have a Biblical example in David (and other Bible figures), and I know it to be true in the lives of a number of Christians I know. In fact, I now recognize it in myself, many years after the fact, as something that occurred after the birth of my sixth child, when I almost completely stopped functioning normally for a while because my fifth child’s special needs became extremely overwhelming after his younger sister’s birth.
I mention this out of concern that depression can occur for a number of reasons, especially, I think, when we are experiencing tremendous turmoil beyond our control, like you are, and we may not recognize it, or even believe it is possible to get depressed.
It is not a sign of weakness of faith or other things related to our Christian walk, Charity. (Not that you believe that, but some Christians, it seems, feel that way.)
There is more I want to say (of course!), but this comment is long enough, and my college daughter just got home, so it’s time for me to go. 😉
Praying for you and your husband, and hoping that the Lord will soon bring relief from the pressures you and your husband are experiencing.
Hi 6arrows,
If you’re still willing to communicate via email, I’d love for Kelly to connect us so we can continue our conversation without hijacking her blog. 😉
I would love that as well, Charity. 🙂
Kelly, when you see this and are able, could you send Charity my email? You can include my real name, too. 😉 Thanks much!
Talk to you later, Charity!
I’ll send it. I’m so sorry I’m just replying. Comments are not being sent to my inbox. I noticed it was awful quiet on the blog since I hadn’t seen any show up in my box, then I popped over here and realized the problem.
Got your email, Kelly. Thanks!
Charity, I’ve got your email address now. I’ll come over to your inbox soon and “introduce” myself. 🙂
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