It’s a classic moment in our family lore, though I rightfully roll my eyes when it’s retold. (Again.)
Before my husband was even my boyfriend, there was this potentially lovely moment when he disclosed his intentions. That’s right. He was actually doing what we want young men to do: Speaking plainly (there is no other way for my husband). Not playing games.
So imagine a spring night in the South, us just having returned from coffee on campus. We’ve come to a stop at the door to my dorm.
In all its celebration of the best, Christmas still has a way of exposing…reality.
Take last Wednesday. The goal: 12 canning jars of sand-art brownies for my kids’ teachers. And of course, to make a memory.
But as I’ve mentioned before, sometimes my memory-making can go a little differently than I saw it going in my head. In this case, I struggled to hear Pandora’s Christmas music above, oh, my children yelling at each other. (And, uh, me raising my voice back.) And my cries of “Don’t eat that! You don’t want to give your teachers the gift of sickness! Go wash your hands with soap!”
Missed Part I? First, grab it here.
When you felt like you were finally surfacing from burnout–or as I called it, tired-mad, I might tell you what I found out. That sometimes burnout is simply burnout, because life is hard. And even though God never gives us more than He’ll give us strength to handle (He says so here and here), it still can feel like a rightful scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel, ta-da-I-survived type thing. (Whether it’s godly or not to be burned out is another post for another time, perhaps. But pretending it’s not there doesn’t really help.)
I glimpsed it in the slight tightness, the fatigued determination of her face that day: that distinct weariness that comes from herding toddlers and preschoolers 24/7. Having worn that particular look for approximately eight years myself, I know it well.
And though there are few exhaustions like young-mom exhaustion—I felt my own version of tired-mad that week. (Um. My family may have felt it, too.) One of my favorite takeaways from the movie Home were those hybrid-emotions, like sad-mad. Anger is a secondary emotion anyway, right? We feel angry usually because we were first hurt; afraid; grieved. Depleted, taken for granted; so very tired. So I have to plunge my fingers into my anger, exploring a bit.
Around the world, so many of us are grieving this senseless tragedy in Orlando, trying to make evil fit into a narrative that would make sense. Beginning on Monday morning, I’ve felt myself pushing against that gray, shapeless mass that is anxiety–for a number of personal reasons, not the least of which are these heart-rending events in my home country. Though I don’t feel my voice would add something unique to the reaction, after talking with our kids on Monday evening and praying together as a family, I found my friend Kristen’s post, Dear Kids: It’s a Sad Day in America, to be a good word.
My anxiety doesn’t compare to what many are mourning right now, and I continue to pray for Orlando families and churches. But perhaps you can identify with some of these thoughts as we confront fears of all dimensions. -Janel
Parenting is…overwhelming sometimes pretty much all the time. Last night I recognized a sensation creeping over me with shadowy fingers, as my thoughts slammed into my kids’ schooling and implementing solutions for my son’s ADHD and appalling, heart-rending current events: anxiety. If I were to have drawn my heart, it may have looked like this:
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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