This weekend I spent
my first weekend on my own in Rexburg. It was absolute, well...heck. Karter is a very
social, busy, busy baby. And from the minute he was born, he hasn't had to spend
more than a day alone with me...ever. This weekend, we did 3. My family left me on
Saturday morning, and by Sunday afternoon I couldn't tell you who was in a
worse mood. Karter spent a full 2 minutes screaming at church because I
wouldn't let him gouge my face with his hands and then when I finally calmed
him down he started screaming (for another 2 minutes) because I wouldn't let
him pull my shirt down.
I scared 2 innocent bystanders with my random bursting into tears. One while I was at church absolutely falling to pieces in the foyer, and
another while I sat in my brand new backyard that does not have a fence. I'm
pretty sure that poor man thought someone was dying. (Well someone kind of
was…or already did).
I can't describe how
I was feeling. I mean, I'm going to try, but I'm not sure I can truly convey
the sense of hopelessness that I was feeling. Here I was just over 24 hours of
being on my own with my own baby and I couldn't see how we were ever going to
survive. I don't handle being on my own very well; never have, but mix in a
baby who depends on me for everything, and besides which, doesn't really seem
to like me all that much, and things were just…Heck. That afternoon I turned to
some people for comfort, and after not finding any, it seemed i just felt worse. That is
nothing against them, because honestly there is nothing anyone can ever say to
make this better. They said the right things, they just weren't the things that
I wanted to hear. What I truly wanted was for THOMAS to tell me that it was all going to be OK,
and that I could do this, and I knew I wasn't going to get that.
Well after that, I
got mad. This is kind of embarrassing, but I sat in my living room and while
Karter went from one thing to another, crying because he was bored, I chewed
Thomas out. I literally sat there and told him off for dying. I told him that I
was lonely and that he had no right to go off and leave me with an impossible
child that I absolutely could not handle on my own. I was frustrated and angry,
and absolutely hopeless. I saw the rest of my life stretch out ahead of me, and
it was utterly depressing. And I told him that. Here I was going through our
stuff, our whole life together, moving into a cute little house, and I could not get over the fact that he was
not there to help me do it.
It made me think of the day Karter was
born. I was laying in the bed and I'd had the epidural a few hours before that, so
things weren't too bad, in fact, I'd been sleeping. The doctor came in to check
on me and told me that I'd finally labored down, so it was time to push. I just
remember the moment of sheer panic that came over me when he said that. All of
a sudden it all became so real. It was one thing to be hot and uncomfortable,
and fat for nine months. It was a completely other thing to be so responsible
for something so tiny. While I was having my moment of panic, I looked over at
Thomas and he was grinning from ear to ear. I had a thought then. Even if I was a
sub-par mom; ordinary and unremarkable. Thomas was going to be a phenomenal
father, and so everything was going to be OK. It's so ironic to me now that I
would have that thought. Because this last weekend, I was worse than sub-par, I
felt terrible, and there was no phenomenal father to make up for what I was
lacking.
I'm saying all of
this because by the time I put Karter down on Sunday night, I was livid. Not
just at Thomas, but at God. Out of everyone in the universe, he knows me best,
and he'd made my worst nightmare come true. I was spending time getting ready
to live in a house on my own, without my best friend; a single mother. I was as
far from humble as it's possible to get. You could say that on a list of people
who were living worthy of blessings, I was at the bottom…if not off the list
entirely.
As I was walking to
the car, I had the very distinct impression that the Lord wanted me to know that I am not alone. The lord, and
Thomas, for that matter, won't let me ever be alone. My hour at this day care
had been an answer to prayers that I hadn't even bothered to say because I was
wasting so much time being mad.
Let me let you all
in on a secret. The lord looks out for his children. Even if we don't always
deserve it. In my hours of darkness I'd convinced myself that I was doing this all on my own and that no one
can ever understand what I was going through. And ironically enough, I was too
mad to talk to the one person who can look at me and say, "I know your
pain, let me help."
It is ALWAYS darkest
before the dawn. This whole experience just reminded me that true faith comes
in those dark moments when you can't see the light. Faith means having a hope
that when all of this pain and suffering is over we are going to have more happiness
than we can ever imagine.
I am so lucky that I
have people on the other side that care about and love me, because I failed in
that one aspect this weekend. I was taking all of my other revelation and
answers for granted, and acting like the lord had never blessed me. I had
convinced myself that I was all alone, and that was never going to change.
Just remember, no
matter what you are going through, no matter how you feel at this exact moment.
If you just keep that faith that eventually you will get a glimpse of that
light at the end then the lord will bless you even more than you can imagine.
