Day 5

Mondays. Ugh. Today was one of the harder ones for me.

We're all sick. I really would love a sick day to beat this thing. Instead Mike has a meeting in Seattle tomorrow night and I'm looking at no help in the evening. I can't even think about it tonight.

One of my spiritual mentors told me once that one of the reasons for Lent is for us to learn how incapable we are of living a "good life" without Christ. We can fool ourselves for awhile but eventually we are thrust into circumstances that break open the reality that we just aren't enough. War, sickness, parenting, even monotony can be the thing that drives us to realize that we need Jesus.

This time in my life when some days I just can manage a "Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner" is probably good at driving that home for me. I introduced the concept of "praying for Mommy" to the kids and I've had to ask their forgiveness a lot in the last week or so at being short with them and cutting corners just to survive.

Everleigh still looks up at me like I'm perfect; Ben has accepted that I'm not and moved past any surprise to being quite supportive of me as an ordinary person. Kyrie is extremely disappointed with me these days and uncertain why I can't meet all of her needs. I do what I can but one of the most important lessons my mom taught me was to go to Jesus with my needs. I'm hoping she can see me doing that and learn it sooner rather than later.