Motherhood and Self Pity....Don't Go There!
I am REALLY good at self pity!!!! I found out just how good I am at it this weekend.....which is actually really hard for me to admit. It continues to amaze me how one thought in my head can snowball into flat out self pity. I'm in a weird place in my life. I'm not in the little kid phase anymore where my kids need me for everything. They are 15 and 10 and can do most everything for themselves so I find that a lot of times I'm just hanging out waiting for the times they need rides, things at the store, or to go cheer them on at an event, which is what happened this weekend.
Actually there were two things this weekend which is where the beginning of the pity party came in---there was this big women's event at church and for the first time in a long, long time I wasn't asked to help with anything. That was really hard for me because like most people I want to feel needed. But instead of enjoying the break and going to enjoy myself at the event I found myself on the couch pouting and texting with a friend who was at the event which made me feel even more sorry for myself until it was time for my son's final swim meet of the season.....
So there we sat....for 4 hours....on really "comfy" bleachers...so that we could watch 2 races that our son was in. It had been a rough week before that. He hadn't done as well as he wanted to in the meet the week or so before this one and he was questioning himself ALOT!!! I had done all the encouraging I knew to do, but at the end of the day all I could do was pray. The rest had to come from him. His big race is the 500. It's a wicked race of 20 laps. Painful as a mom to sit and watch. I just remember praying' "Lord, please just give him the confidence to give it all he has no matter what has happened in past meets!" Well! Not only did he do better, he knocked it out of the park!!!! I just sat there staring at the time clock thinking how in the world did he just drop that much time....the kid is a fish!!! Amazing!!! About 5 minutes after the race was done, there he came trotting up the bleachers....and what was he there for??? To give his mom a hug...(and get his Mt. Dew that was in my purse because we had an agreement....he forgets the rest of the season and goes out there and swims the very best race only he can swim and I bring the Mt. Dew he hasn't been able to have since November.....cuz that's what mom's do!!)
Back to my pity party....if I had helped at this big women's event we had at our church this weekend like I normally do I would have felt pulled because I wouldn't have been able to stay for the whole thing because I needed to go to my son's meet or worse I would have thought, in my own head - not because anyone told me so, that I couldn't go to my son's meet because they "needed" me at church. This is sometimes my warped thinking and I want it to stop. I want it to sink in to my stubborn brain that this is my season right now and once it's done, it's done. If I would have missed that look from my son when he crawled out of that pool knowing that he had done the best job he could, conquering his nerves, I would have lived with regret for a really long time. Which in my experience is far worse than a day of self pity!!
Will I have self pity again down the road? Most likely, because I know how stubborn I can be!! What I need to get better at is trusting that my Jesus has better plans than what I think I want. We all want to feel needed and sometimes being a mom doesn't feel like it's a legit purpose, but I found out again this weekend just how legit it is. I love these boys and never again want to be distracted from witnessing their accomplishments in this world. I want to be their biggest and most faithful cheerleader!!!
Actually there were two things this weekend which is where the beginning of the pity party came in---there was this big women's event at church and for the first time in a long, long time I wasn't asked to help with anything. That was really hard for me because like most people I want to feel needed. But instead of enjoying the break and going to enjoy myself at the event I found myself on the couch pouting and texting with a friend who was at the event which made me feel even more sorry for myself until it was time for my son's final swim meet of the season.....
So there we sat....for 4 hours....on really "comfy" bleachers...so that we could watch 2 races that our son was in. It had been a rough week before that. He hadn't done as well as he wanted to in the meet the week or so before this one and he was questioning himself ALOT!!! I had done all the encouraging I knew to do, but at the end of the day all I could do was pray. The rest had to come from him. His big race is the 500. It's a wicked race of 20 laps. Painful as a mom to sit and watch. I just remember praying' "Lord, please just give him the confidence to give it all he has no matter what has happened in past meets!" Well! Not only did he do better, he knocked it out of the park!!!! I just sat there staring at the time clock thinking how in the world did he just drop that much time....the kid is a fish!!! Amazing!!! About 5 minutes after the race was done, there he came trotting up the bleachers....and what was he there for??? To give his mom a hug...(and get his Mt. Dew that was in my purse because we had an agreement....he forgets the rest of the season and goes out there and swims the very best race only he can swim and I bring the Mt. Dew he hasn't been able to have since November.....cuz that's what mom's do!!)
Back to my pity party....if I had helped at this big women's event we had at our church this weekend like I normally do I would have felt pulled because I wouldn't have been able to stay for the whole thing because I needed to go to my son's meet or worse I would have thought, in my own head - not because anyone told me so, that I couldn't go to my son's meet because they "needed" me at church. This is sometimes my warped thinking and I want it to stop. I want it to sink in to my stubborn brain that this is my season right now and once it's done, it's done. If I would have missed that look from my son when he crawled out of that pool knowing that he had done the best job he could, conquering his nerves, I would have lived with regret for a really long time. Which in my experience is far worse than a day of self pity!!
Will I have self pity again down the road? Most likely, because I know how stubborn I can be!! What I need to get better at is trusting that my Jesus has better plans than what I think I want. We all want to feel needed and sometimes being a mom doesn't feel like it's a legit purpose, but I found out again this weekend just how legit it is. I love these boys and never again want to be distracted from witnessing their accomplishments in this world. I want to be their biggest and most faithful cheerleader!!!
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