Overcomplicating Life – Pride Run Amok

   

      How many times have we heard it?  “Simplify your life, and you’ll be so much happier.”  I’ve taken part in the “40 Bags in 40 Days” for Lent.  It was nice, letting go of those things that were just bogging me down.  It was years ago when we did this, and my closet reflects the fact that I usually go after my children’s clutter first before dealing with my own mess.

As I get closer to giving birth to #8 (less than 7 weeks!!), I am constantly thinking about ways I need to let go and reflecting on why I put so much time and effort into This or That or Meals or School and finding the balance that I know will be put to the test once Tiny Baby gets here.  My – and I do mean MY – problem is that I take so much PRIDE in the things I do.  It makes me feel so nice to eat a healthy, tasty meal and have *most* of the kids and my husband compliment me.  (Plus, I just like to eat yummy and not bleck-y food!)  I like to be the person reading the story out loud during school (because I can do it best, right?).  I like to the person in charge (because then I can make sure we do it my way, right?)  I like to keep things much longer than I should because there could be the day when it’s needed, and I’ll be the HERO who came up with just the right thing or just the right outfit!

But this is all PRIDE.  Run amok.  Burning me down.  ‘Cause I can not not NOT NOT be all those things and do all those things and stay sane.  One of my stock lines to my kids is “I am only one woman with two hands, one set of eyes and one set of ears; no I cannot {insert child desire here}.”.   Another is “CHILL!”  Why can’t I just take my own advice??  I want my children to remember a happy, not stressed-out mama; not that three-headed dragon of a woman I feel like I am too much.

I will tell you this:  I give thanks to God for my uneventful pregnancies and births.  He has graciously led me to the most wonderful midwife who will help me give birth at home (my first homebirth!) instead of in a hospital.  The simplicity of this pregnancy – even though I am over 35 (I’ll be 42 when the baby comes!), I have gestational diabetes, and I always have back labor – has been SUCH a relief for me.  I don’t have to do deal on a monthly – now weekly – basis with the doctor’s office receptionist, lab technician, nurse, and THEN midwife.  I won’t have to deal with a totally different set of the same on the day the baby comes, plus all the rules and regulations of the hospital.  On the tail end of it, if all goes as planned, I won’t have to deal with the bills and overcharges and wrong charges and “it’s because you haven’t met your deductible yet” junk.  Why do they have to make it SOOOOOO complicated just to have a baby??

I am simply a pregnant woman who needs to give birth.

I am simply a mother of many children.

I have found that through this experience of homebirth, I need to have more faith that God wouldn’t have led me down this path, if He didn’t think I could handle it.  It’s my own pride in worldly appearances  and desires that bring me to the point of breaking.

+ Lord, grant me more humility.  

Lord, grant me more faith.  

Lord, grant me more gratitude for this wonderful journey You have set me on.+