Gifts

When I had baby #4, my life exploded.  I am still unsure how all the pieces will fit back together and that stresses me out.  I see the immense load that needs lifting and I begin to loose heart.  

This weekend God gave me a gift.  He gave me the ability to see my efforts as gifts to the people I love.  When precious child #3 brings me a foot tall stack of books to read and I read her two - that is a gift.  When I make child #2 yet another snack because he has apparently not been full for more than 10 minutes at any point in the last five months - that is a gift.  When child #4 goes down for a nap and I can choose to fold laundry or help child #1 with her homework it doesn't matter what I choose because they are both gifts from me and I get to choose which one to give.

This perspective has also made me realize that I am not Santa Clause.  Well, of course I am Santa at my house, but I don't have a magic sack that appears at the foot of the bed every morning.  I have a limit to the number of gifts I can give.  Somehow that was news to me.  You mean I can't do eveything and I still haven't learned that lesson?!?!  No, Virginia.  You are not Santa Clause.

I am loving this idea.  I especially loved it on Sunday afternoon everyone when everyone needed me (even my amazing husband.)  And they all managed to needed me at the same time for much of the afternoon.  For the first time in forever, I thought about what gifts I wanted to give.  I met the needs I could with all the love I could and then I went and took a nap, because I get to give gifts to me too.  

When I view my life as an attempt to dig my way through a mountain of "to dos" armed only with toothpicks I feel powerless.  When I see my day as a series of gifts I feel powerful.

I'm still not making a whole lot of progress.  
But, maybe the progress isn't the point.  
Maybe I am.