Sometimes you fall flat on your face

Yes, that is Aden. Yes, I took that picture. It was not what it was intended to be.

But what really is?

(He's fine, by the way.)

Before diving into the face-first-fall topic, allow me to express my undying devotion to non-humidity. No wonder God chose that color for the sky. Breathe it in, the cool breeze and moving muscles and vitamin D and happy hearts and temporary brotherly fondness and half-decent pictures. Only thing missing is pumpkins.

We had a good time, despite the injuries. It's so nice to actually want to be outside, knowing you won't be drenched in sweat and have your whole body basically turned into a giant mosquito bite three minutes after walking out the door.

The family is in a good season right now, as a whole. Trey is positively thriving at school, making new friends, showing interest in team sports (to his Daddy's jubilation). Aden is enjoying one-on-one time, slowly learning shapes and letters, and his vocabulary is growing and improving every day. Brandon has a good teaching schedule, is blissfully immersed in athletic life at school, and loves coming home to his boys.

And I love it when all of them are happy.

But my hats are getting to me. You know the hats. Wife, mother, maid, cook, laundress, bottom-wiper, shopper, money-tracker, employee, church worker... Just the beginning of a very long list of who I'm supposed to be.

Of course, the true beginning of my list should be "devoted Christ-follower", and the fact that I did not put that first in writing the prior statement speaks volumes to why I can no longer sleep at night. I am blinded by my to-do list, and I'm suffering for it.

Parenting is a joke. Decided this after yelling and doling out a spanking during devotions the other night.

I have fallen flat on my multi-hatted face. Figuratively and literally, as later that night I got down on my face, begging the Lord to forgive me for my neglect of and impatience with two immeasurable blessings. To take every single hat off, and to make me new. Because I just can't do it. I don't want to be who I have become.

Age, and the precious gift of perspective, attests to the fact that this is just one season of life. God is in control. Though I walk around one stitch from losing it, all is not lost. I love my boys and pray constantly that they will come to know the Lord early in life, and stay with Him all their lives. And that this will be, at least in small part, because of their mother's example, and not in spite of it.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
courage to change the things I can
and wisdom to know the difference

living one day at a time
enjoying one moment at a time
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace

taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it

trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will

that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next

amen