You lost your mind. You always do after a nap. I didn’t mean to let you, you just fell asleep on the drive home from Gigi’s.
I woke you up and took you inside… and you ran upstairs and I heard the cries start. Calling for your big sister.
I went into your closed room, the cries having turned into lamenting wails. You screamed for me to leave. “Ok, I’ll be in the next room if you need me.”
The cries continued and I had to brace myself against the bed to keep from going back. A few minutes passed, and I went to check again.
“I want my sissy! And my room is so messy I don’t want to clean it up.”
Before I would have said “well you have to, especially now that you’re throwing a fit and screaming for everyone else in the house to hear!”
Instead I said “Oh that’s what I came to do, come pick up all of this for you, will you sit on the bed and keep me company?”
You stopped and shoulders dropped, face softened. “Oh ok mommy… I still miss sissy” you confessed as more tears started to pour down again.
“I know sweetheart, you love her so much and she’s not here right now and that makes you sad.” I said kneeling picking up the toys. You nod. I continue talking before you can start crying again “Wow look at this pen!”
“Can you stay and cuddle me?”
I climbed onto the bed and hugged you, firmly, and remembered reading “When hugging a child, don’t be the first to let go.” So I didn’t.
I’ve never been one for self care. It has always seemed frivolous and futile, something I’m sure I learned from your Grandma Mac, but I always wanted to avoid the feeling of being scammed; investing too much faith into a product advertised to make all my dreams of becoming magically irresistible overnight come true. So I wrote them off, like sweepstakes. The beautiful have already been decided and that was that.
But the other day I saw this post. A girl in an instagram video stated you could tell the girls who didn’t take the time to lotion themselves after a shower, not because of the actual hydrating properties of lotion, or which specific kind, but because you could tell she did not think she was worthy of her own time.
It stopped me. Was this how I viewed myself? So many things to be done, chores and responsibilities, that there was simply no time for… me?
I’d told myself it was selfish and indulgent so often… not realizing that maybe that could be a good thing.
Maybe my selfishness, literally caring for my self, could pour out onto those around me.
Maybe nobody could meet the needs I was denying myself and the pressure I was putting on them to do so was suffocating our relationships.
So, my little ones, I grabbed the sugar scrub, unopened, tucked back under the sink, and a bottle of lotion that had been gifted us months (if not a year) ago. I opened and moved them into the shower and was pleasantly surprised at how nice the scrub felt. It felt productive, stimulating my legs and arms and I thought of lymphatic drainage, and the ways my legs course pumping blood after a long walk. And I wished I’d done this for myself a long time ago. Because here I was, engaging in a frivolous, self absorbed, superficial activity, and I could sense the multiple benefits immediately. And I felt special.
I heard God’s voice explain, that the body is not all sinful for its desires, it is only sinful if the flesh leads. God made our bodies to work for him, and to care for them is stewardship. He did not make it Him against the flesh, but rather He is the head of the body. Caring for it, self care, is worship, in the same way they would dust the temple to create a beautiful dwelling place. But placing the flesh, its importance, or desires above Him is the only sin. Don’t be selfish is a warning against the chance of sin if it becomes too big. I always heard it as the act itself was sinful. Selfishness. It feels like a bad word. And yet there I am judging again. When we judge, we condemn only ourselves. If I enjoy something, it is good. If I dislike something, then I shouldn’t do it. If I want something, like freedom or drinking, that is ok, not bad, I just have things I want more, like the health and freedom of sobriety. And so I don’t shame others for partaking, because I feel no shame over my desire to do it, even if I must deny myself and practice discipline.
Sweet girls, all this to ensure you have a recipe for a nice sugar scrub! And never forget to let yourself enjoy being beautiful and beloved young ladies.
My sweet girls. Why? Because I realized the other night, after weeks of pondering, what my purpose is. Not just my purpose in particular, but all of ours.
The point of being here is… to serve. Obviously!
But not so obviously that I was saved from weeks of inner turmoil. “To glorify God.” It’s the point of life according to the Bible. But what did that mean? Live righteously? Take no credit? Always pointing back to Him? It all sounded right, but with no set actionable steps. And I love directness.
Unfortunately that’s now how our God speaks to us. Well sometimes, but not always. Round and round I went. Until…
I was just nursing the baby like usual, when a sharp pain came up in my heart. The twinge resided but the ache stayed. It became hard to breathe. Everything felt off. The more I focused on it the more wrong it felt. So I asked ChatGPT…
It’s not my favorite tool, but I’d seen a post saying it had saved someone’s life. I typed in my symptoms and there it was; “Seek medical attention now.”
I called your father, barely able to breathe. From the anxiety or the pain I know not. When he answered all I could do was blubber.
When I’d finally relayed the message with at least 85% clarity he told me to relax, it was likely anxiety and he was on his way home. You both sat there and looked at me like the world was ending.
I pulled you to me and we laid there. Waiting for the result. I prayed and prayed and prayed.
“Please Lord, let me live. They need me. I need to be here for them.”
And I understood. That’s why I am alive.
To serve. No thing in life could I consume that would make worth the pain of the suffering we experience here. But for them…
For my children and husband I would wear the crown of thorns. I would pick up my cross and follow Him. When I pleaded to the Father I finally knew: I am alive to love them.
John 10:10–11 — “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
John 15:9–13 — “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love… Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
To My Sweet Girls 