Humilty

Today started off pretty badly. I got hit in the head with a Ken/Barbie doll, and not just a playful whap in the face, no I walked into the living room just as one of the boys was launching him out of it and it hit me full-force at the top of my head hard enough to make me cry. And I guess because I don't cry as often as I maybe should I cried and cried and cried about this hit on the head. Thankfully I didn't respond in anger, I just sat there on my living room floor and cried.

Later I sat on my bed and I got out my journal and I started writing, to myself and to God. Because I am really stressed right now. We are heading into the final stretch of school and that's a hard transition for all of us, and we're heading into testing week, which is stressful, plus we are heading towards Josiah's first time doing standardized testing and that is a mental fight for me. I want Josiah to make me look good. Ugh - that is the ugly truth of it. I want him to validate my decision to homeschool him and prove that I haven't completely failed at it and if that could be declared on a paper in black and white that would be very nice. I know I'm wrong. I am trying to talk myself out of it on a daily basis and keep telling Josiah that he'll do just fine, but this mama is seriously loosing it inside. And to top it all off Daniel has a lot of job stuff going on, and I just feel done. Over it. There is too much to handle.

So I have been praying about how I've been feeling lately and writing in my journal about it and a few words slipped out that surprised me -  I feel like I shouldn't be this upset about my life. This made me do a double take. I HATE that word shouldn't. It is such an ugly word to me. Am I upset about my circumstances? Yes? Okay. Be upset. Don't be ashamed of my feelings! Yes, it's not the end of the world. Yes, it could be worse. But it's not nothing and it is okay to be upset and then move on.

The other thing that came out of this journal writing was the word humility. Which surprised me because I don't usually think of humility as being the answer to being stressed out. But after siting with this word for a few minutes I realized that there is comfort in knowing that I am not the center of the universe and my problems are not huge to God.

Humility means rightly knowing who you are. It means not thinking more highly of yourself then you ought to. I think it also means not thinking of yourself as more lowly than you are either. In the religious tradition I was raised in humility was venerated and sometimes I think it got distorted into a game of "how low can you go?" I don't think that is healthy humility. We shouldn't be puffed up with pride but we shouldn't be deflated with false humility either. Both are, I think, equally effective ways of sidelineing us to be effective in God's kingdom.

I closed my notebook and then opened it again and wrote these final words "I may be small, but I am seen." 

Those few words meant a lot to me and changed the direction of my day. I rolled them around in my mind. I am small, but He sees me, and He loves me. If he sees the birds who are sold two for a penny and he cares if one of them falls to the ground, how much more does He care about me?

A couple hours later Josiah came in from the backyard with the tiniest little wildflower. It was even smaller than the clover that is taking over our back yard. He said "I searched the yard to try to find more, but this is the only one like it that I could find. I wanted you to have it because I thought you'd like it." Small, but seen. I felt so much like this was not a coincidence.

I think that this is true humility - I know that I am small but I also know that I am seen and loved by my infinite God.