1. Are your closet, your schedule, your mind, and your life full? How about your heart? Are there empty places that you need and want to trust God to fill? If so, list them.
Absolutely. To the point that I lay and ask God for my mind to be still so I can concentrate on Him. But, fitting in perfectly with what this chapter is about – my closet is filled with clothes that don’t fit right, my schedule is filled with things for others leaving little to no time for me, my mind never seems to stop, and my life is filled with chaos, yet I always feel lonely. I know God and I’ve tried to make time to be with Him, getting up at 4:30am (sometimes earlier) to pray and study, but it just isn’t enough of Him, in my opinion; I still feel empty. So, I would say that my heart is definitively not full. I have many empty places and need to find a way to fill them with God.
Empty Places:
Work – I pray each day that God would use me at work. That I might be His love to the children and people I work with. However, I get so caught up in trying to be the teacher the state demands – always looking for what study I need to do, what extra-curricular I can help with, what extra duty I can take on to help financially, I seldom say no when someone needs something. I use to think that teaching was a mission, but lately, I just feel like I’ll never be what I’m expected or supposed to be. And it’s reaching the point that there are more and more things they want us to do, but since there aren’t enough hours for all they want us to do and teach, they give us home access, so I work 9+ hours on the site and then more at home just trying to keep up. And yet I feel unfulfilled and empty, like I’m not enough. And I don't even enjoy it most of the time anymore.
Parenting – I have spent 21 years trying to be a good mom. I’ve spent 17 of those years trying to be mom and dad.
With my girls (now 17 & 20) I was just a kid myself, so I wanted to be the cool “Kool-Aid commercial” mom and I wanted desperately to be their friend because we were all each other had. With my son (6) I have had an easier time being mom, but his medical challenges have been a constant reminder that I am only one person and that’s just not enough when he needs to be restrained or is screaming that he hates me or in pain and thinks he's going to die at the end of a long day at work with no sleep the night before.
I have also tried so hard to raise my kids in the Word, with God as their best friend. When the girls were little, it was much easier. They loved church and loved to pray. My younger daughter daily used to look at the sunrise or sunset and say “Thank you God for the beautiful sky.” When I’d make them put their head down if we passed an accident, the older would hold the younger’s hand and pray for the people involved. They used to love how I’d pray for them each morning before school and before games, or auditions, or anything special. As they have grown older, that has stopped and their requests for me to stop it have increased. I’ve continued, but in some ways I think that’s pushed them further away.
My older daughter went to college and it seems everything I taught her went out the window and she chose a path of promiscuousness, self-medication and bad choices. She even landed herself in jail for a night earlier this year, yet has shown no remorse or even effect of her choices, but rather is still looking for something. Therefore I feel like I have failed; if she had two parents, if she weren’t searching for that love, if she felt confident in who she was created to be, if I had raised her right, if had given her the tools she needs, if I hadn’t spent years pretending to be strong when I felt so weak…
My younger daughter is so angry so much of the time. She often finds a reason not to be in church, even frequently staying at a friend’s house Saturday nights. She has a confidence that exudes cockiness and arrogance, and she lets me constantly know she is never wrong. I’ve seen her be so mean and cruel to others at times. The way she has talked about her teachers; and again, feel like I failed this time in teaching her respect for her elders, including myself.
My son, who is the youngest, sees all of this. He is still going to church and loves to read Bible based stories and looks to the Bible, loves to pray. Even his behavioral therapist has included scripture into his therapy because it’s so important to him. However, he often reacts as his sisters do, making similar comments, similar choices, and just acting in a way that is EXTREMELY inappropriate for a 6 year old and sometimes for anyone.
And all 3 kids have questioned that if God is so important to me and so loving, why do I have to face so many challenges, why am I so alone, why doesn’t he provide me a helpmate, why is the youngest so sick, why was the middle sick for so long. And when I respond that He is the father they lack, He has a plan for us, He can work all things for good, and now I know in part, but one day I’ll know fully…the older 2 don’t buy it and the younger doesn’t understand. Again, failure to show them God’s true saving grace and amazing compassion and love.
Church: I go to church every Sunday. I say the prayers with as much heart as possible, but honestly, I feel lonelier there amongst those people than just about anywhere.
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