Wife, Mother, Birth Mother, Author, Homeschooler

Who me???? Prideful???

27 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment

by Cynthia Christensen in Uncategorized Tags: drunk, fight or flight, God, humility, life, pride, stress, weak soul

I created in myself a perfect storm. And if I really admit it, I am often creating my own storms by taking on what I CAN do with God, but apart from God is totally impossible. If I stick close to God, I’m good. But it never fails, one day of not getting into my Bible turns into two and three, then four…and soon, I’m not feeling the strength anymore.

 I also have a hard time with compassion for whiners – even when it’s me that’s doing the whining. Always saying poor me, I’m tired, I’m this, I’m that. So, like most feelings in my life, I take my whiney-ness (haha, I can think of something that might be more fitting after the hyphen!) to God, and try my hardest not to complain about my life to anyone else. And, on a normal basis, if someone were to ask, I would whole-heartedly tell them that I do NOT consider myself a prideful person. Pride is not something I’ve ever considered myself to have a whole lot of.

 Here’s how my perfect storm began: Imagine one woman trying to homeschool two kids, keep up with orthodontist, orthopedic, and chiropractic appointments that average 2 per week for Kasey, my special needs child, moving Grandpa (and his girlfriend, part of the time) in for his final season of life and having at least one doctor appointment per day for him alone. Let’s not forget bowling, youth group, halfway house ministry, church, and being a wife. Kids doing school work in doctor’s offices, completely setting aside all author duties including returning phone calls, blogging, and emails, and getting to the end of the school day only to realize we had barely finished half a day of work because of all the running. Not to mention keeping the house and laundry up (of which I have since realized I didn’t do that as well as I had fooled myself into thinking!). I did all this because I wanted to and am so incredibly thankful for the time with my Grandpa before he passed. In the whole scope of life, this was a short season, and a wonderful reality of homeschooling is that make-up work is easy. By the end of this school year, one would never know we were behind after our first week of school!

 Because Grandpa was a dessert lover, I found myself stocking my shelves with more sweets in one week than we normally buy in a year. We don’t keep sugary goodness around our house, and on a daily basis we eat mostly protein. But the temptation was too great for me, and I had given in to the little Debbie – I mean, devil – on my shoulder that kept telling me to eat the junk. Thus, causing myself to spiral down in energy, emotion, and immunity. My son Noah commented on the fact that he loved having Grandpa around because there were always donuts to be had. Sweets are fun…in moderation. Tell that to my extreme personality. I prefer to demolish sweets so they are gone and out of my sight. That turns in to a huge problem when there are sweets around all the time. So, with not always making time with God, stress, a heavy heart, and a blood sugar issue in place, what else could I possibly add to make this storm even greater?

All of the blessings that came from our 2 month season still, however, did not negate the fact that it was emotionally intense and required daily time with the Lord. Daily. Simply to keep sanity. If I focused on the blessing of having Grandpa around more, I would never crack and be perfectly fine and not a person in the world would even see that my load phased me! At least that is what I told myself. I kept myself going on the premise that there would be a day for me to let down and fall apart – completely in private, with doors shut, curtains closed, knobs locked, and deadbolts latched. No one would know and no one would see me cry. Something inside me really, really hates to publicly cry and when I say public I mean anyone more than me, myself, and I. I pay no mind to others who publicly cry, I think it’s fine for them; but for myself, that is a whole other story! So, my cry plan was a good one. I kept telling myself if I could hang on one more day, one more day…and I was going to do this until that day came, then I would give myself permission to let go. I had planned that day to be last Saturday. Funeral would be over, family would all be gone. I had done all but write it into my day planner. That was going to be Cynthia’s Day. Yeah sure.

 My weak body, at this point starving for God, had a different plan…Friday morning, my 5^th wedding anniversary and funeral day, and two days after a trip to Shriner’s Hospital revealed my 12 year old son Kasey’s back was beginning to have degeneration and would need surgery ASAP (We had successfully been able to put this day off for a few years now)…that would end up being my day. I (keyword) fought harder that day than I have fought in a long, long time to keep my emotions under control. But by about, eh, 11am, it was apparent I was losing my battle of control. I was acutely aware that the signs were beginning to show outwardly and my “fight or flight” response was preparing for activation.

 So, here’s where I got tripped up and realized a big thorn in myself this week.

 My fight or flight. Well, there was obviously no fight left in me, so I chose flight. After evaluating my “flight” tactic momentarily, I realized I must deter people from thinking I am actually just naturally that weak so instead it would be good to be under a guise. Enter alcohol. I had hubby and brother (safe people for breaking down and crying in front of) stop off at a restaurant for a drink or two before the dreaded, post funeral family get-together. Not dreaded because I don’t love my family, so don’t get any ideas! If I had just a few drinks in my system I could play my emotions off as “tipsy” J. Haha! To my sane person, it sounds like a really, incredibly bad idea. To my “fight or flight” control freak person, it sounded wonderful!

 Remember that blood sugar problem I mentioned? Well, it turns out that 2 sugary margaritas don’t help that problem at all. Especially when one is not a big drinker in the first place. So, the definition of “tipsy” I had quickly turned into someone acting like a blubbering drunk! And speaking from the blood sugar blues experience and not just trying to defend myself, a person having blood sugar issues is already much like a drunk person in behavior. Suffice it to say it was not a pretty sight.

 After all that do you know what brought me comfort? I could blame my crying on the alcohol and not my weak soul! I think there’s a country song in there somewhere! I told my mom I would rather people think it was the alcohol in me than for them to actually think I was just that naturally weak.

 There it was—it hit me the moment the words came off my lips — my subconscious had spoken. I AM incredibly prideful. I pride myself on being in control at all times and not showing weakness. Yet…I wrote an entire chapter in my book, “Restorative Grief”, on helplessness and realizing that even when we think we are in control, we truly are not – God is. It wasn’t an obvious pride, yet still there and still bad nonetheless. I would rather be called a drunk than be called a human. Let’s not even consider how that fares with God (that’s a whole other blog topic!). Sounds really messed up to me now, but for the sake of learning, I love epiphanies anyway! I am thankful God loves us enough to show us our flaws and keep refining us in His fires. I am reminded of the basic and very true song I learned as a child, “Jesus loves me”…” “…They are weak, but He is strong…”  I needed the reminder that when I appear strong, it is only by His strength, and when I am weak, I need to rely on Him that much more instead of looking to myself. I also needed the reminder to lay off myself with public displays of emotion! It is ok and in fact would probably make me look more human!

 Proverbs 29:23 The proud will be humbled, and the humble will be honored.

 Humility achieved. Again.