Light Affliction

Even before the alarm sounded this morning, I was awake.

I was up pacing the floor and thinking about the "what if's" and whispering the "please Lord's".

Praying for all of Heaven's attention on a Monday morning at two a.m.

One would think I've learned how to trust by now......

And I have on many levels.

But bigger storms require a deeper trusting.


There were babies asleep in my bed and I should have been sleeping too.

But I was busy watching over them. 

Asking for more mercy and more grace than I am probably allowed and begging Him to equip me.  I don't want to just "get through" another week. But I want to Mother them and  Mother them well.

Not out of exhaustion. Not out of a heavy burden. And not out of frustration.

I long to Mother them out of a place and space filled with love and grace- no matter what.

This is when I start the clinging on of Jesus.

But Monday mornings tend to bring this out in me.

When the man who is the rock of this family walks out the door at 5:00 a.m. every Monday morning and doesn't return until late Friday night every, single week.

Two years and two months now, but I am not counting.

I want what I had scripted for my life. I want what looks and sounds and feels like the very definition of a happy, normal life even though we all know that "normal is just a setting on the dishwasher."

I think that most of the time I am a really strong person. I can handle a lot.

But today, in the wee hours of the morning, I started feeling like I couldn't do this anymore...

I'm tired of having to be so strong.

I am worn out bone weary and heartbroken from doing life completely solo.

I want my Husband to wake up with us as a family, have breakfast together, take the kids to school together. And be home with us again at five o'clock so that we can have dinner together as a family every night.

I long for this.

I want him home for baths, homework, prayers, bedtime stories and a sweet baby learning to crawl.

When he's gone, it doesn't feel right. We are all kinds of out of sorts.


Including but not limited to, arriving at our destination by the seat of our pants with at least one person missing a pair of shoes.


Although on a good day, it's just one person, one shoe. Thank you Jesus.

I've got to be the best "Mama-Daddy" in the world for these children and there are days that I don't know how I'm going to do it.

I long for community.

But some women love to tear each other down and I just can't bear that right now.

I don't want mean spirited questions.

I don't want rude comments.

I don't want the jabs and the putdowns spoken with a smile.

I don't want someone bringing me dinner when I have a baby just so they can see the inside of my house.

Please Lord.

It's nothing close to perfect.

And it certainly is not filled with the types of furnishings and such that some people strive for in life.

My home is decorated with prayers and sacrifice and the footprints of six precious children.

I don't want someone offering to host my child for a play date just so they can compare their child against mine .

Their child will win every time. 

Because I am doing the job of two people right now and confident that every, single one of my children could act better, do better and be better. Amen.

We don't always sit down at the table and have a civilized dinner.

Sometimes we drive through "Happy Donalds" and by the time we get home there isn't a chicken nugget in sight. In fact, if you opened the door to my SUV right now I can promise you that a french fry will spill out of the car door.

We don't always place our napkin in our lap. We don't always use our manners. We don't always do and say the right thing but we try. Lord do we try.

But the last time I checked, the raising of children isn't a "dog and pony show."

I'm not interested in performance based parenting......

This isn't what I would have scripted for my life but I am doing everything I can right now to pour into and love six precious children.

Things can change for better or worse overnight.

Change has no address. Sometimes, it just happens. 


This isn't what I prayed for. Hoped for. Dreamed for. This separation within our own family.


It's just life.


Life can stop you on a dime and give you five cents change....
It can catch us completely off guard and knock the breath out of us and pull the rug out from underneath us all at the same time.

As I was pacing the floor this morning, and the tears came.... He dropped two words in my spirit.

"Light affliction."

Which took me to that oh -so- wonderful scripture.

You know the one...

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." ~2 Corinthians 4:16-18


Do you have a favorite scripture that helps you through your "light afflictions?"

Please share it here so we can all get a big impartation of His glorious word today.

I'm mindful today not to lose heart.......praying that for you too.