My Beautiful Girl

Sunday evenings...

I just need to cry, and to vent, and to just let go of some anxiety. Every Sunday night, a huge, huge anxiety comes over me. I don't like my job anymore. It is so very depressing. It has become very demanding in the past couple of months, and it's more than I can handle. I am a foster care case manager. I recruit, train, and provide support to foster families that are sponsored through our agency.
Tonight I have more significant grieving about going to work tomorrow. Katie and I have had a hard day today. She was grumpy, I was grumpy, even Kris was grumpy. Kris was pretty much unavailable to us all weekend, so it seems like we haven't really had a weekend. I really just want to not go back to work again-ever. I want to dedicate my life to taking care of MY family...not other people's. Most of them do not even realize the amount of time that I give up from my family taking care of theirs. I am just so tired of it. As my friend Melissa would say, "I've had it!". I really have "had it." I am just so tired, and so tired of being tired. I need $25,000.00 to pay off our debt except for our cars and house. If I had that, I would be able to be a stay at home mom. I know it's not a glamorous job, but it truely is the one I want. I want to take Katie to the library, and to swimming lessons, and to gymnastics, or to the park just to swing. I don't want to have to worry about if someone is having a crisis, or if they need to ask me the same question they have asked at least 20 times already. I am just so incredibly tired of it. I want to be able to go to work, do my job, leave work, and not do any more work until the next morning if I have to work outside of the home. I take my work home with me every night, and am accessible 24 hours per day to my families. I am just tired...so very tired. I need a break...but there is no break. I tried to take ONE week of vacation, and two days of it I am already going to have to work...so now my one whole week is reduced to three days...I am just so discusted. I am so tired...just so tired. I am tired of crying about it, I am tired of taking my frustration out on my husband and child. I am tired of seeing all of these children being abused and neglected when we are trying so desperately to have another child. I am tired of grieving...tired of being sad...tired of feeling this way. I need intervention. I need God...Lord, I could really use your help with this. I don't know what to do. I need to figure out how to get the money to be able to stay at home. I need an answer to prayer...I really do.

The Lord is...

...my strength, my shield, my joy, my comfortor, my redeemer, my salvation, my hope, my courage, my all in all, my friend, my father, my creator, my savior, my everything. I have so many things I want to write down tonight..so I'm going to try and capture some of it here.

I have been so discouraged since our adoptive placement disruption....Satan has just been after me continuously for the last couple of months...he has known my weaknesses...my tendency to have low self esteem and guilt, my tendency to lose faith and hope...and has been all over it. He has tried to convince me that I am a bad mother, a bad case manager, that I am fat and ugly, that I have no business trying to help people. He has tried to lie to me and convince me that I needed things and food to fill the empty holes that he created in me. He has been having a great time being victorious in my sorrow and grief.

"It is finished." Jesus said those words when He died on the cross for my sins. He knew that the sins of the world were on his shoulders and through his death on the cross, he was taking that load from anyone who would believe. Now I am saying that to Satan: it is finished...you are not going to have power and dominion in my life anymore. I have given my heart back to Jesus tonight. I am no longer a slave to your lies and your deception. I am no longer going to believe that I am any less than all that Jesus---my LORD and GOD--- has planned for me! I am his! Jesus has ME in the palm of his hand, and has taken my burdens. He has taken the guilt, the fear, the worry, and the sins of my life, and swept them away. My sins are erased, and I am a new creation...today! I am so glad!

Do you know what my beautiful, amazing gift from God that I like to call my daughter, said to me tonight as she drifted off to sleep? She said, "thank you mom," and I said "what for?", she said, "for everything." Jesus talked to me through her tonight...so incredibly directly, that it gives me goosebumps. He told me that I am a good mother, through her words. I am not sure if she will even remember that she said that, but it revealed what was in her heart. More than any other ministry on this earth, a mother has a responsibilty to raise their children in truth and in Jesus. Somehow...I know that He is helping me with this incredibly important task. I know that Katie has Jesus in her heart, and if I died today, I would know that God's grace has covered her, in spite of my shortcomings as a mom. I want her to remember me as a mom with grace and gentleness, and I am going to keep praying that God will give me those characteristics to pass on to her.

A friend of mine, Bev, gave the closing devotional at vacation Bible school tonight. She talked about two new Christians. One was a new Christian that got so busy that he did not have time to read the Bible or go to church, and when Satan came after him, he was vulnerable and weak. The other new Christian kept reading his Bible, and kept going to church...when Satan came after him, he was strong and connected to God, and able to withstand the enemy. Even though it was a devotional geared toward children, I felt the Lord moving in my heart. He was telling me that He was still standing right beside me...all I had to do was reach out for his hand...and he would help me beat the enemy. I know He will. I know He is here with me. I know that He will defend and protect me. I have faith...the Lord's lovingkindnesses NEVER fail. He is my strength and my shield!