With Whom/What are you awestruck?

Psalm 127:1 Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it: except the Lord keeps the city, the watchman wakes but in vain.

On June 19, my little Rest was born. The labor and delivery was nothing like Hannah's.

I was at home that morning and began to have contractions. They were not painful. I have a high tolerance for pain, I would later learn. So, I got up, took a shower and told my husband, who was off for the day. We went to the hospital. It had been upgraded to have labor and delivery suites. I didn't have to take Castor oil, although the doctor did have to broke my water for the labor to be productive. God was so gracious. I could sense the Father comforting me through the whole day. It was truly the "restful" experience I had prayed for. We came home the next day and I began tending to my 18 month old and my newborn.

I was sleeping very little, eating junk, and very busy. So, I parked myself in three books of study, Ruth, Ecclesiastes, and Psalm 127. I pondered them for over a year. Looking back over my notes, I can see why God chose to settle me in those places. Ruth, helped me to keep proper perspective on my marriage of only 4 years. Ecclesiastes, was used later to help me identify the behaviors that cause my depressions. And Psalm 127, contains the principles found in both longer books. I would peruse that when my very tired brain was overloaded.

For this post we will focus on Psalm 127:1-2

Tending to two small children can be very taxing. I had been teaching at a local christian school during my pregnancy with Noah. Hannah spent those months with a special friend. She modeled the mom I wanted my children to have. She cooked, cleaned, worked, laughed, and played with her girls. I wanted to be that for my family. So, I began praying that God would make me love being a mom. I had to pray about that a lot. You see, I was raised to believe that being a mom was not enough. If you didn't work outside the home you were not really doing anything. I began to feel guilty about being at home and tending to my children. I learned that guilt is the first dart Satan hurls at me to begin the process that leads to my depressions.

God ordained the family to be one man, one woman, raising children for Him. The man is the provider. The woman is the caregiver and helps the man provide if necessary. But in my case it was not truly necessary. I just liked working outside my home. I found it more gratifying because of what the culture was telling me. I began to seek duties to squelch the guilt. I didn't pray necessarily. I just began telling God what I was going to do.

So, I would open my home to others like my friend. I would keep some of my other friend's children so they could work outside their homes. In a since, I enabled myself while enabling others to continue down the same path. This worked for a time, but didn't truly make me "feel" any better. I was still frustrated, tired, and angry a lot.

Psalm 127:2 It is vain for you to raise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

My children were less than two and I was keeping a four year old and another newborn. I also allowed some older kids in for after school, so when my husband came home, the house was full of children. He is a good man. After 25 years together, he tells me he didn't mind, But as I look back, I wonder how many evenings he would have loved to have somewhere else to go.

Some of the kids didn't leave until seven in the evening and we still had our own to tend to. I would get mine in bed and stay up doing household chores until midnight and then rise at five in the morning to prep for the day, eating the bread of sorrows and anxious toil, believing that this labor would make me happy.

But rest, my friend, is where happiness is. Rest of body, and soul allows the mind to rest in and on God. I was leaving that out. I was reading and studying, but I had stopped applying and was loosing the battle to the Dark.