Drained

Well it's now Sunday night... the drive home always gets me. After worshipping God through teaching Sunday school, then worshipping God in song and sitting under my Pastor's teaching with ears ready to hear what ever the Lord is willing to reveal to me, then coming home and fixing lunch for my family and cleaning up the mess to then return to church and teach a Precept class, I am drained. It is a spiritual, emotional, and physical drain.{I suppose going to bed after midnight and getting up before 6am didn't help either.}
It is at this point that I have learned that I must be VERY careful.
It is at this point, that the short snipey answers will come to the questions of little girls. It is at that this time that when a little voice says, "I'm hungry" I will snap with a "How can you possibly be hungry!" (I mean really didn't you just eat 6 hours ago???) Or it's the, "Could I at least get into the door before you start demanding things?!?" (I mean really how dare you expect me to actually act like a mother...) Then sad eyes will look up at me and I will feel like a complete horses butt, but even then, if I am not VERY careful I will take that feeling and twist it into more justification to get even crabbier... oh my poor children.
Yet even after this they still think I am amazing.
It started again today, almost, but thankfully as I began to type and share, a renewed strength came and the power of the Holy Spirit within me has revived me. So my emotions are once again under control. Now, as I type, my oldest is fixing her and her sister some late "dinner" as I explain to her how to do it (our computer is in the kitchen). She is like her Daddy, she likes to cook. I am glad. I believe I shall pass the cooking duty off to her as she gets older and I'll take over the dishes.
I believe the Word of God is true, and when God says confess your sins to one another, it is for a reason. If I had not been here confessing my struggle to you, then I probably would be at the point of yelling at my children just for wanting another glass of kool-aid. Exhaustion will do that to you. I believe this is one of the reasons why God said "Honor the Sabbath". He knows if we are to win this battle of flesh and Spirit, this battle of good and evil, we must be well rested. The enemy gets no greater foothold than when weariness overtakes us. We live in a world that wants us weary. Have you picked up on that yet?
I believe that is also why He says be devoted to Him, devoted to prayer, and devoted to each other. We need Him and we need each other. You see I don't have it all together yet, and I have reached the point that I don't care who knows that I don't have it all together, and it's for purely selfish reasons that I have come to this point. The selfish reason... my girls.
I have decided that I would rather have all the world know all my faults and see all of me, then to have my girls see two different faces on this Christian housewife. What you see is what you are going to get. I am not going to put on my church face and then my "all hell's broke loose" face as soon as I walk in the door. I just don't have the time or the energy for that game. As Meg Ryan says in the movie French Kiss, "Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotion"
I just want to be real, all the time, not rude, mind you, just real. Putting to death the deeds of the flesh in public and private. Obeying the Word of God in public and private. Honoring my God, my husband, my children, my family, my friends, in public and private.
There is nothing that terrifies me more than me being the reason that my children would ever doubt the reality and power and holiness and love of their Creator. So if that means letting others see the evidence of this ugly flesh of mine, then so be it, but more so I pray that what truly will be seen is the glory of the grace of God. I pray that what will be seen most is this amazing grace in which I stand by faith in my Savior Jesus Christ.