I love Mondays.
I love the fresh start they signify. The blank slate of a new week that awaits me. The renewed energy I get when I look at my freshly-turned planner page and review our lesson plans and library plans and supper plans and play date plans. I get a week's worth of new chances to love my husband and teach my kids and grow my faith when I flip that page over. There are no hastily scribbled phone messages or canceled plans or forgotten appointments to mar the pages yet.
It's a fresh set of unspoiled opportunities, and there are days, especially days like today, when I need that new start.
Because,y'all: YESTERDAY STUNK.
From the minute that the big kids rolled out of their bedrooms in the morning to the last time I went in to tuck them in at night- everything about yesterday was HARD.
Breakfast was hard: I boiled over our oatmeal on my freshly scrubbed stovetop while I was trying to iron church clothes and fix potatoes for lunch.
Church was hard: I had to take BOTH the bigs out during worship for FOR REAL discipline because they just.couldn't.deal.
Naps were hard: They were late and tear filled and about 90 minutes too short.
The rest of the afternoon/evening followed suit with a marginally improved evening worship performance by the kids but was rounded out with a prayer time/bed time/snuggle time charade that dragged out approximately 279 minutes longer than it ever should have.
When I finally shut the door to the bigs' bedroom for the LAST TIME last night, my Momma heart fell apart. Like a dry leaf you find on the ground in the fall- it crushed into a thousand tiny pieces and drifted away as I shut down the house last night. As I picked up toys and folded blankets, and fixed the coffee pot and turned on the dishwasher, as I straightened bookshelves and emptied trashcans, my Momma heart just shattered from stress and frustration and exhaustion and tears.
And, this morning, after a good night's sleep and with two really strong cups of coffee- I sat down with Jeremiah. I read his tear filled lament for Israel in Lamentations 3 and I cried, too. I felt his emptiness. His despair. His brokenness.
But, more importantly, I felt his hope.
I prayed for a new week this morning. I prayed for a fresh set of unmarred planner pages and unsoiled opportunities and renewed strength of heart. I prayed for new mercies this morning.
And that's what I have.
Hallelujah.
I love the fresh start they signify. The blank slate of a new week that awaits me. The renewed energy I get when I look at my freshly-turned planner page and review our lesson plans and library plans and supper plans and play date plans. I get a week's worth of new chances to love my husband and teach my kids and grow my faith when I flip that page over. There are no hastily scribbled phone messages or canceled plans or forgotten appointments to mar the pages yet.
It's a fresh set of unspoiled opportunities, and there are days, especially days like today, when I need that new start.
Because,y'all: YESTERDAY STUNK.
From the minute that the big kids rolled out of their bedrooms in the morning to the last time I went in to tuck them in at night- everything about yesterday was HARD.
Breakfast was hard: I boiled over our oatmeal on my freshly scrubbed stovetop while I was trying to iron church clothes and fix potatoes for lunch.
Church was hard: I had to take BOTH the bigs out during worship for FOR REAL discipline because they just.couldn't.deal.
Naps were hard: They were late and tear filled and about 90 minutes too short.
The rest of the afternoon/evening followed suit with a marginally improved evening worship performance by the kids but was rounded out with a prayer time/bed time/snuggle time charade that dragged out approximately 279 minutes longer than it ever should have.
When I finally shut the door to the bigs' bedroom for the LAST TIME last night, my Momma heart fell apart. Like a dry leaf you find on the ground in the fall- it crushed into a thousand tiny pieces and drifted away as I shut down the house last night. As I picked up toys and folded blankets, and fixed the coffee pot and turned on the dishwasher, as I straightened bookshelves and emptied trashcans, my Momma heart just shattered from stress and frustration and exhaustion and tears.
And, this morning, after a good night's sleep and with two really strong cups of coffee- I sat down with Jeremiah. I read his tear filled lament for Israel in Lamentations 3 and I cried, too. I felt his emptiness. His despair. His brokenness.
But, more importantly, I felt his hope.
"Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in Him." The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him." -Jeremiah, Lamentations 3:19-25 [ESV, emphasis mine]Through Jeremiah's writing, I renewed myself for this new week. I read about his hope filled cry for God's mercy and I cried for it, too. I left Lamentations with a renewed promise of new mercies and steadfast love and the never ending lovingkindness that I know I'll need for this week.
I prayed for a new week this morning. I prayed for a fresh set of unmarred planner pages and unsoiled opportunities and renewed strength of heart. I prayed for new mercies this morning.
And that's what I have.
Hallelujah.
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