Constipation

Reader,

Welcome to Wednesday.  If you have a sweet tooth like I do, then you are now on day 5 of secretly digging into your child's Halloween candy. But as I get older the more I realize that my intestines are not as cooperative with the rush of sugar as they have been in the past. I have made it a goal for today to go in search of a bran muffin and a cup of coffee. I may even need to have a cigarette to get those nicotinic receptors pumping that help with digestion.

Apart from my digestional issues of the day, I have also been confronted this morning with my overall constipation of life. You will notice that yesterday I did not write a post and send it out to the abyss of readers. This is because I took a "health" day. I am not referring to it as a "mental" health day, because I needed a holistic approach to health. I had reached my maximum threshold of stress on Monday afternoon and decided if I was going to avoid becoming homicidal I should take a day to catch up with myself. Right now I am taking 13 credit hours working on my Bachelors in Psychology and Anthropology. When I am not at school I am homeschooling Dominic. It is a rarity with our schedule that I have a few moments to have thoughts of my own. Yesterday I woke up yearning to hear my own thoughts.

Living with my adorable child is a big blessing (when he is not trying to be king of my castle), but I am convinced that life with children is a total and utter accosting of the senses until overload becomes normal. Why do you think a mother can stand in McDonald's with her two children as they scream and try to rip each others' faces off? It seems to not faze her at all as she orders her #1 with large chocolate shake. To the rest of us standing in line the cacophony of high pitched noises is enough to send us flying out the door never to return. It is the mere fact that her auditory senses have been on overload since the day they were born and she has become so numb to the noise that it is now the quiet that bothers her.

I fear this is how I have become with my thoughts. This last year of insta-mom has truly changed my sensory processing systems. I am constantly taking in information not only for myself, but also for Dominic now, and I am at a place where I don't know what to do when I have time to myself. I clean! I clean and sleep. So sad! On occasion when Dominic spends the night somewhere I am confronted with the question of, "What am I going to do?" Hello! Hello! Wake up! There was life before Dominic.

The truth is I am craving comfort right now. My life is not comfortable. It may get more comfortable next semester when our schedule is not as insane, but right now I am living the epitome of motherly discomfort. This morning I was confronted by the Holy Spirit with this idea of craving comfort. I want comfort more than anything right now, but what I need is conforming. I need to conform to the likeness of Christ. Jesus walked a road of shame and pain for me so that I may be able to conform to his likeness and be made whole. How can I ignore this privilege I have been given?

I have this expectation that as a Christian I have a responsibility to save face and not let my imperfections blemish Christ's perfection. Hello! That is such a load of crock! My imperfection is what Christ died for. Christ died for us so that when we are about to totally and utterly lose it with our child, boss, husband or phone company representative in New Delhi, we don't have to ignore our feelings, we can surrender them to Christ and ask for healing, power and wisdom in the situation. Beth Moore says this:

"You have many rights of your own. You may have the right to be angry, the right to be bitter, the right to leave your husband or give up on that wayward teenager. But to be crucified with Christ means that you volunteer to forego all your personal rights except one: your right as a believer to be filled and led by the Spirit of Christ who dwells within you. Don't simply try to ignore your rights when they are so difficult to lay down. Surrender them to Christ..."

My constipation stems from desiring and searching for comfort. The flow of my life will not return until I surrender my right to comfort and ask for God to conform me. I am planning to think on this over my bran muffin and coffee this morning.

Laura Araujo