Cut Yourself Some Slack Jack!

Getting very practical about daily life is a must when you deal with chronic illness.  

There is so much that I would like to do differently that, right now, my body just will not allow.  Ideas and visions run through my head (or before my eyes on my Pinterest app!), and I quickly get disillusioned because I can barely keep my eyes open from the fatigue of sleepless nights!

It seems that no matter how intentional I try to be, I'm inevitably thwarted by some part of my body doing something that I can't stop. So, my thoughts for practical living for today are this:  cut yourself some slack!

I know.  I really do know how hard it is.  You have a standard you like to keep your house at!  You can't stand the messes you see lying around.  You try to ignore it all as you walk from one room to another and get lost in a sea of total disarray!  Where are those children you so diligently trained in chores??? Oh no!  They're being too quiet downstairs and you should see just what they are up to, but the mere thought of climbing those stairs...are you kidding me?

Or, wait, that's not you?  Perhaps you beat yourself up because the messes remind you of what a failure you have always been.  Maybe you never even knew how to train your children or you never got around to training them. Maybe you even feel guilty that you ask them to do things at all.  After all, people tell you that children should just get to be children and play.  They will have to work enough when they grow up.

The battering thoughts and voices seem to never cease no matter what part of the parenting spectrum you come from.  That's because the enemy is the father of lies.  The best the enemy can do is get you to doubt who you are and whose you are.

So...cut yourself some slack kid and get back to the truth!

For me, the truth is that I have diligently trained my children, but many times it seems you would never know it!  I can't make my body do things it's too tired or sick to do.  It's not sinful to ask my children to help.  I would do more if I could.  God still loves me just as much.  This will all be okay.  That's pretty much how I run it through my mind most days.

But, I get it.  It doesn't often feel like it will all be okay, does it?  God knows too.  Just try to offer yourself the same understanding and compassion that you would offer others if they were going through what you are.  You can't do it all.  You can't do more than what you are capable of.  Pushing yourself when God has not told you to only results in wearing yourself down even more, becoming sicker, and probably grumpier.  (Don't ask me how I know that okay!)  

Just do what you can do when you can do it.  Quit beating yourself up and stop caring about what everybody else thinks of you.  It only matters what the Lord thinks.  

Do everything as if you are doing it for the Lord.  That's all He asks. He knows your best and you know your best.  The rest of the people will just have to deal!  (Yeah, I know it's easier said than done.)