The refining hours
Somewhere between midnight and 3am are my "refining hours". These are the hours when I am:
* most frustrated with Teg (she keeps me awake: sometimes because she's awake, but most often because she's thrashing about noisily in her sleep),
* most resentful towards Jeremy (an irrational "I want to hit you because I'm tired and can't sleep, but you can" kind of thing), and thus -
* most frustrated with myself for being such a grouchy, selfish person.
This is most definitely the "battle ground" of the mind for me at the moment. That verse in Romans rings in my ears: "In my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in my body, waging war against the law of my mind... (especially at midnight)... What a wretched (wo)man I am!" I long to be a patient, selfless wife and Mom, but at 1am I find I feel sorry for myself, self-righteous, victimized... to mention but a few. And I hate it! I hate that I get so angry with my sleeping baby, just for moving in her sleep! I hate that I resent my husband for sleeping, just because I can't! Euuuuch. So much selfishness...
And so the 'refining work' of parenthood continues. It reminds me of the oft-quoted theme in Calvin and Hobbes cartoons where Calvin is told to endure all manner of 6-year old trials because they are "building character". In one cartoon, Calvin cries out "Don't I have enough character already???" Ha ha. My question exactly. But the answer is: obviously not. There is yet more refining to be done. How fitting to reflect on these things around Easter with the theme of death and resurrection on my mind. As Jesus said "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds...." I see with clarity that this painful process of 1am self-loathing is part of my self-mortification so that God can grow me in my faith: I guess I just didn't expect dying to be so hard...
* most frustrated with Teg (she keeps me awake: sometimes because she's awake, but most often because she's thrashing about noisily in her sleep),
* most resentful towards Jeremy (an irrational "I want to hit you because I'm tired and can't sleep, but you can" kind of thing), and thus -
* most frustrated with myself for being such a grouchy, selfish person.
This is most definitely the "battle ground" of the mind for me at the moment. That verse in Romans rings in my ears: "In my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in my body, waging war against the law of my mind... (especially at midnight)... What a wretched (wo)man I am!" I long to be a patient, selfless wife and Mom, but at 1am I find I feel sorry for myself, self-righteous, victimized... to mention but a few. And I hate it! I hate that I get so angry with my sleeping baby, just for moving in her sleep! I hate that I resent my husband for sleeping, just because I can't! Euuuuch. So much selfishness...
And so the 'refining work' of parenthood continues. It reminds me of the oft-quoted theme in Calvin and Hobbes cartoons where Calvin is told to endure all manner of 6-year old trials because they are "building character". In one cartoon, Calvin cries out "Don't I have enough character already???" Ha ha. My question exactly. But the answer is: obviously not. There is yet more refining to be done. How fitting to reflect on these things around Easter with the theme of death and resurrection on my mind. As Jesus said "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds...." I see with clarity that this painful process of 1am self-loathing is part of my self-mortification so that God can grow me in my faith: I guess I just didn't expect dying to be so hard...
posted by Bronwyn at 11:02 am
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