What's The Thing?

What's the thing when you're a great mom when you're not around your kids?

What's the thing when you spend money and energy buying things for your kids to just fight with you about putting away?

What's the thing where you have a college education, but you skim through a library book your kid wants to borrow to make sure there aren't "too many words" to actually read?

What's the thing when thinking of what's for dinner becomes galaxtically harder than it ever should ever be allowed to be?

What's the thing when you find your offspring adorable and intriguing and incredible but spend the majority of your time with them calculating how much longer until they sleep again?

What's the thing where grocery shopping alone somehow became comparable to a vacation?

What's the thing where you can literally feel guilty about how your child eats, drinks, sleeps, talks, doesn't talk, poops, learns...?

What's the thing when you vigorously defend the thing you're only attempting as your best shot in the dark?

What's the thing where you're an actual grown up and yet you hide in the closet to eat chocolate because you don't want to share?

What's the thing when you bite your tongue while chewing and can't for the life of you figure out why you were ever chewing that hard?

What's the thing when the sound of your own child's cough makes you completely irritated?

What's the thing when you caNOT wait for date night, yet when the sitter actually shows up you can't formulate a single idea of what to do? 

What's the thing when you are awake and going by 7:17 AM, yet can't make it on-time to a 10:30 appointment?

What's the thing when you catch yourself yelling "stop screaming at each other!!!" at the top of your lungs?

Oh yeah... Parenthood. It brings out the selfishness, pride, shortcomings, and tendency to run late... No sin will remain hidden under layers of sleep-filled nights and clutter-free living. This job brings out all the junk we thought we had together among the land of the self-responsible humans. It's hard. We will mess up... But then there's always that thing... The thing where it says that if we "confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness"!!! And that other thing that says that in [all] my weaknesses His strength will prove perfect... So let's chuckle a bit, apologize a lot, and keep living the example of forgiven weakness. 

...And let's tone it back on the chewing intensity, for Pete's sake.