No “nesting” here.  No great motivation.  No feelings of accomplishment.  Instead, there is school work getting done in fragments.  A few small jars of refrigerator pickles made.  A few short minutes of dishwashing, trying to make whatever dent I can in the piles (that are not completely overwhelming only because Tim washed many this morning).  A glass of water that doesn’t agree with my stomach, but which I hope will help my headache.  A bunch of veggies and some chicken pretty much thrown into a pan that somehow needs to become something edible for dinner.  A mental note to let an extremely eager 6 year old help in the kitchen.  A quick load of extraneous laundry started.  A tablecloth finally getting put on the table, after a few days of being neatly folded beside it.  Brief online searches for sconces and baby carriers and squash recipes.  Worship music playing to help me try to keep some perspective.  Instructing children in various random tasks to help maintain some kind of order.  Thinking about gifts for my soon-to-be five-year old’s August birthday.  Crying over my inadequacies, but then trying to convince myself that there must be a reason God made me who I am.  Reading Psalm 71 and being reminded of God’s goodness to me.  Fighting back fears and worries about this upcoming labor and delivery.  Reminding myself that He is enough in all of this.

My eyes don’t want to stay open.  My body doesn’t want to let me stand for more than a few minutes without sending waves of nausea and great fatigue.  My brain doesn’t want to let me carry thoughts through to completion.  And, unfortunately, this has been my usual state for several days.  Rather than making huge strides toward getting tasks accomplished before a baby arrives, I am finding daily tasks to be too much for me.  I wonder why.  I get discouraged.  I feel completely inadequate.  I wish I could be a better wife and a better mom.  I try to see God in this, but it’s hard.  I guess life is just hard, sometimes.

It seems I have a long way to go before I fully embrace all that it means to eat fresh, local, organic vegetables.  Namely, by not screaming and crying upon finding small, green worm-like things when cleaning broccoli.  Actually, I found one and went into mild hysterics.  Tim continued the cleaning and chopping process and found four more.  Then, when he was pretty sure he had found them all, said I could inspect to make sure.  I found another one, threw the broccoli piece and ran out of the kitchen again.

Now, to be fair, I have been nauseous all day and vegetables in general have been cause for my stomach to churn…so I wasn’t in the best frame of mind as I was cleaning the broccoli, to begin with.  Plus, the worms (well, actually, upon looking it up, it seems they are moth larvae) are green and blend into the broccoli.  The discovery caused me to be a little petrified that I could have missed them and ended up serving them for dinner.  And I’m pregnant, which of course means that all of my emotional reactions are a little bit extreme at the moment.

But, still, it made me yearn just a little for whatever pesticide-laden, shelf-stable, genetically-engineered broccoli I might find at the supermarket in which I have never yet found little green worms.  I guess some mindsets are hard to break.

Today…

– we were all awakened at 6am by the very loud thunderstorm.  I love thunderstorms.  I don’t like waking up early.  I like it even less when my kids wake up early.

– Tim has a hurting arm/shoulder…some combination of softball and digging and weeding in the garden did not serve him well.  Any movement is causing significant pain, which is highly unusual for him.

– I have a headache (probably thanks to the change in weather) and, consequently, an upset stomach.  Both adults in the house feeling under-the-weather = a very unproductive day.

– Elijah has had several days of really unpleasant diapers.  This probably has something to do with his habit of eating (and drinking) anything he can, including candles, bubbles solution, crayons, dirt, and more.  He also had a couple days of orange pee.  Thanks, Crayola.

– Our house is a mess.  It really is amazing what one day of no housework can cause.

– Someone called wanting to see our camper.  It is the first person to show any interest in the more than two weeks we have had it advertised.  But it only takes one person, right?

– I wasn’t all that excited to get our CSA share today.  Mostly because when my stomach is queasy, raw vegetables are one of the least appealing foods to me.  The return of pregnancy nausea may cause problems for making the most effective use of our garden and CSA vegetables.  That is very disappointing to me.

– Nathanael told me I am the nicest mommy, Bethany made Tim an “I hope you feel better” card, Caedmon did a lot of extra tasks around the house, Elijah was cute and made me smile a lot.  I’m happy they’re mine.

…and that was our day.  I’m thankful there will be new mercies tomorrow.

Sometimes, I feel hopeless.  I question God, and I doubt His Word, and I don’t trust that He will take care of me.  I conclude that my faith is just really, really small – that I don’t truly know Him at all.  For as much as I think I try to seek Him, it seems I keep coming away with a lot of false perceptions.

But, I am realizing that even in my perceptions of how I perceive things I end up giving the enemy a foothold, if I’m not careful.  It’s easy for me to confuse my feelings with my beliefs, and it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes…so I often think that my faith is faltering because I feel abandoned, or I feel doubtful, or I feel any number of other things that would indicate lack of belief.

The truth, though?  When I am faced with the choice of acting on my feelings or acting on what God says is true, my feelings don’t often rule the day.  While I have a definite weakness for saying what I’m feeling and thinking, rather than confessing the truth of the Word (and I recognize my need to fix this), when I have to really put stock in one or the other, I choose God.  Often I worry that I’m wrong, or that I won’t be able to stick with a decision for faith for any length of time, or that God will fail me, but underlying it all is an unwavering conviction that God is all that He says He is, that He does somehow really love me, and that my life is secure in His hands.

But even if I don’t forget that when I am forced into a decision, I do forget it too often in daily life…and it steals away the peace and joy I should have from what my heart knows is true.  And that needs to change.

The past few days, I’ve found myself reading old blog posts from past pregnancies.  I think my hope was to find that I was just as disorganized and exhausted and unmotivated then as I am now.  I didn’t find that, though.  I was able to keep some sort of routine.  I did keep household chores done, and managed to accomplish extra projects, too.  I’m sure it wasn’t every day, but it was certainly more often than, well, never.

And so I am now discouraged and confused and wondering what happened to me.  The reality is that having four kids instead of 2 or 3 isn’t more work.  My kids are self-sufficient enough, and contribute enough to the accomplishment of daily chores that my work-load is less this pregnancy than it has been in the past.  Homeschooling isn’t an excuse at the moment, since I haven’t been any more productive these past several weeks of summer break.  My pregnancy isn’t any worse.  I have been more nauseous recently, but in past pregnancies, it was even more of a constant companion.

What I do know is that productivity seems all but impossible for me when my kids are around.  I can’t focus when there is noise, and a question every 2 minutes, and a soliloquy about something every five minutes…it practically paralyzes me.

What I also know is that this house discourages me.  I can remember, in past pregnancies, a sense of peace when the house was clean.  Not so here.  Even when everything is clean and clutter is cleared, there are still holes in the walls, peeling wallpaper, leaking pipes, slanted floors, stained kitchen tile, and more that make the effort of cleaning seem to have very little point.  I can’t really describe how much those things make me want to not even try.

And I’m left wondering why…why God would be giving me another baby to take care of when I do such a terrible job with the responsibilities that I have now, why we are here in this house that I often hate, why I can’t seem to get organized, why I can’t make myself do better.  I wish I knew the answers.  I wish I knew how to change.

As I sit reading reviews for a history textbook written from a Christian perspective, I am frustrated (for about the bazillionth time) by the need so many Christian authors/activists/etc. feel to exaggerate truth.  It happens when recounting history.  It happens when relaying facts about abortion.  It happens when arguing against socialism.  So often, it seems, we lose sight of the fact that we live in a sin-laden, conscience-calloused world that is not now, nor has ever been, inhabited by righteous, holy, uncorrupted people.

Why taint valid arguments about the role Christianity played in the founding of our nation by twisting truth and attributing false character in order to attempt to augment reality?  Why inflate statistics and presume universal heartache when trying to argue the evils of abortion when the unfortunate, uncomfortable truth is that there are some who can experience abortion first-hand and never suffer the ill-effects of it?…not because it is right, but because they have bought into whatever lies the god of this world has peddled to them.  Why blindly ignore the sometimes real, tangible “good” points of an opposing argument, while at the same time overstating (or outright lying about) the good points of “Christian” perspective, if your hope is to present Truth?

We live in a fallen world.  People need Jesus.  Without Him, many of the conventions and institutions and philosophies that surround us can be truly appealing…and being presented with half-baked religious arguments and fabricated “facts” can be offensive to others and contrary to everything we are to stand for as Christians.  Moreover, as a Christian, I absolutely do not want to falsely indoctrinate my children so that they are left without a clear, well-informed grasp on how Christianity has impacted history and how it should be appropriately applied to the issues that face the world in which we live.

We don’t need to be afraid of reality.  This world is imperfect.  People are imperfect.  God is still bigger.  He doesn’t need for us to try to make Him better than He is.  It’s impossible and Christians end up looking like fools.

I know that my tendency is to write posts when I am having bad days.  I don’t often say much if I’ve had a good day.  So, I thought I would just take a moment to say that today was a good day.  I spent much of yesterday in tears, but those things that were so weighing heavily on me seemed to lighten over night.  It may just be that I slept better, or that my husband cleaned the kitchen for me last night, or that I have peas and tomatoes growing in my garden.  But I like to think that maybe someone prayed for me, maybe God saw how much I needed mercy today, maybe He took my burden and gave me His instead.  In any case, I’ve been reminded of His goodness.  I needed that.

I can’t tell you how many posts I have started writing and then deleted these past few weeks.  I’m trying to figure out how to be honest about life without sounding like I am being histrionic, or like I am seeking pity.  I am fully aware that there are little things that, at times, get magnified to overwhelming proportions in my heart and mind.  I know that emotional struggles are at least partly caused by the ridiculous hormones that wreak havoc on me physically and mentally.  I know that everyone else has problems, too, and that mine are probably no more significant than anyone else’s.  There’s nothing new under the sun, right?

Nevertheless, my days lately have been marked by hopelessness and blindness to the goodness of God.  And regardless of what my personality, or pregnancy hormones…or whatever else…has to do with it, I know the real answer to “why” is that I have an enemy whose job it is to steal, kill, and destroy.  Maybe this is a season of intense warfare.  Perhaps he is really trying extra hard to unravel my faith.  It seems like there are frustrations in almost every area of life…it could be that it’s not just my imagination and we really are being attacked more severely than usual.

Or, maybe I’m just making his job really easy.  I feel weak, and tired, and utterly incapable of fighting these battles right now.  I make my sad attempts at standing on the Word, confessing the promises of God, laying my struggles at the Cross…but then, all too quickly, I abandon these efforts and choose, instead, the easier route of believing what I see, what I feel, what circumstances tell me…which is that I don’t matter to God or anyone else, that I’m too much of a failure for God to intervene on my behalf, that I need to do better at something before I will have earned grace.

Because it isn’t that I think God is incapable of winning these battles for me.  I never really doubt His omnipotence.  I’m certain that He can and will bring victory for everyone else who calls on His name….because His grace is sufficient to present everyone else as righteous before His throne.  It’s a twisted sort of pride that tells me that my sins and imperfections and failings are too extensive for His grace. I can see that.

But, I falter when I feel that way and then search my circumstances for something that I could point to as proof that those feelings are wrong, and I find nothing.  God has been silent, and as far as I can see, absent from my circumstances, though I am straining my eyes to try to find Him.  Where is He in this weakness?  When my strength fails, why can’t I feel Him holding me up?  Why is every prayer left seemingly unanswered and every desire unfulfilled?  I feel abandoned, which is one of the worst feelings in the world to me.

I just don’t understand.  Maybe I will one day.  But right now, today, I wish this wasn’t my portion.  I wish God would, somehow, forget that I’m supposed to be able search for and find Him in the midst of trials, and take it upon Himself to help me see Him when I can’t lift my gaze very high.

I wish I had something insightful to write about.  I kind of wish I could at least say that I’ve been pondering a lot of deep, spiritual things.  The reality is, though, that my brain is in a fog right now…and has been for a while.  I can barely think hard enough to figure out dinner most days, much less carry any train of thought long enough for tackling issues that I might otherwise find engaging.  So, instead of being thought-provoking, I will tell you about life.

I am very thankful for the chill outside today.  It is refreshing, and quite convenient considering the soup I have simmering for dinner that used up many really-needing-to-be-used vegetables.  I am a cool weather person by nature, anyway, and especially so after the hot, humid weather we’ve had recently.

My garden is quite weed-infested.  It’s ugly and discouraging to me.  BUT, most of my vegetable plants seem to be doing well…except perhaps for those that I planted too late for the cool weather they prefer.  My compost-pile pumpkin and tomato plants are huge, with blossoms everywhere.  As much as the weeds bother me, weeding at this point makes me dizzy and exhausted after about five minutes, so I’m trying to just be thankful that plants are growing in spite of me, and hope for the best.

I have gotten very little (read: nothing) done in preparation for the baby that will be joining us in about 2 months.  I realize this, have a moment of panic that things need doing, then lose the realization and the panic in the cloud that is my brain.  This doesn’t bode well for productivity.  In all seriousness, I’m praying God will give me a sound mind.  My “pregnancy brain” has never been this bad before.

I’m anxious about the prospect of starting school with my kids in a few weeks.  I feel unprepared and scattered and like we haven’t managed to find any routine for the rest of life that would make home-life manageable with school work added in.  I definitely need grace.  A good night’s sleep (or two, or three…) might not hurt, either.

We have our camper up for sale…again.  Getting it sold would be a huge stress-reliever around here.

House projects are slow.  I’ve pretty much lost hope for a bathroom remodel happening before the baby comes.  For now, I would be happy to have level floors and safe wiring for some of the outlets and switches we have had to turn off (for instance, I would really love to have a bathroom light again).  I’m hoping those are do-able goals.

Well, my brain is about to quit on me, so that’s about all I’ll write for now.