The Grumps

The last couple of days, I have had trouble shaking the grumps. I know why I feel this way, but that's not making it any easier to overcome. Like a typical extrovert, I get my emotional energy by spending time with people. I love to spend long hours in the company of my husband or a friend. Participating in unhurried, adult conversation is how I work out whatever is on my mind as well as how I am challenged and inspired. A short phone conversation is helpful, but it doesn't really energize me like a face-to-face conversation. When I don't get this energizing time, I am shorter with the kids, I eat lots of junk food, and I just can't seem to shake a "down" feeling.

At the moment, my energy reserves are depleted. Marcus was at a men's retreat at church this past Friday and Saturday, so it was just me and the kids as usual this weekend. Then on Sunday, I taught Sunday school in the morning, Marcus and the boys took a long nap Sunday afternoon while I grocery-shopped, and then we went to small group where it was my turn to watch all the kids. So I didn't really talk to anyone all day Sunday either. Monday morning, which I usually begin full of energy from a weekend of companionship, started with me already feeling discouraged. But I had errands to run, so I just trudged through the day, not yet realizing why I was having a hard time adjusting my attitude. Yesterday, the friend I often get together with on Tuesdays had a doctor's appt, and then my normal Wednesday playdate canceled because of a sick child. Marcus gets home around 6:30/7:00 early in the week, but the evening hours are so wrapped up with the kids that it is impossible to have a real conversation. And by the time Caleb finally conks out around 9:30, we are both beat. So I am on day six without any unhurried adult conversation, and I may just have to go to the library tomorrow and make friends with the librarian :) (Or else Marcus will call someone to come hang out with me so he won't have to come home to Mrs. Down-in-the-Dumps any more this week :)

Yet even while I am fighting this discouraged feeling, I am grateful to the Lord for reminding me how weak I am and how dependent on His provision. And I am also grateful for the inherent reminder that it is really Him using my beloved friends to minister to me, so my gratitude belongs entirely to him. Whether emotional or physical, he is the fulfiller of my needs, and it is to Him I am looking now for the energy to be a great Mommy to my boys today.