Love through the Mess

My toddler is having a melt down while I am changing my kicking, crying infant's full diaper. As Grayson is jumping around to avoid my swatting, he hits my elbow then nearly plants his foot in the motherload resting on the ground by my knee. I start to lose it.

Who is this tyrant I gave birth to? What the hell is wrong with him? My normally calm voice breaks into a feverish mom voice. Like a boiling pot with a lid on, irrational things start to escape from my mouth. Some of them might be swear words. I start to threaten this small maniac. I sound kinda crazy.

And like that, a lifetime of training goes down the tubes. Mindfulness? Staying centered and grounded? Not today.

I begin to feel urgently that those with anger management issues should NEVER be parents. No one but my three year old has ever elicited this sort of rage from me. And he is a truly great kid.

Less than an hour later, the diaper is clean and Grayson is sitting happily drawing. He's perfectly fine. And I am still pissed. I feel harried, frazzled, tired, resentful and messy. I have not brushed my teeth or combed my hair and we need to get to preschool.

In some variation or degree, this is a weekly, if not daily experience for me. Even as I'm writing this, I can feel the pent up anger in my chest and the heaviness of the shaming voice saying "why don't you have this figured out yet?! You're supposed to be a teacher."

I rack my brain for a mantra, a practice, a yoga pose that will help me stay calm through the chaos of my children, help me be a parent that's a little more like Mr. Myagi, or like Buddha. But nothing seems all-encompassing enough for this....

...And then last night as I was closing up my computer, out of things to write (I did not come up with a mantra ) I recalled a conversation I had on Easter Sunday with my brother in law. He shared something he had heard his pastor say that morning. He said,

"The world is messy right now. Our job is simply to love through the mess."

I was thinking it sounded like a great blog post but it did not occur to me until last night to apply it to my own little life. What if we could stop trying to fix things and just love?

What if I could stop trying to control my kids, running after Grayson with the vacuum, cringing every time he eats toothpaste? Just love him more, and perhaps more to the point, love myself more. Stop trying to "get it right".

As I consider this idea of "loving through the mess", my chest literally relaxes. It feels warm. My jaw softens.

Then I start to wonder....can I actually begin to love the mess itself? And then I realize I already do.

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