God wants my House to be dirty

A while back I shared a little about how I was struggling. Well I am still struggling, just in a different way.

I guess I should start by saying in pregnancy I've been a bit spoiled. With Jonah pregnancy could not have been easier. I had NO morning sickness, I had no aches and pains, I had swollen feet by the end and that was it. I loved being pregnant, I loved looking round and full of baby!

With Ellie I had some morning sickness in the beginning, all the normal tiredness etc. I still loved being pregnant and everything that came with it! I dealt with PPD after her birth and that was a long dark struggle until getting help when she was 8 months old. Only by the Grace of God did I survive until I got help.

With Gracie I had the same sickness, but then hypothyroidism also kicked in as well as sciatica making it hard some days to even walk. My low energy level because of the thyroid condition made everyday hard especially with a 3 year old and a 1 year old. But we made it through.

And now, at age 33, weighing the most I've ever weighed, still dealing with thyroid/energy issues, having been "diagnosed" with an irritable uterus (still contracting daily), sciatic pain on both sides making some days seriously almost impossible to walk around my house without tears, and then this weekend being wiped out with Mastitis (which don't even ask how I got an infection without currently breastfeeding!).......I kinda wonder if God just wants my house to be dirty!?

Okay that's silly I know. But in a way, it's serious for me. Now don't get some image of a perfect house with no dust bunnies and sparkling toilets. That's not what the house looks like at all times. But cleaning and keeping things relatively neat and orderly are important to me. "Keeping" my house is something I take pride in, it IS something I value.

But maybe, just maybe this is something that has become too important to me, and has taken a higher priority in my life than it should have. I say this because at this point I cannot physically do it. I have never been in this position before. Ever. Even exhausted after just having birthed a new baby, I've always forced myself to do what "needed" to be done. I've always worked myself beyond what was necessary, but not without a cost. Maybe the price was me having a bad attitude about their being messes around the house, or the cost was not spending time with the kids because I was trying to catch up with the thing I was most behind on. Regardless I always got the work done, no matter what the cost was, the house was important.

But these last few weeks have been an honest struggle for me to let go of what I deem important and take care of what IS important. Today all it took was making the kids lunch and the getting a pot of stew started (a total of maybe an hour standing), I guess not to mention the up and down of schooling and diapering and a few loads of laundry. But to me that didn't seem like over doing it! Where it left me was hobbling across the room and crying myself into a ball upstairs after laying the kids down for rest time.

In all of this, how silly it must seem to some, I hear God calling for me to give it ALL to Him. To just give in to being cared for by Him and giving up control of things that really aren't important and to grasp on to what IS important. To perhaps again change what I think is a priority into what He knows is a priority for me right here and right now.

He is chipping at my pride. I don't like asking for help. I don't like others to know just how much I am struggling or doing things for me. Including Dave. I hate the idea of him working a 9-10 hour day to come home and pick up the house and take the kids and have to do part of my job as well as his own. He is willing and cheerful and so loving as he does it all, but deep within my I feel guilty and think I am being a wuss, I should just suck it up and "do it!" until I can't walk again.......I suppose I am a stubborn one.

I pray God doesn't give up on me. I want to be in His will, I want to listen and obey, and if that means giving control to Him and letting go of my pride, even in the littlest things like keeping up with the house and laundry. I want to be obedient to Him.