Self-reflection meets Issues.

Why do my bouts of self-reflection always happen when my husband will not to be home that evening to hash it out with me (and eventually tell me what I want to hear)? Probably because God's saying, "hello...remember Me? I think I was here first...and I care more about you than Facebook does." It's not the first time He's told me this.

It hasn't been the best day. My boys sent me a proverbial memo this morning: "You will not get anything done today." And some plans I was trying to feel out and see if they might like to be made have fallen through, at least as far as I can tell. I'm depressed, disappointed, bitter that other people get to make plans and mine don't seem to work, and - as a result - bitter that hubby gets to go off to his weekend of wife-less, child-less, hobby fun (he's a medieval fencer), and I stay home and have things crash around me.

Whether I subsconciously seek out things to crash or they crash on their own is up for debate.

But not right now.

And so I hung up from hubby's usual lunch-hour call, and burst into tears. Because he's a guy, he didn't read through the telephone "lines" and see how hurt I was. He didn't hear what I didn't say about being disappointed. He tried to suggest a solution that I exploded about the impossibility of, and he bristled at my explosion because as far as he knew, it was irrational. AND he didn't try to save the phone call by reading from my script and saying sweet and sensitive things, and offering to make it up to me in the future, and promising to bring me chocolate when he comes home on Sunday.

Hmph. The nerve.

So there I sat at the kitchen table, listing all my horrible attributes to God. I'm a selfish wife for begrudging his (almost monthly, during the summer anyway) trips to bachelor-land. I'm jealous of people who can load up the car and take off for a family vacation. I am a lazy mom who wants to spend all day on the computer. I sigh and get annoyed when one of my children needs my help as. soon. as. I start something. (Read: sit down at the computer.) I'm frustrated with God that I can't have a "normal" life, with my own house, where I can yell if I want, stomp if I want, let it get as messy as I want, for as long as I want....blah, blah, blah.

I. Have. Issues.

I have issues because I am often always unsure about what issues are my fault, and what issues I'm welcome to feel disappointed and jilted about. I'm fairly certain that a good deal of selfishness, jealousy, and bitterness on my part are involved.

Only time...real time, one-on-one, prioritized time, alone with my Maker, who knows me better than I know myself, and loves me anyway...will tell me which things are my problems to ask forgiveness for, and which things are my problems to cry heaving sobs about on His chest over. (He doesn't even seem to mind my snot stains.)

So. That is my goal this weekend: to find time to have real conversations with the One who has been waiting, and has the answers that I DO DON'T. I have roughly 48 hours before my handsome, sweet (it's true), and very talented fencing hubby returns. Go.