carry on warrior

My sister lent me a book a little while ago and it was so so good I had to share some of the book and my thoughts. It's called "Carry On, Warrior" by Glennon Doyle Melton. It's a book about parenting but not your regular parenting book.  You see I don't read self help books, I don't read books on methods/ideas/studies on parenting or how to "be a better parent" because I just don't believe them, quite honestly. Anyone can write anything and publish it these days, especially on the internet. So those that do endless research about everything under the sun can carry on, that's their choice but I will choose to trust God with my heart and life, for my child, and to be the bigger power as I make parenting choices/decisions/plans. 

However, this book is different. It's REAL. It doesn't paint the pretty picture of being a parent - the picture that suggests every day is joyful, full of laughter, contentment, and fun fun fun with your kids. No instead it paints the pictures of those down right hard days. Those days where your patience is low and your voice is extra loud. Those days that you go to bed at night in tears thinking about all the mistakes you made that day and how you surely scared your child for life because of them. The days where you are just plain tired of wiping noses and butts and want to just walk out the front door. The days where you just want to take a shower without being rushed or take a pee without being climbed on or stared at. The days where you want to lay on the floor without being trampled on by sweaty feet and scratched with fingernails that need to be clipped. We all know those days right?! Well this is a book that faces those things head on and reminds you that it's ok, we all really are in the same boat and those that say they absolutely adore their children every moment of every single day are lying, or on drugs.  

It discussed the challenges of marriage post children. The unbearable thought of a healthy sex life when all you want to do is sleep, really. It talks about the lack of communication that happens all too often post children but that that is the time when it is needed the most. The struggles of maintaining your own life individually, as a couple, yet providing enough time to grow and develop as a family. How hard it is to have hobbies and find time to do them when there's no time at the end of the day by the time your husband gets off work, because he's late again. Or the disappointment/anger of when you've looked forward to the weekend all week when to have some help or go get groceries alone!, yet all he's done all week is look forward to the weekend to go dirt biking, kayaking, fishing, to a football game, out with his friends, etc. And the list just keeps going, doesn't it?!

Life is hard. Marriage is hard. Having kids is hard. But they are all SO worth it. I feel like there's a new wave of young moms coming. Moms that aren't afraid to be honest and real with each other about some of these daily struggles, and I love it. I love those that I can call genuine friends because I know I can tell them these things that I've now shared with the entire world via this crazy thing called the internet! :)

So, if you are looking for a good read and want to dig deeper into this topic - check it out. Here are some of my favorite passages that rang so true for me!

"I spend a lot of time making sure Craig knows his affection is going nowhere. Affections feels like a means to an end to me, so I cut it short one way or another. Sometimes I start discussing my overwhelming exhaustion as soon as he walks in the door from work, setting the stage for rejection early, so there is no false hope.
On the nights when it's officially been a while and offering more excuses would signify that we really have a problem, he'll approach me and I'll try to remain open. But then, very often, I start to feel angry.
Sometimes the anger is mild, like annoyance. I'm so tired after a long day with the kids, so used up, so saturated by need and touch already, why must you be needy too? Can't we just be grown-ups and do something practical? There's so much to do: the laundry needs to be folded, the lunches packed, forms signed....miles to go before I sleep. Is there really time for something so unproductive? And really, we haven't talked, really talked for weeks. How does sex even make sense? How do you compartmentalize like that? Do you want me, or do you just want sex? That distinction makes all the difference. That distinction is intimacy."

"Children are not cruel. Children are mirrors. They want to be "grownup" so they act how grown-ups act when we think they're not looking. They do not act how we tell them to act at school assemblies. They act how we really act. They believe what we believe. They say what we say. And we have taught them that gay people are not okay. That overweight people are not okay. That Muslim people are not okay. That they are not equal. That they are to be feared. And people hurt the things they fear. We know that. What they are doing in the schools, what we are doing in the media - it's all the same. The only difference is that children bully in the hallways and the cafeterias while we bully from behind pulpits and legislative benches and sitcom one-liners."

"How cane we give our children the confidence they need to survive on earth and still encourage the humility that is pleasing to God?
.......Usually when someone asks me a question about parenting, I switch it to a question about grown-ups. How do I encourage my child to be kinder to others? becomes How do I become kinder to others? After reading the sixteenth parenting book that contradicted the first fifteen, I quit trying to become a better parent and decided to try becoming a better person" 
YES YES YES!

"While you dream your dreams, he's (God) busy building your destiny. And there is as much beauty in your destiny as there was in your dream. Let go and believe that whatever it is, it will be beautiful."
LOVE THIS!