The four year old screams at his brother. And it is one time too many.
I am the camel and he is the straw and I am broken. My spine, my concentration, my control, they are all fractured and before I know what’s happened the braying, kicking animal in me has taken over. I have been provoked and I attack, spewing foulness from deep within my gut.
It is over as quickly as it started but the damage has been done. One sniffles and one cowers and I stand there, heart racing, trying desperately to hide my hideous hump, wipe the disgusting spit from my lips.
The middle boy, the sensitive one, he comes to me, timidly. He wasn’t the focus of my episode, but he’s been wounded by the emotional shrapnel. He inches close, buries his head into my side, mumbles “Mom, you scared me”.
And though all I want to do is justify myself, rationalize my actions, compare myself to those camel mothers I know that are worse – I must apologize.
So I hug this one and I talk softly to that one. I explain that I shouldn’t have acted that way and ask for forgiveness.
And I hope and wish and pray that, one row at a time, my skills improve – that I learn to knit a relationship of love with my children that can withstand the occasional flaw that I’ve stitched into the pattern of their lives, that the end product of my efforts, though not perfect, will still be functional, still be beautiful.
Dear God, please continue to work a transforming process in my ugly, animal, camel nature.
Amen. Me too. Thanks for your broken honesty. You are not alone, we are not alone.
You are not alone, I so relate to this.
You are definitely not alone Jessica. In fact you are in good company. I always feel that when I lose it like this or that… I see it as a chance to see the “bad in me” so it can be addressed, cast out, or whatever needs to take place. Invariably God deals with me, so gently and wonderfully. He is so doggone good at it! Between the grace and the faith is Jesus. Let us not forget what He has done and is doing in us, and that no matter what. He Loves You and Me.
This was beautiful. I have been here many times, though I’m not proud of that fact. And the frightened look on my two year old’s face when I have been reduced to camelhood brings him tears me to shreds. And i vow… every time… to never do it again. :-/
Awesome post…thanks for the honesty!! We’ve all been there and hate it.
Aaaaand somedays every little thing looks like a straw to me. The dishes. The message on the answering machine. The chatty neighbor. The wet pull-up. I spend way to much time as the spitting, ornery, humpback version of myself. Great analogy!
And just this evening I stood crying over the potatoes asking for God in his grace to heal the hurt I caused by my overreaction to that last straw. Thank You for your honesty in the post. I’m right there with you.
I blogged today about pretty much this same thing, so I’m right there with you. You’re not alone.
Me too… and the thing that really makes me mad is when I’ve managed to get through almost to the end of the day and then something snaps my very last straw and I lose it. I think to myself ‘why couldn’t you have just held it together for 10 more minutes?!’
Yup.