He knows me

I was inspired by my friend, Kim, and her powerful post about answered prayers. You should read it if you get a moment. 

I feel so very blessed in my life.
Truly.
I should end right there.

We have clean water and food to eat; we live in a place where we are free to worship; I, as a woman, have rights protected by law; I was able to bear children; we are healthy; John is employed; we have supportive and loving families; we have a home. I could go on and on.

Yet, despite my many plentiful blessings, there are still hard days. And sometimes I feel badly that I even have hard days when I am so greatly blessed. It's so easy to trivialize my hardships when I compare them to someone else's challenges that are more devastating.

But I'm slowly realizing that acknowledging the hard times doesn't make me less grateful for my blessings.

The other day a couple of months ago, I was having a hard day. The balancing act of taking care of an infant and a preschooler seemed extra precarious that day. Charlie and George both seemed to be getting the short end of my attention. It peaked in awfulness when my independent, impulsive, 2-year-old hit me on the back of my head with a very heavy and hard toy. Fast forward two minutes and all three of us were crying, me in pain and frustration and guilt (for raising my voice with Charlie), George in fear from the ruckus we were causing, and Charlie in time-out feeling sad and frustrated and sorry.

It's so hard for me to not take things personally as a parent. There's a very thin and blurry line between recognizing I could do better in that situation and feeling like every misbehavior is an indication that I'm failing at this parenting stuff. And I seem to have a lot of those moments with a strong-willed preschooler.

The day was almost over and I loaded the kids in the car to go pick up Johnny from the TRAX station. Completely exhausted, I drove through McDonald's for dinner. Another "failure" in my mind in the day's tally.

I was tearful and sad as I waited in the car for John.  Then I received a text message from an acquaintance in my new ward (congregation).

This fellow mom was asking me if I wanted to put Charlie in swimming lessons with her little boy.

It was such a simple thing but it was profoundly moving to me. My downward spiral of feeling like Charlie is too wild (which is of course, my fault) for anyone to want to play with us was stopped. Here was another mom who wanted to be my friend and wanted her little boy to be Charlie's friend.

Since that time, she and I have become good friends and I've felt more anchored in my new neighborhood.

I truly believe that this text message is direct proof that Heavenly Father knows me and that I needed Him. I feel like Heavenly Father prompted that other mom to contact me because He knew I needed it precisely in that moment. And I'm so grateful for that.