Be careful what you complain about

A few days ago, I was having a particularly stressful day. My 2 oldest girls had been at war with each other all day over a  Polly Pocket,  and my baby was screaming and refusing to take a nap. I hadn't left my house in like 17,000 days and it was approximately 1 million degrees in my kitchen where I had spent most of the day.

After I completely lost it with the Big 2, telling them that if they were going to fight over one doll then I was going to throw the other 30 they had away, since they obviously had no use for then, I walked into the bathroom and found this. 

You see my 3 year old has recently learned to wipe herself. Every parent know what a triumph this is. No more stopping in the middle of dinner to wipe someone's rear end, and then coming back to that dinner to realize that you have lost your appetite. And as a busy mom it is a serious relief as it takes one more thing off my plate. But when I walked in and saw the toilet paper like this, I realized that not only was no one else in my house capable of putting the toilet paper on the toilet paper holder, but now I had to make sure that I started the roll as well or the next person to use the bathroom would be wiping themselves with streamers. I lost it again, thinking that I would never be free from taking care of EVERY. SINGLE. MUNDANE. DETAIL. of everyone else's life.

However, my attitude changed 2 days later when that same 3 year old came down from taking her bath completely dry and fully dressed and ready for bed and said "Look, mom, I dried myself off and put on my own pajamas! Aren't you proud of me?" I replied "yes" of course but in my head I was thinking, "what you don't need me anymore? Getting you out of the tub and ready for bed is MY job! I am your MOTHER! YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME?"

Then I remembered what I was complaining about earlier and how this was actually one less thing I had to do. But this is something I like to do...I want to do. I love getting my little 3 year old dressed in her little clothes. I know they won't be little clothes much longer. Sigh.

I guess I can't pick and choose what parts of being a mom I want to do, just like I can' pick and choose what parts of being a missionary I like and don't like (being confined to my house most of the time for one thing). As in everything in life we have to take the good with the bad.

So now I am trying to dig deep into God's word to truly understand what it means to be content in all circumstances. To have joy no matter where I am or what I am doing. Like, I said in the last post, God has given me the life I always wanted, so why should I complain? Because I am in a part right now that is a little monotonous on my way to a part where I will probably beg for monotony? No. I will rejoice in what God has for me now, and try to remember this time for when we are in the tribe and everything is crazy and our "schedule" gets thrown out the window everyday, and how much I complained about it.

I am sure it will be like the Israelites looking back at Egypt and recalling it as this wonderful place that God tore them away from, forgetting that they were slaves in a foreign land and were begging for God to deliver them. Having this blog will be good for me when I am doing the same and looking back on my days in Wewak as a wonderful place that God tore me away from when right now I am begging him to take me to a new place. Any new place. But, if I can find my contentment in God now then maybe I won't find myself in this position again. Maybe I can learn to be satisfied in any place, any circumstance, for any period of time. Lord, help me with this please.

The toilet paper is a good lesson for me, and I have a feeling that I will be seeing it pretty often as a reminder.