Broken

Dear Sisters, please forgive me. I have been deceiving you. I have been putting on a mask, pretending everything is ok; more than that - that I'm great! I'm wonderful! Look at all the wonderful things I do! Aren't I all that? And I'm not. I am a wreck. I feel like my life is falling apart and I'm barely hanging on. I have this horrible need to hide it and pretend that all is well. I don't want anyone to see what a mess I really am.

I got married when I was pretty young. I moved straight from my parent's home into my husband's. Three months after we were married I became pregnant. I never really learned to take care of myself and all of a sudden I had to take care of my husband and child. In less than 5 years I had 3 children - and our lives were chaos. I just didn't know how to handle the day to day. I remember those days vividly: never being able to find matching socks for the kids; constantly running out of staples like bread and milk; having the hydro turned off because I kept forgetting to pay the bill, then having to borrow money from my parents because I'd spent it on something else. And on and on. When I got pregnant for the last time and I told my mom, she cried. She asked me how I could do such a thing when I couldn't even take care of the ones I had? She begged me to have an abortion.

That was a turning point for me. Something in me resolved to "get it together". From that point on I turned my chaotic life into one of unremitting order. My home is spotlessly clean. Always. I don't run out of milk any more. I live by lists and plans and relentless doing. I rigidly control every outward aspect of my life. I will never ever be that failure again. Outwardly at least.

In order to keep up this appearance that I've got it all together, something has to give. God forgive me, but to keep up the appearance, I have sacrificed the well being of my children.

My boys are failing in school. They are both on drugs. They sneak out of the house at night to meet their friends and party. When the school calls to report they are absent I don't answer the phone. I see the number and I let it go to voice mail because I can't face it. My daughter has been steadily gaining weight for 4 years now. She's inching towards obesity because of a lack of exercise and unchecked eating and I don't do anything about it. She has learning disabilities and really needs extra support from home but I couldn't tell you what she is learning about in school right now. I barely know what her teachers' names are. And I keep pretending everything's ok.

Living the lie takes up so much of my energy I simply don't have any left for my kids. They pretty much fend for themselves. Oh, I cook their meals and clean their rooms and do their laundry. I take them to church and insist that they do service to others (because how would it LOOK if they didn't?). Sometimes I do have the energy to give them more, but when I feel the pressure of the outward I pull back and devote myself to maintaining the facade.

For the last couple of weeks I have been feeling it all closing in on me. I feel brittle, like the slightest thing might break me. I decided maybe I should take some time off so I booked a few vacation days so I could spend sometime alone at home. Today I was supposed to have the day off to myself. Nobody to look after, nobody to impress. Just me. I was looking forward to sleeping in a bit and puttering around the house. I was just going to take a break, you know? At 6:15 this morning the clock-radio went off and I heard the announcer say that all schools are cancelled. It's a snow day. And I fell apart. I lay in bed sobbing. Bitterly.

My heart is so black. What kind of a mother resents having to spend the day with her kids? And I can't help but wonder...how can my Saviour love me? How can he love this wretched, rotten thing that I have become? I've become the thing that I so desperately sought to avoid: I am a failure. Worse, I am a hypocrite. Because Jesus died for the "failures"; we're ALL failures, but I've sought to deny my failure-ness. I am like that Pharisee who looks over to the tax collector and thanks God that he's not a sinner like that guy over there.

And honestly, I just don't know what to do now. Because my instict is to suck it up; to take control of this and turn this new chaos around like I have done before. That's the wrong thing to do though, isn't it? Isn't it? It's God who has to take control here now, but I don't know how to let Him. I want to let Him have control, but I don't know how.

I'm going to hit "Publish" now before I chicken out and hide this all away again.