A Defense

I've been in situations three times in the last two days in which I said something that seemed to imply that my life is really hard and I kind of hate it.

The thing is, that's not what I meant.

Er, not exactly what I meant.

I suppose that having three children under four years old is, categorically, hard. Getting up twice a night nearly every night for over ten months now has not precisely been easy. I don't love the two times a day (8am and 4pm, post-nighttime and post-naptime) when I'm doing assembly-line diaper changes. Repeating the same instruction a hundred times a day to a toddler is not my favorite thing. I carry around some well-meaning guilt for the nights when I interrupt my husband's chatter about the day to admit that I'm falling asleep. It really actually does take a herculean effort to get everyone to the grocery store, say, and I regularly have to talk myself out of dreading Sunday mornings, because they're just so nearly impossible with this many small children in tow.

All three boys played with the same toy for approximately ten seconds one day last month. 

Hope that some day, they'll be friends.

But the thing is, it's not actually hard, and I don't actually hate it.

It started with a Bible study question, something along the lines of, "how is God using your present circumstances to prepare you for future leadership in his kingdom?" I laughed and claimed that unless I was destined for a life of leading Vacation Bible School, I couldn't quite see how to answer the question. The reassurances started pouring in:

Don't wish these years away; they go so fast!

Nothing is wasted in God's economy, even faithfully changing diapers.

You're allowed to feel tired and get rest; after all, your baby is still up a lot at night.

But that's not what I meant!

I have moments when I feel overwhelmed, but not whole days. We have snippets of disobedience or chaos that I hate, but it's not the norm (most days). For whatever reason, God made me to require less sleep than some, and it's rare that I feel completely exhausted.

I'm not sure who I'm trying to convince, myself or anyone I spoke to this week. It should be hard, but it's not. It could easily be a time of life that I resent, but I don't. So when you stop me in the grocery aisle or the church hallway and remark on my "full hands," believe me when I smile and say, "oh, but it's so fun!" When you start to offer sympathy for my non-sleeping third child, don't be offended that I shrug you off and promise that it won't last forever. If I'm not quite sure where this journey of motherhood will end up in 20 years, and I confess that some days are easier than others, let me proclaim the realities of life without thinking I mean to complain.

Because that's not what I meant.