I recently heard someone talking about a fairly new movie, where the world comes apart at the seams 'cause the core loses its ability to hold everything together.
That's how I've been feeling lately.
Coming apart at the seams.
Lost the ability to hold it all together.
What I didn't realize until yesterday is that the problem was my core.
Intellectually, I know that God is my core; my faith in & pursuit of Jesus Christ. And tightly intertwined with that is my marriage.
Everything else hinges on that core. Everything. And in the past couple of weeks, everything was coming unhinged...
As we headed into the new, busy fall schedule, with our neatly organized juggling of chores, caring for little ones, home school lessons, and the re-introduction of special activities for the kids - I forgot to make 'the core' my priority.
It had been days & days since I'd gone out to spend time alone with God. I was too busy.
It had been days & days since I'd spent any one-on-one time with Kevin. I was too busy.
And so I had a core meltdown, and my little world started to shift & quake...volcanic eruptions of anger, floods of frustrated tears... It was showing up everywhere: the house has been a wreck, the little ones have been fussy, bills went overdue, and I actually ended up physically ill (head cold morphed into sinus infection).
The worst was seeing it in my oldest three kids. Eliza, almost 11, goes into nurturing overdrive, helping with the little ones, hugging me alot, asking how to help; she feels the stress & 'over-functions' to compensate. Autumn, 14, does the opposite; she mirrors my cranky attitude, defies my calls for help, rolls her eyes, and generally 'under-functions' in response to the family anxiety. Caleb, 15, simply withdraws; he pulls inside himself, becoming silent & unresponsive, escaping to his room to play guitar, and quietly 'distances' from all the chaos & stress.
At first I felt so mad at Autumn, so frustrated with Caleb...and then, thankfully, God opened my eyes to the truth. They were simply responding to the disintegration of the core. My core. And here's the hard truth: as the Mommy, my core is the core for this family.
But interestingly, it took Kevin's pushing for me to see that I had let those core priorities slip. Which leads to the next hard truth: my husband IS part of my core. So dealing with my core, means dealing with my marriage, which means -
the core of this family is my core PLUS Kevin's core...
irreversibly,
intricately,
eternally,
intertwined.
The Lord is helping coagulate my core again. Things are settling back into place. I've taken time to just be with God, to seek His peace & love & Presence. And Kevin pushed on some marriage issues that had been bubbling under the surface, and finally erupted from the added stress-pressure. It's been a hard couple of days...but really good.
The frustrating thing is that I know this will come again. Another spell of stress will bring us to another point of meltdown...and we'll all suffer. Yet I have to believe we'll also be made stronger for it. And maybe we learn a little more every time, get a little more core-strength.
So I'll be keeping an eye on my core:
My God. And my Marriage.
Everything else hinges on it.
Everything.
Had any core meltdowns lately?
