When You Just Can’t Do It Anymore
By Gaby Smith
Hey there tired parent. I understand you. You’re too exhausted to get back up and keep on going.
You had a long day at your job, where you spent half of your day putting out fires or you were caught up with errands/school activities that drove you nuts.
When you got home, the house was still a mess. You haven’t made dinner yet. It’s 6 p.m., and you’re still doing homework.
Then, when you finally think about making dinner, you whip out that frozen family-size lasagna and put it in the oven (thank goodness for frozen meals). You feel like a failure because your family dinner isn’t homemade.
Tired parent – don’t beat yourself up. You made it this far in the day and plenty in the past.
Every parent goes through those days where there is a desire to sleep for 72 hours and wake up to see the house already taken care of.
Get up, dust yourself off and find the energy to make it last just a little longer. Raise your hand if you’ve felt like this? Can I put both hands up?
When I had a day like this, I realized that my son didn’t even notice I was feeling exhausted. He still smiled at me like he does every day.
He didn’t even notice that dinner that night wasn’t home-cooked. All he knows is that I tried and made him happy that day.
God knows that you are trying and doing a great job at parenting.
In today’s world, this can be tough. So when you just can’t do it anymore, get up and just move a little bit forward. It’s worth it.
Gaby, how inspiring. It’s been quite a while since any of this applied to me, but I see it in my daughters face. It’s funny, we all know that putting one foot in front of the other and walking the walk that Jesus puts in front of us each day is faith in action and we just do it. When those feelings of inadequacy come, we just need to tell “the liar” just who and what he is and that small things done with great love are adequate enough for our kids and definitely pleasing to Our Lord. Love you.