Healing: the End of Mommy Guilt, Part One of Many I'm Sure.

So after maybe spending the whole day after I wrote that last post in a foggy depression bubble in which I maybe was a little too sensitive and barked at my husband over a simple little comment that maybe turned in to a full blown why'd-i-ever-marry-you fight which maybe led to me leaving the house and crying in my car for an hour because I didn't have a bra on and couldn't go to Starbucks or anywhere else, a good friend reminded me I could read my bible and pray, and that God would answer me, somehow, someway.
See, sometimes I forget I am a christian and can do these things. Or maybe I don't forget, I just don't believe any of it.
Anyway, after a day like that even I am desperate? enough to sit down and open my bible, despite all the baggage I carry around it.
Because I am having such a hard time figuring this whole mother/wife/woman thing out, I listened to the little voice (this time I'm pretty sure it was the spirit) reminding me of Proverbs 31, the place where it talks about what a woman who is following God looks like. I wasn't expecting much; like many other "church" people I've read this passage so many times I can easily pass it off like a Hallmark card but I listened to that little voice anyway and flipped there.
Two verses in and my heart was so soft I could feel it melting in my chest : "Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life." After that big'ole piece of humble pie **see middle of first paragraph** the writer goes on, verse after verse after verse of...her working. Yes, yes, it's work that is pretty home-makery except for maybe when she buys the field (that's pretty business like, like maybe in today's world she'd have a business degree or even better, a finance one) and some could argue it all has to do with her home, but the freeing part for me was that this woman was BUSY. She worked really really hard. I can't imaging she was sitting around all day satisfying every whim of her children. In fact, the only time children are mentioned is near the end when it says, "Her children arise and call her blessed".  She's getting up early and doing a whole bunch of hard, tiring things that make her house a functional home, one where at the end of the day her children and her husband praise her. (YES! this is what my little heart cries out. I WANT THAT!)
I also want to mention the part where it says, "She provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls." I hadn't ever paid attention to that part before, that she had servants, as in plural. Who knows? This lady could've had a full time nanny for each one of her children!
In all seriousness it just made me realize I need to give myself a break. The standards I hold myself up to are so ridiculous and because I can never meet them I end up believing lies:
You got married too young. Your first baby was a naive mistake. You doubled that mistake by having another. You are not responsible/emotionally stable/old enough to be a mom. In short: Your life is wrong.
And then in church today Louie talked about carrying around unforgiveness (of ourselves) and sin (lies) on our backs like when Paul says in Romans 6, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" He explained that back then murderers would have their victims' bodies chained onto their backs and eventually the rot from the deceased would seep into their own bodies and kill them. (BTW, I think this is a great idea!) It was a perfect picture of how I am walking around these days with a "body of death" chained to my back, it's rot (lies) seeping into my heart, making my life stink.
So. This has all combined to make for a very emotionally draining weekend but I feel like I at least broke through some of the lies I've been unconsciously listening to, and that I also can now start to replace them with truth: Nothing about your family is a mistake. You are the exact mama God chose for your boys. You are working hard, for the good of your family. Get some servant girls (haha just kidding).