Wrestling

I'm going camping in the rain tonight. I hate camping but I also hate my house today, so it'll be good to be out with my kids. Addie and I are going to embroider til our fingers bleed! I know, sounds heavenly! I broke down today, hardcore. Something inside my head physically snapped, I felt it. I woke up with a back- and head- ache so severe my chiro couldn't adjust me at my 11:00am appointment. Taking a morning jetted-tub-soak didn't help, and neither did two Excedrin migraine. The left side of my face was tingling, and pain was shooting down from my left hip through my knee to my ankle and arch. I threw up twice from the nausea. After recovering from the second time (2:30-ish?), I emerged from the bathroom to find that (a) Heidi and James had just trashed the family room with their coloring supplies, (b) James had wet his pants for the 3rd time today, and (c) proceeded to color himself all over with a sharpie [sound familiar, Jenn???]. That's when I snapped.

I was so angry, I couldn't even discipline them. I couldn't even talk. James gets hosed off with a cold hand shower when he has accidents and I had to try so hard not to throw him in the tub. I hosed him off, then made him soak for a bit to get the marker off his skin. Heidi figured out she'd better move it, so she cleaned up their mess and went and laid on my bed. By then I was crying and I couldn't stop. It totally freaked me out. I was just sobbing and I couldn't put a lid on it. I called Rich but I couldn't talk, so that freaked HIM out and he came home. It took me a good half hour to stop sobbing and shaking-- seriously freaking out. Every possible negative thought was just flooding my brain, and when I consciously tried to bring something positive to my mind, it just blew by or turned into a guilty feeling. It was like a dementor attack. I finally got a grip , but then Rich tried to take the kids "so I could rest," but that made me upset again because there was nowhere for him to take them and I knew they should be with me. I finally talked him into letting them come down and lay by me. We had a calmer afternoon--watched a kid show then got ready for the camp out--but I literally had to white-knuckle my way through it, breathing deeply, praying in my head, blinking back tears. I am losing my mind. I so tired of not feeling good. But I am also tired of wrestling with darkness. Today was an example of the chinks beginning to appear in my armor. I am going up the mountain to repair some cracks, find some peace, begin again. Again.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world..." Ephesians 6:12

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PS: THIS did cheer me a little. Maybe we'll watch Ferris in the tent tonight.