Why is it so much easier to give others a break, to cut them some slack, to extend grace to them – but it’s so hard to do it for yourself?
I have been fighting a chest cold for the past week and it is wearing me out. I absolutely despise coughing! It hurts, it’s annoying, and it always seems to be at its worst when I’m trying to sleep or talk on the phone. My energy is a fraction of what it usually is because my body is so busy fighting off the bad guy germs while running on missed sleep, so I haven’t been able to do many of the things that I had in mind to make this Thanksgiving special.
Without Rob home this year, I wanted to work extra hard to make this a special holiday for myself and Emily. I had plans for Thanksgiving homeschool lessons, fun turkey crafts, days of baking, lots of yummy food and sharing the holiday with friends.
Unfortunately, I haven’t felt well enough for any of that. We are behind on the school lessons we were working on, we haven’t done the crafts I had planned, I haven’t made a single pie, and we ended up making the decision to stay home on Thanksgiving instead of going to join friends.
Why do I feel so bad about that? Why do I feel like I’ve somehow failed as a mommy or a homeschool teacher because I didn’t get it all in?
Maybe I just feel bad because I’m sick and that always makes me emotional. I’m know I’m also really missing Hubby as this is our first Thanksgiving apart, and the closer we get to him coming home the more I seem to miss him!!
I’m trying to remind myself that I don’t have to be SuperMom! Emily and I are actually really looking forward to the Thanksgiving Day we have planned, so I just need to let that be “enough”.
Here is our new low-key plan for Thanksgiving 2011:
* Get up and watch the Macy’s Day Parade in our PJs
* Do Thanksgiving crafts
* Cuddle up on the sofa and read lots of books
* Eat homemade chicken nuggets, french fries and mashed sweet potatoes (Emily’s requested menu) – why not?
* Start decorating for Christmas
* Watch Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving
The day after Thanksgiving while all the Black Friday shoppers are rushing around the stores, we are going to head to the movie theater for the new Muppets movie! We’ll also spend some time baking and working on a puzzle.
She doesn’t care that we aren’t having turkey, cranberry sauce, & stuffing. In fact, SHE picked the menu for tomorrow, so I know she’ll love it! Besides, we’ll have those foods again at Christmas!
So what if we didn’t get in a particular homeschool lesson about Thanksgiving? We’ve put a lot of effort into a Thanksgiving Journal over the last few weeks, and we have a stack of Thanksgiving books to read while cuddled on the sofa.
I’m torn. As I see all of my friends posting about preparing the Thanksgiving meal, preparing the turkeys and all the fixins – part of me is sad that I don’t have my husband here so we could be enjoying all of that cooking and craziness together. The other side of me is feeling very relieved that this year, I just get to sit back and take it easy.
I always tell Emily, “Your best is always good enough for me”. This year, my best needs to be enough for me too.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Cor 12:9