You’re too old for this! Are you kidding me? You’re chasing a toddler around these office buildings like an idiot. You used to interview people in places like this. Write stories people actually read and liked and respected you for when you had a real job. Now people think you’ve gone nuts. You’re the crazy lady with all those crazy kids. 

The voice in my head won’t shut up as I run past windows where people are working at their desks. Hopefully everyone looking at their computers and not out their windows as Cruz and I streak by on the sidewalk.

I knew I was in trouble when my toddler got the jump on me in the parking lot, ten feet ahead on a dead run. He’s the fastest three-year-old on the planet. Or maybe I’m the slowest 46 year old mom out there. Maybe I’m the only 46 year old mom out there chasing a small child around office buildings and through the grocery store and across the gas station. The kid’s a Houdini, escaping his car seat to play the chase game with me. I know I shouldn’t run after him, but how can I not run after him? He’s the type of kid who will run a mile before slowing down to look for me.

One day instead of chasing him, I played it cool, and let him run away at Kohl’s, then spent twenty frantic minutes searching for him when he disappeared, trying to act like it was no big deal I’d lost my kid. I found him hiding under a rug on the bottom shelf near the pillows and blankets. By then my legs were shaking and my thoughts rolling with angst.

Why do I torture myself like this leaving the house with this handful? This three-feet-tall terror running me ragged in my forties. Why do I have seven kids anyway? I should have stopped after two sweet girls. Our daughters all grown up and leading productive lives. Young women old enough to be this kid’s mother. I should be the grandmother here serenely shopping with other grandmothers… 

You are the mother of seven happy, healthy kids because of the grace of God, I remind myself, putting a stop to these negative thoughts pounding me. When I let my mind run, it usually takes me to a place I don’t want to go. My thoughts and my toddler are very much alike. Above all, they both need discipline, me putting a stop to their shenanigans before they really get started.

Do you ever have these kind of days? These kind of thoughts? A dialogue of discouragement running through your head?

Instead of chasing thoughts over the hills and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go, I tell myself what the Bible tells me, “Children are a blessing from the LORD, a reward from God” Psalm 127:3. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” Philippians 4:13. The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace” Psalm 29:11.

I call this: talking truth to yourself.

When our thoughts and feelings act like unruly kids, we don’t need to chase them a mile. We don’t even have to take them out of the house. We can stay home and practice good behavior. Kind of like potty training the brain, flushing poopy thoughts down the toilet instead of smearing them around our heads.

But before we can talk truth to ourselves, we must know truth, and believe truth.

Do I read the Bible enough to know what it really says? Do I understand what it means? Can I recall scriptures to replace that voice in my head that sometimes mocks and misguides me? Do I really believe the Bible is true? That God is really speaking to me through this book?

I think the biggest battle Christians face isn’t discouraging thoughts, it’s unbelief. We talk the talk of church but do we walk the walk of faith?

Today I read in my Bible young women should marry, have children, and take care of their own homes. Then the enemy will not be able to say anything against them. 1 Timothy 5:14. The Apostle Paul who wrote this also said: if women are not busy taking care of their own homes and children they will spend their time gossiping from house to house, meddling in other peoples’ business and talking about things they shouldn’t, 1 Timothy 5:13.

Ouch! Do women really want to hear this stuff? Do we really want to live the way the Bible commands us to live?

Sometimes instead of taking care of my children, I’d rather be doing something else, like drinking tea in China. Okay, maybe not China, but England would be nice. Then I could mosey on up to Scotland and smell the heather there. Just me and the sheep smelling the purple heather as we mosey around the highlands. Where did this word “mosey” come from anyway? Is it like Moses wandering the wilderness with a bunch of unbelievers for forty years?

But instead of moseying, I smell poopy pants at home because I’m still trying to potty train a stubborn toddler. And I clean up poopy thoughts rather than letting them stink up my life. And I do this because I believe the Bible is true. And I believe being a mother who takes care of her children and makes her home a soft, sweet place for her husband is pleasing to God.

Is this easy?

No.

Is it worth it?

Completely.

I can say completely because I’ve been at this a long time. Raising babies and keeping a house for nearly 25 years. Talking truth to myself makes the whole thing a lot more rewarding, considering half of these years I didn’t know the truth, and believing lies nearly destroyed my marriage.

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you’ve heard me talk about my Grandma Anne. The woman who lived for her family and honored God, a farmer’s wife who aged so gracefully and was loved so dearly. The other day, I said to my brother, “Didn’t Grandma live a good life? Didn’t she make all our lives better because she was there taking care of us?

“Grandma made life like heaven on earth,” my brother said with love shining in his eyes. This nearly 20 years after Grandma left this earth.

What I remember most about Grandma was her lack of selfishness. She’d give you the food off her plate and did this all the time for us grandkids. She truly lived for others. When you walked into her home it was always a clean, peaceful, welcoming place. There was nothing pretentious about my grandma. The woman you saw was the woman she was, someone who believed in God, believed in family, and lived the truth. She also loved doing the chicken dance at the Octoberfest in the old community hall beside the river. I want to be this kind of woman.