When You Have Nothing Left to Give as a Mom :: Mentor Series Wk 5 [Ep. 584]

So a couple weeks ago, we did a mentor episode on when you feel like you're failing, and that inner critic, and how to show yourself compassion, and what's really true about your position in Christ.

Today, I wanna focus on when you feel like you're running on empty or you have nothing left to give.

And, uh, I don't know, have you ever had those moments where something really small makes you realize you're done? Maybe you're in the stage where your toddler is asking for one more snack after you've cleaned the kitchen, or someone touching you after you've been touched all day, or it's one more sibling fight, or it's the text from your teen, "What's for dinner?" That basically your entire text chat is what's for dinner.

You know your reaction is bigger than the situation because the problem isn't what's for dinner, or the snack, or being touched.

The problem is you've got nothing left.

[laughs] And if that's where you are today, I want you to know two things: there's nothing wrong with you, and two, God is not surprised by this, and he is not asking for you to be more than a human.

Uh, in chapter three of my Don't Mom Alone book, I talk about when you get to the end of yourself, and I share a story from one summer when I was very, very pregnant with my third.

I had a toddler and a preschooler, and we decided to go to a local attraction called the Flight Museum.

And at the Flight Museum, they had this play area where kids could go in and out of a plane, and then they had this pretend flight tower that's, like, overlapping platforms.

Picture a McDonald's play area.

And I finally decided to sit down, you know, take a load off, let the kids play, and I hear my preschooler, who was in the midst of potty training, say that he needed to go pee.

And I realized that maybe he said he was peeing as I saw liquid flowing down those platforms.

[laughs] And unfortunately, he was not interested in climbing down when I tried to, to ask him to come down.

And so I'm keeping an eye on my toddler who's crawling around, and I'm squeezing my belly through these, uh, soaked platforms to get my preschooler and to carry him, who is now screaming, and my toddler, who is upset about not being able to play, into, fortunately, a family bathroom.

Now, I'm gonna read some of what I wrote, because I took the time to figure this out.

I said, "Preoccupied with the task at hand," which was cleaning, taking off wet clothes, and using paper towels to clean sticky legs, "I didn't notice my toddler had wandered over to the toilet.

The moment I happened to glance back and check on him was the exact moment his pacifier on a string dangled right into the not-so-shiny porcelain bowl.

Jumping up, I grabbed him right before he started to play in the toilet water.

In another quick move, I snatched the pacifier clip off his shirt, tossed it in the sink.

Water cranked to the highest possible level, I attempted to clean off what I imagine was every microscopic organism ever discovered.

Once that fire was out, I squatted back down to appease my crying three-year-old.

Since he had been, quote, unquote, 'potty trained,' uh, I no longer carried extra change-- oh, for over a year, I no longer cha- carried an extra change of clothes or underwear, so my only option was to place him in his brother's size four diaper.

Unfortunately, while I was bent over with this huge belly and legs cramping, my toddler's new amusement was his mom.

He began to undo the braid in my hair.

The act of messing up my hair was not a big deal in itself, but in that moment, given my frazzled state, I lost it.