Um...
Yeah.
I just titled a blog post “Don’t throw your poop.”
I realize it may be on the classless side of analogies. But hey, sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade. Or poop, poop.
And when it comes down to it, truth often comes from where you live. And well, um, every mother in America just nodded and said in a unison, “Amen, sister.”
So here it goes…
The last few weeks, I have been a monkey in cage. Not only throwing my stuff all over myself. But bless it, also heaping it onto unsuspecting souls who have gotten a little too close to my iron bars.
My hubs. My kids. My neighborhood grocer.
OH. MY. STARS. AND. GARTERS.
It’s been a hoot.
(And not the good kind.)
I have been a hot mess.
For some justifiably “good” reasons.
Pain out the yin yang from this precious weather.
Throw. Throw. Throw.
Heartache over something both big and small.
Throw. Throw. Throw.
Mom fails GALORE.
Throw. Throw. Throw.
You’d think my aim would stink. (Pun intended.) Particularly considering my history of non-dexterity.
But sadly, my “aim” has been right on target, stinking up the better part of Johnson County.
So you may be asking yourself, “Sweet heavens, what is the point, sister? All I’m really getting here is that you are throwing metaphoric poo?!?!? And I have enough of that by my own self, girl.”
Yes and yes.
You do.
I do.
We all have our own junk. We all throw it over ourselves and those closest to our aim. We all stink up the County every now and then.
It’s nasty. And smelly. And contagious.
And unlike the bearing of a burden or struggle or heartache, it is anything but productive.
(Which now leads me to say that a stink bomb is never created by the bearing of burdens. Taking on someone else’s heartache is instead, a precious part of relationship. One that comes out of the crazy, beautiful love of a Savior.)
What I am speaking of is that wallow-in-my-own-junk, cry-in-my-nachoes kind of self-pity that at some point makes you want to break-up with yourself.
Where you stand up and say, “WHAT IN THE BLESSED WORLD AM I DOING?”
So you steady your feet and clean yourself off and get out of the cage.
You look to your left and your right. You look up. You look down.
You do what you can to bear the burden of others.
You pray for all the people of the world whose bodies hurt because they are in the cold without shelter or medicine to ease their pain.
You bring little treats to your favorite people just to let them know they rock the socks off of the world!!!!
You smile at the local grocer you freaked out the week before and you apologize that you were a cranky pants.
You do something nice for a total stranger.
You bring soup to your dear sick little Mimi who is under the weather and loves you more than life.
You get your head out of your bum. Bless another person. And you stop throwing your own poop.
It may difficult at first.
Painful, even.
But it is the only thing I have found that pulls me out of the comfort of my cage long enough to breathe in clean, clear air.
Once I get a taste, it’s all over.
The pity party ends.
And the clean-up finally begins.