Tuesday, September 2, 2014

My mom was right...

When you're a kid, your parents are the best things ever.  "That's my mom, she's my best friend."  "Look at my daddy, he's the strongest person in the world."  You know you've all had moments like these whether or not it was your mom or you dad, you had someone that you looked up to, that even at a young age, you got advice from, help from, a hug from.

Then you get into those tweenage and teenage years where there's no way mom or dad knows anything about this.  I like to think of this as the blind years.  You actually do know that your mom and dad know better, but you don't want to see it and sometimes can't see it.  Lucky for MOST of us, we grow out of that.  That time in our life passes quickly and we eventually make it back into a friend relationship with our parents.  This, in my opinion, is the best time of our lives.  And again, lucky for MOST of us, this portion lasts a lot longer and we can enjoy it a lot more than the tid bit of time that we spent fighting with them.

Some of us are even lucky enough that we get to become parents ourselves so then we get to experience all the phases that we went through with our parents, only on the other side.  :)  I'm quite enjoying this right now.  Some good and some bad, but I'm still enjoying it.  Many time a day, I catch myself doing something or saying something that AHHHHHHHHH - my mom did or said!  Oh my goodness!  I said I'd never turn into her.  But how do we even have a chance.  If you're like me, you spent (and probably still do spend) a lot of time with your mom over the years.  I'm about to turn 30, so 30 years of her wise cracks, disciplines, and humor are drilled into my brain.  I'm bound to turn out like her a little.

Then there's those times, even when you're 30 years old, that you slip back into that time frame where "my mom has no knowledge on this topic at all" or "this situation is completely different than what she went through" (or threw...mom you get the joke).  Yet, they somehow always come out being right, dammit!  How do they do it?

You see a little while ago I had a situation at hand.  Of course one of the first people I asked for advice was my mother.  She told me, "Lindsey, you've been through this before.  No matter what you say or so, there's always going to be a problem.  You're never going to just be able to work this out."

If you know me, I completely ignored her recommendations.  For the two months before talking to her, I had actually talked to someone else about.  The only person I thought could give me better advice than her, God.  I had prayed about this situation.  There were others involved.  If I had done something wrong, I needed to fix it.  So I handed it over to God and ignored my mom.  I went full force into fixing a relationship for people other than myself.  This was perhaps the most unselfish thing I'd done in a long time.  It's funny how that happens when you have a husband and kids and you just want to give them everything.

Things looked up.  God had come through for me.  It looked like things were headed in the right direction.  Finally after a year or two, things were good.  Then they were bad.

Mom in the back of my head - I told you so.  In her sweet little kind words though.  My mom had one....she knew more about how to handle this situation than God.

Seriously...do y'all really think I believe that!?  LOL  It turns out that God is right!  And so is mom!  I handed this situation to God many months ago.  He knew what was right for me and my family.  He knew what we had to do and when we had done all that we could, He knew that He had to show us that people come in our lives for a reason.  God takes them out for a reason too.  We should thank Him daily for taking care of us because without Him in this situation, we would've probably done and/or said things that we shouldn't.

So just remember when you bust your butt and do everything you know how to do to make a situation work, hand it over to God and He will help with the rest.  It may not be how YOU wanted it to end, but He has different plans for everyone.  It may not be the plans you have for yourself.

Thanks mom for being there and not saying you "told me so", even though I know you were thinking it.  Thanks for being there anyway!

Thanks to my sweet loving husband who works so hard to do what he knows is right for his family.  XOXO