Sunday Sunshine for 4/25/10: You Do The Right Thing. I'll Just Sit Here.

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
-Mother Teresa

I have times, as a friend, a mom, a wife, a person, when I don’t want to show up. I want to pull the covers over my head. I want to tell you to f-off. I don’t care that it’s your birthday. I don’t like your kids. And if you touch me again, I’ll kill you.

This particular month I have a night when every inch of my body was yelling: NO! DON’T GO! And I desperately want to agree. Stay home. Stay safe. I want to poll my friends until someone echos my sentiment and I can say: YES! I’M SUCH A GOOD PERSON BY STAYING HOME. (I have to say lies really loud in order to convince my stupid conscience.) But I only ask two people. Two people who tell me the truth. And they say: The right thing to do is to go.

Do I hate them for telling me the truth? Sorta. But an amazing thing happens. As the voices in my head begin mounting a protest with signs and snappy chants, I am already in the car.

Because it’s not about what I want to do anymore. {sad face} To be honest, it’s not about what the kids want to do or the husband or the friends. The question is: what is the RIGHT THING to do? What is the action that will let me sleep at night? (Well, after the nights I spend worrying about HAVING to do it.) I am the only one who has to face myself in the mirror every single day. It’s only me and me. And even in a house full of noise and distraction, if I can’t live with the voices in my head, I won’t want to live. I won’t be able to live.

Often I face the simple yet unpopular actions. I put my children to bed even though they don’t want to go to bed. Even though it may be more convenient to have them stay up. I go grocery shopping -- even on date night (well, only this past week because we had NO food and a busy weekend ahead. Although once we got over the initial disappointment of spending our time in the grocery store post-sushi, our running commentary was SO MUCH FUN. I see this and say: I’M SUPER! and put it in the cart. I see this and say: ARGH, CHEESE I HAVE TO WORK FOR and put it in the cart. And the clincher was when my husband announces in the frozen food aisle: The frozen pizzas here are DISGUSTING! We CANNOT buy them. And we nonchalently maneuver our cart around the fellow shopper BUYING ONE. Next time, we should all grocery shop together. Let me know when you’re available. PARTY IN AISLE NINE!)

And while I love when doing the right thing LIFTS ME UP, I often find doing the right thing to be humbling at best. And frustrating at my worst. I don’t always WANT to be the best Alex that I can be. I just want to slide by unnoticed and un-noticing. I want to ignore you. I want to sleep. I want to pout.

And wanting these things above being accountable and honest and available is humbling. Because it is so much easier to pretend that I LOVE DOING IT. To be self-righteous in my choices and narrow-minded in judging other people’s abilities. To leave no room for ambiguity. For human nature. For exhaustion. For mistakes. I do the right thing. Therefore, I am.

Instead, I do the right thing because I know that, EVENTUALLY, I will look back on these days and weeks and be proud of who I am and what I’ve done. Proud of the lunches and the laundry and the hugs and the tears. Proud of showing up. It’s not as glamours as I thought having God in my life would be. But it’s all I got. And it’s all I want. Even when I think that I don’t.

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A favorite hymn of mine, Here I Am Lord. And a UCC plug. (It was that or a creepy picture of Jesus in horrible pain. I chose my denomination. Which probably sums up WHY I chose my denomination.) It’s a hymn that helps me remember why:


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This post is written by Alex Iwashyna, a happily married mom with a BA in Political Philosophy and a Medical Degree and the drive to become neither. She is too busy writing, blogging, and staying at home with her children. She blogs at Late Enough about motherhood, politics, culture, and religion. Yes, Christian liberals do exist. (And we have pet unicorns!) She also tweets @L8enough.