A Nyquil Induced Inward Gaze

I had an interesting night last night. I've been on Nyquil for the past 3 nights. This has resulted in approximately 12-14 hours of sleep every night. I know...I'm jealous of myself, too. Chris is a pretty rare husband. At least, I think he is. If I'm sick, or just having a rough night, he will just let me go to bed as early as I want to and will get the kids all ready for bed and put them down. And he's been doing that since last Friday because that's when I started to get sick.

But back to Nyquil...the runny, stuffy nose started in three nights ago, and thus the Nyquil. Nyquil has not been a part of my life for about five years. You're not supposed to have it when you're pregnant or breastfeeding, thus me not being able to do it in about five years.

So Nyquil became my dear friend and enabled me to get some much needed sleep. But of course, it brought along with it some truly bizarre dreams. Of course, my antidepressant has been giving me quite violent dreams for the last two years, and I always remember them the next morning. So in a sense, the bizarre is preferable.

Last night, one of the dreams (I say one, because I had three) took me back to my freshman year of college. I attended a college in Kirkland, WA...obviously did not stay there because I met and married Chris while attending and, later, graduating from NNU.

It was a very, very unpleasant year in real life. It brought out my worst insecurities and I had them publicized and criticized. I had my back stabbed on a few occasions, could not make close friends, and had a very, very sad social life. Academically I aced everything, but only because I literally had nothing better to do. I came back home from that place a very broken, disillusioned person.

I would like to say that NNU made up for it, but unfortunately I took hold of my future and early on made some of the worst decisions of my life. I look back now and am saddened at the opportunities (both socially and academically) that I didn't take advantage of. I look back and feel regret. And not regret as in I wish I could just leave the life I have and start over...but I just wish I had known then what I know now. And maybe deep down I did...and just chose to ignore it.

And so while my dream started back in my freshman year of college, my mind (once awake) looked over the course of those difficult, nearly mind breaking years and wondered how I survived them.

And now here I am...Thirty years old, married, three kids, and a steady job.

And yet for some reason I still don't feel like I have it together. Does that make sense? I feel like I still have a rather large and ever-lengthening list of things I should be, and of areas that I should be better at. I sometimes view the faces of of people I went to college with and think to myself, "They look like they have it together. They look like their kids are well behaved, that their marriage is going great and that they've had easy times since the beginning, that they probably don't have any debt, that their house is immaculate and well decorated, that their yard probably is weeded and mowed on a daily basis, that they..." and the list goes on.

Because for some reason, upon waking in the midst of the Nyquil haze, it seemed to me that those were the things that determined success in life. And to be honest, I don't think it's a bad list.

But God was so gracious in immediately reminding me that while I may struggle with some (okay ALL) of those areas at one time or another, He has a picture of what He would like me to be like...and the list is much more about what He can accomplish in me, rather than an overwhelming list of what I think everyone else (and even myself) are looking for in me in order to call my life successful.

So once again, I turn myself and my tendency to focus on what feels impossible standards over to my Heavenly Father who loves me. He loves me more than I love my kids...and He loves them more than I do too. He loves me more than my abundantly loving husband does too...and will continue to bless our struggling little family as long as we continue to place ourselves in His much more capable hands.

For I am convinced that my worth is in much more than just the superficiality of a clean house (although it would be nice to have it :), children who will behave everywhere regardless of whether or not they have had naps (because my kids are awesome in so many other ways), or some sort of illusion that those on Facebook are somehow more perfect than I am (because none of us are )...and that by placing myself in His hands, I can become the absolute best that He has created me to be. And the great thing is, I don't know what I will become yet, but I know that what I will become will be far, far better because the Artist of my life has a far great vision of what I shall become in His Care.