What? You talking to me?

Panting.  Straining.  My muscles flex and release in a heavy, uneven cadence.  "Aw man, I feel like crap.  My legs are lead, and lungs are about to burst.  I can't wait until this is over... hey someone is coming.  Look lively.  Pick it up.  Make it look effortless.  Suppress that breathing!  sound chipper now, 'hello!' Ha!  I showed him.  Dang, now I'm really dead."  This is me, enjoying a run.  HA!  Honestly, this could be a metaphor for me "enjoying" life sometimes too.

Today, while I was running I didn't do this, but I did remember a day last week when I did something similar.  I was running through William and Mary College's Campus.  I have a tendency to especially "enjoy" runs on campus, I like to think I'm "showing those college kids whose boss".  Some "college kid" starts taunting me with, "Run! Run! Run!" and fake running arms.  So I schooled him with a, "You couldn't keep up", only to look over my shoulder to see one of the members of the College's Men's track team blazing past me on the other side of the street.  I am arrogant, prideful, vain, keep the list rolling... Mostly I like to make things about me.  I'm fast.  I'm smart.  I'm tough.  I deserve this.  I don't deserve that.  That's human nature isn't it.  God frequently, like this time, shows me that he expects a little more humility from me, but I sure don't want to listen.  The effect?  I take things I should enjoy, like a run, and make them miserable for me, and those around me, while simultaneously looking like a jack ass.  At least now I not only know this about myself, but I am working to knock it off.

I wasn't all that aware of God's attempts to show me this flaw until my husband left for boot camp.  I took on EVERYTHING: remodeling a house, homeschooling my kids, running my own business, and (though barely) keeping our utilities on, the car from getting repo-ed, and the house from going into foreclosure (Army didn't pay us for 10 weeks).  I mean, I AM superwoman, duh.  I THOUGHT I was being totally selfless, but in all reality I was being prideful, and indignant.  My neighbors offered help, and I NEEDED it, but I didn't accept it.  Superwoman doesn't need help.  In fact even offering help to Superwoman is taken as an insult.

One afternoon, after a day slaving away for my family, I was about to leave for my evening of tutoring several students.  It was a cold, snowy, Michigan evening.  I started the car, belted Cooper in.  He was 9.  Then walked Will to the neighbors.  The only help I accepted was to allow them to drive him to wrestling.  I walk back to the car and Cooper is standing outside of it.  "Why aren't you in the car?"
"I forgot something, but the house was locked"  I go to open the car door, but it's locked.  The car is still running.  The house locked.  The car locked and running.  I have no money.  Great.  (so I'll just use symbols instead of letters now).

"Excuse me!  What the @#$% Cooper.  G#$D@#MIT!  I don't have any money.  I'm going to be late to make money because you didn't listen to me!  Why the F@#$ didn't you listen to me."  At this point I hear myself talking.  This isn't me.  I rarely raise my voice at my kids, and now I'm swearing at my 9 year old who has a steady stream of tears rolling down his rosy cheeks.  I don't just swear at him.  I blame him.  In excusable, he is a child!  Wow.  Stressed much Superwoman?  After a very nice sheriff's deputy unlocks my car I find the clicker in my pocket.  I could've unlocked it all along.

With great humility, and shame, I apologize to Cooper.  I show him the car remote that I found in my pocket.  I admit that what I did was absolutely wrong, and I ask him to forgive me.  He says, "Thanks Mom, and of course I forgive you.  You are just stressed out and missing dad.  I know how you feel."  He certainly did, because he, more than any of us, was pining away for his dad.  Wow.  I'm a jack ass.  It was at this moment that I realized how much my pride, and my focus on myself (he locked ME out of the car, I was going to be late etc.), wounds everyone around me.  It isn't about me.  What I have a tendency to do on runs, ruin them by making them more about me than about the run, I also do in regular every day life.  Except I'm ruining more than a run.  Since that cold day with Cooper I have used my urges to make my runs about me (proving how tough I am) as an opportunity to conquer my pride.  Sometimes I still fail.

Now when my husband is gone and I'm doing it all, all by myself, I'm not as afraid to ask for help.  I am weak, and I need it.  I CAN'T do it all myself.  When I start to get cocky God always reminds me to be humble.  My kids are quite thankful for  the change.  Now Dad's absences aren't accompanied with a Mom spread thin to screaming.  I'm glad I learned that early on.  Now I can enjoy them, because I'm not making it about me.  I see this as a HUGE blessing, because I think it's normal human nature to make everything about "us".  It takes divine intervention to realize A.) that we do it B.) how we do it C.) how it affects our relationships and finally, D.) what we need to do to fix it.  So if confessing that I swore a red streak at my 9 year old because I'm a prideful idiot helps anyone else get A,B,C, or D it's worth it!