Fear

Fear is a very loaded word.  The first thing that comes to mind is fear of the future. It terrifies me not to know if my ex will come around and try to see my daughter. I fear our financial situation. Moving in with my parents was a great thing and has helped us a lot in the last nine months but I am ready to move on and into our own home again. Fear is something I have been working on a lot lately. God says not to fear but to put your fear and trust in his hands, which is what I have been trying so hard to do.  I also fear spiders, rodents, something bad happening to the ones I love, and so much more.  I think I focus most on my daughter. Because it has just been the two of us since she was born, I fear so much! Again,  I fear my ex trying to come back into our lives. He has shown little interest in her but there is always that chance that he will try to come back around. I fear what school to put her in. So much is going on in public school that I don’t agree with that I am having a hard time deciding where to put her in. I also fear being back in school. It has only been 2 weeks and I am already struggling in math. Psychology is a little hard to understand, History is something that is hard for me to get into and so far English has been the one class that I enjoy and feel like I will do really well in.  I am putting my fear and trust in God’s hands because there is no way I can do this on my own or want to do this on my own. Being a control freak it is hard not to fear when things are not going my way or not knowing how things will go in the now, near future and the big picture.

Not knowing what the future holds is so hard for me. I strive to be a good mom, ministry leader in our church, daughter, sister, student, and friend but it is so hard. Sometimes I try so hard not to let anyone down that I end up letting myself down instead. I am trying so hard in school. But after last night it really showed me that I can’t just keep doing what I am doing because it is not working. Math has always been a bad subject for me. After doing the same type of problem over and over again and always coming up with the wrong answer, I realized I need to get some extra help and change the way I think about it. I fear failing in the near future. I don’t want to fail! I want to make good grades and be a good student and try my best but it is harder than I thought it would be. Also another fear of the future is that I am not a good mom or I won’t be a good mom. Gabby is struggling right now with the changes we are going through. She is acting out doing things that she never has done before and trying to get my attention in the strangest ways. I am scared to death of what the future will hold if she continues this way and trying to figure out what I need to do to help her and guide her. The future looks so big and scary but I know in my heart and mind that I don’t need to fear it. Why can’t I stop myself? I don’t understand why I keep coming back to it. Why can’t I have it all together? That is something that I can’t dwell on.  I know that I am doing something right with Gabby. She is so smart, kind, loving, generous, helpful, and so much more. When the negative thoughts about fear of the future take over I need to just focus on the positive.

Gabby is really struggling with the changes going on in our lives right now. When I started school I knew it would be a big adjustment for us but didn’t really take into account the way she would react. While doing homework, Gabby was watching her shows in the same room as me and decided to color all over herself with a marker. That is something she would have done when she was 2 or 3 not 4. The she wants me to come see every little thing she is doing. I LOVE to see the awesome things she does but not 10 times in a hour while I am trying to read and study for a test. Then yesterday while doing math, she comes into my room smelling awful!! She got into grandma’s essential oils and poured it all over herself. I am not a fan of the oils myself. I thing some of them work but I don’t think they have healing powers. My mom likes them a lot and has started using them a lot and even put some on Gabby. So, in her mind, Grandma puts them on me so it must be ok. We were getting ready to go to a small group at one of my pastor’s homes so I make her take all of her clothes off and scrub her for about 10 minutes in the shower. The oils give me a headache so I was not too happy with her. She is also getting into trouble at preschool which she generally does not do. Today her and her friend Charleigh took half of the book on the bookshelf in my office and threw them on the floor. I was not happy! She usually never acts like this and I am trying not to lose my temper over all of this but it has been hard to not blame myself and not say that it is all because I am a bad mom or I am doing it wrong. I don’t know what to do different. I want to be the mom God called me to be and raise her the way the Bible tells parents to raise your children. I wish the Bible had specific rules for single parents.