Back on the roller coaster - just for one ride...

It's been some time since my last blog entry. I find life as a mom always somewhat hectic, but the beginning of the year can be a bit worse. Our school year starts in January, so sport is different and timetables are changed. The kids move up a Grade and everyone needs to find a new routine. Some weeks can be more trying than others and I can now see that I need to make an addition to one of my previous posts. It's the post titled "What ride are you on?". 

You can click on the above link if you want to read it first. I wrote about the daily choices we make, comparing our days to various fairground rides. Blurry days that can be like a carousel, caterpillar or even roller coaster ride and frantically busy days that are like a ride on a bumper car. The "Ferris-wheel-days" still are my favorite kind of days!

Image courtesy of www.morguefile.com

But I seem to be back on the Roller Coaster now and I have been pondering over how I got there. On a fairground we voluntarily step onto a Roller Coaster and much in the same way you might voluntarily agree to a season of extreme busyness. Perhaps you take on a big school project or you accommodate family or visitors in your home. It all seems manageable at first and you are certain you can handle it. But Roller Coasters seem, at least to me, like more fun, than they actually are. The tricky thing with a Roller Coaster is, that once you get on, you cannot seem get off! Not until the ride is over at least. No matter how sick you get from the speed or the motion, you cannot leave the coaster until it comes to a halt at the end of the ride. Some people love the action and the thrill of the constant climbs and falls, others are frightened silly by them. Whether you got on by yourself or with a friend who pushed you to get on, I am sure you agree - it's a very emotional ride until it finally stops!

And so it seems to be with us mothers. Sometimes we think we are getting onto a bumper car ride only to find that perhaps we have "broken off a little more than we can chew" and are finding ourselves on a Roller Coaster instead.

I have been having a time like that, but now my car is coming around its final bend and I can feel the wagons slowing down. Quite a relief, I must admit, since I got a little more than I bargained for on this ride. Some days it felt like I had such clarity and wisdom that I was throwing my arms up in the air in excitement, praising God. But the very next day, I found myself spiraling downwards again, into the next rapid corner and what seemed to be round and round. Life is certainly very hectic when you are on a "roller coaster ride" and as exhilarating as such a ride can be, I find them too exhausting. I confess, most of the time, I didn't enjoy it as much as I maybe could have or should have. I just held my breath and waited until it was over and I could get off, with wobbly legs and say: "Thank you Lord - that you brought the ride to a halt just in time". Like I said, we get on voluntarily, but we cannot get off until it stops. Mine has slowed down and it is coming to a halt and when it does, I will be wobbling over to my reading chair, to close my eyes for a little rest and picture myself...in the queue at the next Ferris wheel!

Mom, if you are having a rough ride too, I hope it helps if I say that I am there with you! Thinking of you, my friend. Praying that your ride will be over soon and you can join me on the next gondola on the Ferris wheel!

Image courtesy of www.morguefile.com