Folks, I'm drowning here....

Parenting is tough.


Raising girls, raising boys, raising monkeys....it's all hard.


These past few weeks have been rough on the raising girls front.


We all remember the "mean girls", right?

Well, guess what....they're even meaner and snarkier now.

And they all have social media accounts and parents who are obviously clueless.

I bought R a brand new Bible and two devotionals for young girls while I was at Half Price Books the yesterday.....and then when I got home I heard she had "mean girl-ized" someone. After she had been being treated the same way!

Do I get why?  Well, yes. Kids are treated one way at school numerous times and they just want the attention off of them so she deflected.

Not acceptable.

Did I fly off the handle?

Maybe.  Okay, I lied. I flew the heck off the handle.

Last night, after all the brouhaha had calmed down and all the tears had been shed by the both of us....I sat down and talked to my husband about the whole situation.

I questioned myself what I was more upset about and sadly it is about the way others perceive me. 

So stupid, right? 

But, I am guilty.

I care about what people think about me.

Dang it.

I honestly though people might think I'm a bad parent. But you know what? I'm not! I'm a dang good parent. So THERE inner self!

Then I went over my whole day.

I had a plan for our whole situation with R. I bought the brand new Bible in all of it's cuteness with turquoise and sparkles along with the two devotionals that I thought would help her out.

Let me reiterate. I had a plan.

We all know what happens when you have everything supposedly figured out, right?  God smiles His half smile and nods his head and if God has Southern bone in His body He says, "Bless her heart." But not in the mean Southern girl way that really means something entirely different. He looks at us and smiles because the plan was in place alright but it wasn't MY plan. It was His.

She needed that Bible.

She needed those two devotionals.

She needed the time we spent last night at the dining table reading one of those devotionals and chatting about Martha and Mary and how Martha flipped out a bit and felt completely out of control.

I mean, HELLO. Point taken, right?

Nope.

Because I'm human.

And I don't make the right choice everyday either. Just like R didn't make the right choice at school.

She apologized. She was punished. She was talked to. But now we move on. We make good choices. He made this an urgent need instead of something we could have easily found excuses to ignore or overlook.

Why? Because it's a new day everyday.

This morning R woke up to a declaration she scribbled in dry erase marker on the mirror by her bed.

"Thank you Lord for this day, I come to you anew."

You know, if you think about the "mean girls" you knew in life they were probably the way they were for a reason. There is never an excuse for being unkind but there is usually a reason why. Luckily, for my daughter she has two parents who love each other and love her as well. She has supportive grandparents. She has a stable home life. She has enough food to eat, a roof over head and enough clothing to clothe an army. But not all mean girls come from dilapidated sheds with nothing to eat....although yes, it's possible in some cases. But sometimes those mean girls would thrive in a supervised environment where their parents care to take the 5 minutes to look at their friends on Facebook or scroll through those texts (yes, most middle school kids in my town have phones except for mine). So, maybe they're not mean girls but just girls who need some guidance.  Is my daughter a mean girl? Absolutely not. She made a bad choice and was wavering in strength. She was tired of being the focus of negative and sick of feeling less than. Was it right? No. Has it been handled? Yes.

My job was given to me long ago. To raise these children to the best of my ability. Got it, Lord. I'm on it. And I'm trying.

So basically my plan can kiss it. It can bite the dust. Because His plan is much better.

You know, as a Christian woman, a busy mom, and  a wife.....it's hard sometimes to do what He asks of us. And the hardest thing of all for me......to just be still.


I thank God for steering my mind away from the negative and showing me the Light where I may rest and know that it is handled. So, when I sent my daughter to school today I sent her with these words....God's behind you and that's all you need.