one of THOSE days!!!

Hey everyone! Head's up-this is a long one and female content! Sorry it is long but I think it needs to be said.

It is a wonderful Tuesday morning and yesterday was such a Monday!!!!

I want to start by saying that I have a new idea of what P.M.S. stands for.
Probably
Made by
Satan!

It was total craziness here for a while yesterday morning. We have had sickness here for almost a month and my 2 youngest are fighting a virus with fever, coughing and just feeling really bad. So there hasn't been much sleep to be had. Well, Sunday night they all slept all night long!!! WOW you say, I bet Michelle woke up ready to face the day, ready for anything! NOPE-WRONG!

That is the time that the ugly P.M.S. reared it's head. All of the kids were up around 5:50. My alarm clock goes off at 6 so I was not happy that I wouldn't get my few moments of quiet with God before our day started and the chaos began. So I sit down and read my morning devotional with Joyce Meyer and I did not like what she had to say. The first line of the devotion was,"It is not good to feel grumpy when we wake up." How dare her read my mind and know that I was grumpy!!!! So I tried to get an attitude change and have a good morning. Did it work? NOPE!

Let me share how the morning went. I felt as if my nerves were totally raw. Everything my dear children said or did just rubbed me the wrong way. I was really snappy with them. And in turn I got angry at myself because I couldn't make it stop! So I tried to do my workout in hopes that it would relieve some of the tension. Well, my little Nathan decided about 10 minutes into my 30 minute workout that he wanted me to hold him. I was determined to get my workout done though! So I just walked around him whining and following me and pulling on me. I know, I probably should have just stopped and held him but remember I was determined to have my workout! My sweet Amber(who will not be happy when she gets older that I shared this on the WWW) pooped in her pants. Had to clean that up.(she is potty trained, just sick) Then at snack time my 8 year old spills grape juice all over himself, the table, my fabric white chair and the floor.( I know I was crazy to get white chairs!)

It just felt like everything was going wrong and I had no control over anything!!!! And anyone who knows me knows that I need to have at least SOME control over my day! (I know, something else that needs to change)

So I had decided to tell 2 of my friends EXACTLY how I was feeling by e-mail.(thanks!) I just needed to get it all out. ~And let me just say that it is VERY important that every woman have a female friend that they can call and be "real" with.~ Not that we need to be fake with others, but there may be days that you need to get some things off your chest and talk to someone that will not judge you or think bad of you for your flaws. We can not air dirty laundry to just anyone!!
Yesterday I needed someone that I could tell some things that were not acceptable to myself much less anyone else. I had feelings that I knew were not of God and I couldn't shake them and I needed to hear raw truth to get past it. Not all of your girlfriends can be raw with you and speak truth to you. So we all need at least one that can be that! (the "things" were just bad thoughts about myself and how I was feeling, not any terrible sin or anything)

So on to my time of revelation!!! First of all, one friend got my e-mails and responded with some good stuff. Stuff I really needed to hear. The other friend had not gotten my e-mails and called me and said that she felt like she was supposed to call and pray over me. That was like God calling and saying,"I am here Michelle, you are not alone!" I was talking to her and she said something that I should have already known but it hit me pretty hard.
When we are in the midst of this P.M.S. thing we begin by feeling aggrivated then angry then lonley then hopeless and the list goes on and on. And when the other feelings rise up it is on top of the previous ones, not in place of. So then we are feeling all of this JUNK at one time! And none of it is from God!!! That is the key! It is from the enemy!!! Not really saying that pms is from the enemy but those feelings.
She said to me that we can NOT go by our feelings! I have heard that so many times before but in that moment I realized that no matter how I am "feeling" God is still right here and loves me just as much if not more because I am needing Him in that time more than ever!!! When we allow Him to help us that is when He can do the most with us. We allow Him to mold us into what He wants us to be!

I am not making light of P.M.S. at all. It is a very real, hard, consuming thing to go through at times. I had all of the bad stuff that comes with it yesterday. It seems that I get to where I could just crawl out of my own skin. My nerves are so raw and the waves of emotion just overtake me! Some women have no trouble with this and some women have to lock themselves in their room for a day or two. So there is a very large variation of it.

In spilling my guts out for the world to see I hope that someone gets that P.M.S. is real and it is a very hard thing to deal with at times. Because it makes us feel like we are not who we know in our hearts that we are. It makes us feel and think things that we are ashamed of and it makes the ones we love the most MISERABLE at times. I told my pastor's wife yesterday that there needs to be a sermon preached on P.M.S. and how to deal with it. We usually skirt around issues like this and then we as Godly women feel ashamed when we don't know how to deal with it. Well, no longer!!!!! We deal with it just like we deal with any other issue, we go to our Daddy God and say," Help me Daddy with this P.M.S., I am out of control!!!!" And He says,"Ok daughter, let me hold you for a while and make it all alright!"

I had to add that if you do suffer from severe P.M.S., there are things that help. Last month I had totally cut out caffine drinks, had 60-70 ounces of water a day, exercised 5-6 days a week. It really did help. My husband did not even realize it was that time of month. He was amazed! This month we had been dealing with sickness and other stuff so I had not exercised but maybe 2 days last week. So it really does make a difference to take care of yourself!!! Push through the exercise even if you don't want to, it makes a difference.


So my words of wisdom for today are:
1.When we have PMS, don't determine our worth on our feelings! God still loves us just as much when we feel CRAZY!
2.At that time of the month, plan ahead and take a day to rest if you can. Or at least lighten your load a little.
3. Go ahead and eat that extra piece of chocolate, and enjoy it!
4. Last but not least, spend some time in the presence of God. Rest in Him and let Him determine you mood, not your feelings!!!!