You’re Not The Boss Of Me!

When our girls were little, I was amazed at how early they started to show their “voice” (also known as attitude) and often, it would be at top volume levels. Each one, around 2, would put her hands on her hips and yell at the top of her lungs, “You’re not the boss of me!” We have always encouraged our girls to be stubborn and strong-willed and if you know any of them, you know those two words to be apt descriptors, but having five under the age of 6 would definitely wear Pete and me down.

In my elephant series, I have spoken of when the elephant makes the most headway in my life here and I have described ways that I fight it here. Today, though, I want to talk about how real the elephant has become but also how tangible my battle is with it.

Today, Pete was hard on himself as it was, in his words, “a low productivity day.” As the day came to a close, I tried to encourage him to not have guilt about it and give himself grace to not always be going “pell mell,” as my parents called it. We also talked about something he and I both have thought we conquered but encountered another layer of the onion to work through.

Then, just like that, he fell asleep. And the elephant moved in. One time, when our eldest was getting used to the fact that there was a new baby in the house, she got up from sitting beside her, adjusted ever-so-slightly, and proceeded to attempt to sit on her new sister.

I could see the elephant making that same kind of motion. It had been resting in the corner but as soon as Pete went to sleep, it started moving in. It thought that sitting on me, and making it hard to breathe, was going to be easy, like it has been before, but it quickly realized that, tonight, I was that stubborn, strong-willed girl, yelling at the top of my lungs, ”YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!”

I then proceeded to get my finger wagging and, with my other hand on my hip, and I screamed until I had no voice left:

MY GOD IS BIGGER THAN YOU!

HE KNOWS MY HUSBAND, MY KIDS, MY FRIENDS, AND ME BETTER THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE!

HE KNOWS EXACTLY HOW TO PROVIDE WHAT MY FAMILY AND I NEED TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE THROUGH THIS TRIAL!

HE HAS NEVER LEFT US ALONE AND HE WILL CARRY US THROUGH THIS TOO!

YOU DON’T GET TO DECIDE WHAT I THINK ABOUT RIGHT NOW! GET OUT OF HERE!

And just like that, after an ugly cry and wiping my tears from my face, and laying calm for another thirty minutes or so, I fell asleep.