Wednesday was a disaster.

Two kids potty training and another learning to use underwear at night meant three pee-soaked beds and one poop-on-the-floor situation before 8 a.m. Our two-month-old was in full cluster-feed mode, my five-year-old was bored and bouncing off the walls after having been cooped up all week, and no one—especially not my wife and I—was sleeping well. With four kids, I “work” from home on the best days, but there wasn’t a moment to breathe, let alone think now. By dinner, I was emotionally frayed and spiritually empty.

Thursday didn’t start any better.

Our middle son had graduated to underwear and immediately pooped in it and his bed overnight. Damage control took nearly an hour and involved a full room sanitization. Breakfast followed—if you can call a carpeted floor covered in apple sauce, oatmeal and yogurt splatters “breakfast.” I secretly fumed as I stayed behind to clean up while sending the kids upstairs to my wife.

Alone at last, I turned on the vacuum.

And that’s when God spoke.

The vacuum was humming, and suddenly—above the chaos in my head—I heard Him:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit. This week is a blessing.”

It didn’t feel like a blessing. It felt like slow emotional erosion. But God wasn’t asking me to feel it. He was asking me to see it.

God didn’t show up to sympathize. He came to realign.

I had been spiraling into self-pity and escapism for a week now. Watching YouTube clips to distract myself. Tapping through apps I didn’t care about. Muttering internal scripts like: Why am I always the one giving something up? Why do I have to be the one to swallow my frustration? Why am I getting the short end of the stick?

I wasn’t just physically tired—I was spiritually disoriented. And in His mercy, God called me back.

We often read Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 like they’re a motivational card for hard times. 

“Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek.” 

It’s easy to read it as a big ‘ol, “Hang in there buddy, better days are coming” from our friend Jesus.

But that’s not what He was saying.

Don’t take me wrong, Jesus wasn’t dismissing the overwhelmed and God is most definitely the comforter. However, He was reframing the story. Jesus was showing his audience then (and us today) that salvation and peace aren’t found in escaping hard circumstances, but in trusting Him. In fact, Christ was preparing those including his disciples for the reality that following Him would invite more of these moments—not less.

Jesus wasn’t glorifying suffering. He was declaring: “If you’re walking through this for My sake, you’re already blessed. The kingdom is yours. I’m here.”

My reaction to the difficulty of that ten or so days of potty training was subtle at first, then went downhill quickly.

First, I noticed my behavior slipping—and so came the “I shoulds”: 

Of course this didn’t change my behavior. Simply wanting to make changes in the face of bad choices is never enough to truly change anyone. As the days grew longer and I was pressed further, losing more energy and willpower, my focus shifted from trying harder to blaming others.

This lead to developing a full blown case of the “they should’s”: 

Without realizing it, that kind of thinking only led me to bitterness, resentment, and burnout. Trying harder just left me frustrated, and then to avoid guilt and a feeling of hopelessness, I began blaming others. And all because it’s not based on the truth.

In Christ, we aren’t working toward a holy identity—we’re living from one. We are new creations. The Spirit already dwells in us. We don’t have to muscle through love—we get to embody it because it’s already who we are in Him. Putting on love is like wearing a jacket: we simply choose to wear something that we already own.

God began playing this phrase in my head that morning on a loop:

“Don’t just grin and bear it. Embody it.”

He wasn’t asking me for quiet endurance. He was inviting me into full surrender—not to the chaos, but to Him within it.

Parenting was never in the way of my spiritual formation. It is an avenue through which Jesus is discipling me. For all of us, the strain and difficulty of these situations is real, but they’re not the enemy. It’s the gym where our faith and compassion gets trained. It’s the fire where our joy is forged. 

It’s the smell of Lysol that God used to remind me that this life is messy—and holy.

After the vacuum moment, I went upstairs and apologized. To my wife. To my kids. I confessed and repented from it—not from being tired, but of forgetting who I was in Christ and from treating them badly because of it. I remembered: Jesus didn’t say I’d always feel peaceful. He said I’d always have peace—in Him.

Afterward the mess didn’t disappear.

But I wasn’t trying to escape it anymore. I was reminded of my role, like all of ours in Christ, is to embody Him in it.

Until next time,
Addison