Single Mother

I used to be a military wife.  One who faced training, deployments, and support of a spouse that was gone for long periods of time.  I had to get used to doing things on my own (including parenting) because what other choice was there?
A long time ago, I read a set of posts where military wives were comparing themselves to single moms.  Said that while their husbands were gone they had to hold down the fort, so it was just like being a single parent.
The actual single moms were incensed, because they said it wasn't the same at all.
And in the last year, the one thing I have learned, is that the single moms were correct.
It isn't the same at all.
For those who don't know what has happened to my family, I won't go into the details.  They are too personal and too intense.  To painful and too real.  But the end result is that I am raising four young children on my own and have been for a very long time.
There are some days that the high demands of these four tiny lives are so much for my heart to handle.  My soul hurts, and it bends under the weight of the responsibility that has been given to me.
I know that my feelings aren't that different from any normal parent that is having a tough day.  A day where they question all that they do.  Where they wonder if they are helping or hurting their kids, and what if the mistakes are compounding themselves so that things just get worse instead of better?
But there is one really big difference.
I'm doing it alone.

Although I have told myself a hundred times in the last few months, and will continue to tell myself the very same thing, that even though I feel alone I am not.
God is with me in all that I do.  He always has been, and He always will be.
I'm going to keep writing it and telling myself that until I no longer feel the sting of loneliness.
This weekend was rough.  I didn't get anything done.  Well, 'anything' besides cooking meals, doing dishes and laundry, sweeping floors, cleaning Gwen's room, my room, and a hundred surprise messes.  Making a grocery list and shopping for everything on that list.  Paying bills.  Reading books to the kids.  Playing barbies.  Painting the fingernails of my little girls.  Being silly with balloons.  Being a parent that has too much to do, and too little time to do it in.
As a matter of fact, right now I'm enjoying a yummy chocolate milk shake.  Yep, at 11:00 pm at night when I have to get up in about six hours.
When I'm struggling, chocolate is my ray of sunshine.
But I know everything will be alright.  Because although I feel alone, I am not.
And I never will be.

Even when things are so hard, so difficult, I don't know what I would do without my kids.  Those four little beings are my life.  I love them much more than I do myself.  They need me to be the very best parent that I can be, and I won't let them down.  I will keep trying, keep struggling, until life gets easier and I no longer have to swim upstream.
I need them and they need me.
Tomorrow we will be smiling, tomorrow
we will just be.
Today was hard, today was rough,
but I see the sun
already peeking through the trees.
Tonight I will sleep
Tonight I will dream.
of a tomorrow where life
is filled with more than we need.