Sometimes, you just need to toughen up.

Two things happened recently which reminded me that sometimes, you just need to swallow the complaints, whinging and excuses and get on with it.

I was at church on my own with all the children and feeling blargh (I was pregnant but didn't know it at the time). Had to wait for ages for someone to get something for me so I could go home. Had the baby in the pram, fourteen.....oh, alright.....it was about four, bags hanging off the pram, plus my three eldest children, whom I always make hold onto the pram when we go near the road.

As I walked out of church, huffy, tired, hungry and sick, I heard everyone else sipping their coffee and having a great time chatting. Suddenly, a shrill voice in my head blurted out, "Why doesn't someone HELP me?". I limped out of church with all my encumberances feeling dejected, flat and quite honestly, jealous. Then, my sweet Lord, who is always so gentle with my tantrums gently reminded me, "Julie, it's your choice to have these children and to be here at church today. No one is responsible for your choice."

Darn, darn, double darn.

I had to work really hard to change my attitude, but I realised He was right. I've chosen my path in life and some days it's absolutely AWESOME and others it's fairly......average. Having an attitude that expects others to save me from my choice to follow Jesus how He wants me to doesn't help anyone, especially me. It just breeds resentment.

I hasten to add that my church family is LOVELY and I have had heaps of great people help me out. I think God just wanted to teach me a lesson that morning.

Then the other day, I arrived home late from school pick up because we had to go to the butcher to get the fortnightly meat. I did it on my own with all four children again and felt like I spent the entire time herding them about, telling them what to do. I knew I was pregnant by that stage, so I had yet another excuse to be a whinger. But I remembered my lesson from church that day.

When we got home and dumped our shopping inside, I realised that it was time to start dinner. *Groan*! I wanted to fold up and go and lie on the bed. I wanted to yell at my children even though it wasn't their fault that I was tired. I wanted to order take away pizza. I wanted Ben to ring and say he was coming home that very minute. I wanted to do anything except what needed to be done: put dinner on to cook.

I slowly rejected each scenario as not possible and faced the inevitable. Dinner would have to be cooked. No one else was going to do it for me.

As I started chopping up chicken and preparing our meal, a beautiful thing happened. All of the children went and did their jobs (put their bags away, change out of uniforms, put shoes away) and then played happily while I cooked. No interruptions. No fighting. No whinging. Bliss.

We ended up having the most fantastic evening together. They loved the dinner and we had a great bathtime together and the kitchen was clean by the time they went to bed. Instead of getting frazzled and upset when I knew I'd have to just suck it up, I just calmly (tiredly) started dinner.........and the calmness spread through the whole house.

Of course, this doesn't happen every day. But I learned about putting my chin up, facing those seemingly huge insurmountable mountains and refusing to lie down and quit.

Sometimes, you just need to square your shoulders, ignore the excuses and do what needs to be done.