Flu Season Anxiousness

These past few days have been rough, but I realised I am probably not the only mum feeling defeated as I nurse my little baby back to health. It’s flu season so it’s to be expected. It is very frustrating though, the long nights, the crying (not just the baby), praying, the fears and worries. I am tired and feel emotionally drained. I am anxious by nature but having to watch your baby cry trough a high fever, not sure what is coming next can leave anyone exhausted.

When you are in distress it is easy to feel like God is ignoring your requests for help. ‘Can I take anymore Lord?’ But unless we experience this lack of control, we can never fully accept that we need to trust our father to take control and willingly accept that despite our lack of understanding, he has a plan and his plans are always good. These moments humble us and as God takes us through the fire we come out the other end like an iron rod, strengthened.

Motherhood has to be the hardest job I have ever experienced. The emotional, mental and physical stress endured by mothers is unexplainable; of course if you are a mum, hats off to you, you would know what I’m talking about. When your child is sick you feel particularly helpless. At an instance I felt so defeated by my son’s high fever and long sleepless night filled with worry that I actually thought praying might be useless. ‘Are you really listening? Do you really care?’. I’d beat myself up for feeling like this, unworthy of God’s grace, one hard day and my faith is weakened. But Jesus himself felt like God had forsaken him at one point as he was hanging on the cross, somehow here Jesus’s humanity was something I could definitely relate to and I’m certain this episode is meant to highlight a very common, human feeling; Is God really listening to my prayers? If he is, then why hasn’t he changed things for me or answered me? Again, these moments have a way of humbling you, tearing you up, then rebuilding you into a stronger version of yourself, one you never knew possible.

All of these thoughts were running through my head, whilst my son was sick with fever. I was scared and felt like all this pressure was mounting up to a nervous breakdown. But that is nothing new to mums; feeling like your sanity might actually be nearing the edge. It’s a hard job being a mum. It is hard on those days when you have to make a decision and you know that you are fully responsible for the outcome and the wellbeing of your child, and it is also hard on those days when you have no control on the outcome of your child’s wellbeing and there is nothing you can do but be patient, pray, and trust in the only God that actually can and will make the difference.