Where is your smile?

"I quit!" "I give up!" I am done!" "It's too much!" You name the quit complaint and I have said it recently. I am tired, sore, frustrated, overwhelmed. Etc. Etc. Etc. I would say these are common phrases from me and my friends. I would say that at least 1 friend a day on FB says something similar. (I have 292 friends)
I feel lost. I am not sure who I am anymore. I look in the mirror and the young newly excited mom is gone. My husbands young fun loving adventurous bride is gone. What is left is a woman who frequently says the above statements. So here I am again completely self focused, crying wondering how am I gonna get out of this stuck place I am in. I pray... I pray because that is the one thing I do know how to do. God please help me! Please show me.... This is what runs through my head....I take a step back and look at me, my life from my husbands perspective.

I saw her one day wearing a red top and black jeans. I fell in love with her smile and started planning how I could keep her in my life forever. I proposed, I wed. I Promised my love forever. Then pretty soon her smile is gone. What can I do to make it come back. She wants children. She cries. So I pray with her and plan a family and God grants. Babies come but again her smile is gone. What? What is it you want my love, I will give it to you. No I don't see your stretch marks, I don't see your weight. I see your smile and its absence breaks my heart. She smiles again. Where is your smile my love? A bigger place for our children. Ok lets pray, how can I work harder and make more? Her smile returns. Wait the smile is gone again. What is it now my love? Its too much work? You can't keep up? Who are you competing with? Who is putting these pressures on you? Ok lets pray. God please strengthen me. I take on more chores, I take on more meals. Where did your smile go? You are tired you need sleep? Ok I can wake with the baby and my alarm for work. I will help more. Where is your smile my love? Ok you want a new car... something with sliding doors. ok. Where is your smile my love? You need more time, more attention from me? ok. Where is your smile my love? I tell you that you are pretty, I tell you I love you....I don't see your scars, I don't see your weight. I see how you labored with pregnancy for our children. I see your heart and I want to see your smile. Where is you smile my love? You don't know what's wrong? Where is your smile my love? I hang my head.... Nothing. Nothing I do makes that smile return. "I quit!" "I give up!" "I am done!"

It is better to live alone in the desert than with a crabby complaining wife.
Proverbs 21:19

Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
Proverbs 31:10-12

When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness. She carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness.
Proverbs 31:26-27

Well you can imagine my heart is breaking after being given a glimpse into how things appear from his side. I don't want to quit. I don't want to give up. I did pray and ask for all these things, children, the ability to home school, a bigger house to take care of. Working in the ministry etc. etc. etc.... Its all God's blessings and instead of being blessed and CONTENT I have let Satan blurr my vision. I have always been more of a realist and pessimistic and I have let my focus change from God and others to just me. Just me is all I can see. How tired I am. How hard my situation is for me. How I never get a break. How much I don't like the way I look, or the way my clothes fit. I can only see how little sleep I am getting, or how crazy my hormones are. I can only see me. Yet I am not alone in my life. I have joined my heart with another who is working his hardest to make me smile and I haven't even thought about just smiling for him because I know he loves it. If I worked that hard to love him I would be so content, so full of joy, so at peace and where God wants me rather then lost on the wrong path I have chosen.
Dear God, I am on my knees. I don't want to see me, I want to first see you, then see others. I want to praise and glorify you and love others. Thank you God for opening my eyes to see how proud and arrogant and discontent I have been. Thank you for showing me this. I love you and I give myself to you because only you can change me. I know only you can teach me and show me what true godliness with contentment is. Thank you God for new mercies.... I am beginning mine today.