The No Drama Mama

We were at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Van Buren, Arkansas. It was my weekly grocery shopping trip, a dreaded, but necessary task.

“I’ll help you pick that up, Mama. It’s too heavy for you,” my three-year-old, Kale, told me as he stood up in the grocery cart.

“Sit back down, right now. I’ve got it.”

As I bent to pull the humongous bag of dog food from the shelf, my ten-month-old let out a deafening scream.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” I rushed to my baby who was sitting in the seat of the cart with his chubby legs sticking straight out of the leg holes. Tears were already forming in his eyes and his face was bright red. He pointed to the cart at his two brothers who squatted inside with angelic faces.

“We didn’t do it!” My two-year-old, Keaton, professed his innocence.

“Karter wouldn’t cry for no reason and then point to you just to get you into trouble.”

Let me pause here and say that in the fourteen years that have passed since that day I have learned that Karter would, in fact, do just that . . . often.

Karter’s crying continued, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. He held his hands out to me, begging me to take him out of the cart, and I caved.

Let me pause again and say that I have since learned that my youngest child can be quite manipulative.

So, I held my stocky baby with his crazy, wavy, thick brown hair and quivering lips as I stood in the dog food aisle wondering how I was going to get a twenty-pound sack of dog food into the cart with a baby on my hip.

“I’ll get it for you, Mama.” Kale, always the helper, stood and threw a leg over the side of the cart, preparing to jump out.

“No, no, don’t –”

It was one of those moments that seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw what was going to happen before it happened, but couldn’t react quickly enough. The metal grocery buggy, containing half of my grocery list and my two older boys, fell over on its side. Poor Keaton and Kale screamed as it fell and then crashed to the ground. After they were over the shock of the cart falling, they looked at each other and began laughing.

“Martha, is everything okay?”

Just my luck. Of course, someone would see me like this – messy ponytail, no make-up, screaming children, toppled grocery cart.

I turned on a fake smile and said hello to the woman and her teenage son who stood at the end of the dog food aisle.

“I knew that was you! When we walked in the entrance, I heard you. I told my son, that sounds like the pastor’s family.”

I laughed like I thought it was funny that when they heard children’s screams in the grocery store they immediately thought of my family.

They helped me raise the cart, gather the spilled groceries, and set the boys back into their places, and I thanked them and chatted with them for a few minutes, but the whole time we talked the same thought kept running through my mind: I just wish I could go to the grocery store without causing such a ruckus that everyone in the whole store knew I was there.

Those noisy trips to the grocery store have long past for me. Now that my boys are all teenagers and don’t have to accompany me everywhere I go, my shopping trips are quite peaceful. However, there are plenty of other areas of my life that are still noisy and chaotic.

That’s the mom life, though, isn’t it? Messes, accidents, noise, dirt – all of these are part of the package, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, there is another level of chaos that has become very important to me to avoid.

What I want to avoid is drama.

We are going to have trouble in this life. As a mom, your child will get sick, your husband will irritate you sometimes, your appliances will break, you will be late for work, you might be involved in a car wreck, be sued, lose a job, and on and on. In John 16:33, Jesus assured us that we will have trouble.

     John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (New International Version)

None of us want trouble, but it is unavoidable. Drama, on the other hand, is avoidable. It is possible to face trouble without drama. I’ve decided that I don’t want to throw tantrums, give people the silent treatment, get into Facebook wars with people, cry uncontrollably, suffer overwhelming depression, hold offense, or let fear rule my emotions. I want to have the fruits of the Spirit evident in my life.

Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit that the Spirit produces in a person’s life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these kinds of things.” (Easy-to-Read Version)

Is it possible to face difficult times with peace in our hearts? Yes, it is! Is it possible to go through persecution and maintain love toward those persecuting us? Yes, it is! Is it possible to be in the middle of great trouble and have joy? Yes, it is! The key is found at the beginning of Galatians 5:22 . . . “The fruit that the Spirit produces.” We must abide in the Spirit if we want these fruits. John 15:1-8 expounds on the idea of abiding, or dwelling, or living each and every day in the Spirit.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are called the fruit of the spirit. That means they are the outcome of a life lived in the spirit. These attributes are not something you can force yourself to do in your own strength for very long. You must have the Holy Spirit living in you and you must abide in the Lord.

I encourage you today that as you begin to abide in the Lord, you WILL experience the joy and peace that comes from being a No-Drama Mama!