Begrudgingly Resentful

I love words, scrabble is my most favourite game to play. Words do not however come that easily to me, I lose them, forget them and very often cannot spell them. Coming from a family full of people with dyslexia I think I have come off very lightly.

Since reading a blog by Katharine on her tendency to be critical http://www.10minutewriter.com/?p=346 I have had the words Begrudge and Resent going round and round in my head. Today I have at last found a few minutes when I have been motivated to go and get out my husbands very large Chambers English Dictionary to look these words up, this is what I found:

Begrudge - to grudge, Grudge - to envy, to give or allow unwillingly; to resent; to murmur at - to murmur, to show discontent, an old cause of quarrel or resentment; a feeling of enmity or envy.

Resent - to take in, consider as an injury or affront; to feel joy or sorrow because of; to receive, well or badly, to savour.

Now that I have looked them up I would much rather say that I am a resentful person rather than a Begrudging one. However I have to be honest and say that it is very much the other way round for me at the moment.

What started this feeling for me this week - a bed. How silly does that sound. Let me explain, having recently had a 12 year old addition to our family we have been having to do lots of smoothing and reassuring to our two birth children who are 8 and 9 years old. The 8 year old has required the most attention in this department possibly due to being the same sex as the 12 year old (female!).

A few weeks ago we had a conversation where she explained that having an older girl in the family made her feel even younger and so we brainstormed some ideas on how we could make her feel a little more grown up. The result was a decision was made to purchase her a bed with a desk under it so that she had her own space for doing her crafty bits and pieces - and writing. Up until now she has had a small table in our living/dining room where she has done these types of activity.

The bed was purchased and I felt reasonably okay that we had reached a good solution to this immediate problem and our intention had always been to get this sort of bed for our two small children's rooms eventually anyway.

It was not until the bed arrived by courier (flat packed for us to make) on Monday afternoon that it's reality really started to dawn on me. As I tucked my daughter into bed on Tuesday evening I knew that this was going to be the last time that I could easily see her sleeping before I went to bed.

That's when the Begrudging really took hold. I did not feel ready for her to grow up. The reality is that I really have not had any control over the circumstances that have brought an extra child into our house. Yes we have made the decision to do what we are doing but I have to admit it is more because we could not face the consequences of us making any other decision.

So having a grudge is not going to help me or my family, so I shall ask God to replace it with Grace and I shall wait expectantly for him to give me that.

ps. My daughter loves her new bed as you can see from the photos!