What Limits?

WOW.

WHAT a week! my husband is out of town for 9 days, out West, on a motorcycle trip with a friend of ours from college. i was SO excited to have some time to get caught up on some projects i've had brewing in my head for months now, but guess what? that has not happened at ALL! i always try to keep my schedule pretty full while he's gone, so that i make sure to stay occupied, and evidently i have mastered that skill quite well.

and then a 21 hour day on saturday was about the last straw... though it was all for good reason... essentially.

it all started getting up at 4am to head out to the Farmer's Market for the veggie/fruit co-op i'm a part of- who's brilliant idea was it to schedule me to shop the weekend my husband was gone? oh yeah, that was me. great thinking... mommy-brain at it finest, woohoo. an AMAZING (obviously) friend of mine agreed to come stay with little guy so he could sleep the remaining half of the night. geez, where do i get these ideas? anyways, this AMAZING friend of mine is my workout partner so of course we had to get that in while she was in my neck of the woods (we live 30min apart) so by 10am i had a stocked fridge (in theory because the produce still needed washing), 25min workout under my belt, was showered and ready for the day except that my body thought it'd be great timing to get a nap. oh yeah, sleep. so i happened to be able to get a couple hours of nap in but i kinda had a lot on my mind and was trying desperately to tie up some loose ends- food that was going bad, cloth diapers that needed washing, something like that- before it was too late.

well, since hubby is out of town why don't i catch up with all my little munchkins i've nannied?! yes, that was saturday night. i took little guy 45min north to watch "the boys", so their parents could have a date night, which meant not getting home until 11:30pm and not getting to sleep myself until 1am. are you getting a glimpse of the brilliance yet??

Sunday. little guy wakes up at 9am meaning if i were honest i could make it to the 11am church service (which is also across town by 35mins), if i really felt like it. i did. in the meantime, while nursing, i realize dog really needs a bath BAD, oh yeah, baby needs a bath BAD, and heck i sure could use one too. time to rev the engines...

so basically, by 5pm yesterday ALL i had accomplished was bathing and feeding everyone, going to church, and getting in a nap. but seriously, there was not so much food to eat in a pinch (which if you're getting the hint is quite necessary around here on a daily basis). ok, well, since it's summer in FL i certainly try to not use the oven until the late evening so the AC unit doesn't get burned out. guess i'll start with a smoothie...

that was the easy part.
by the time the night was done i'd also whipped up some homemade granola bars, breakfast cookies, cereal, and a loaf of bread. believe me, the kitchen was SCARY!

and stayed that way until about 4 hours ago. remember my little munchkins? i've got another- one of "the girls"- sleeping in the spare room right now... thankfully they don't really know the difference when your life is in shambles and you're scrambling to keep up with it all. and all i've really wanted to do is blog. but i promise, i will catch up over the next few days... can't wait to share these recipes!

If ignorance is bliss I wish I were ignorant

well, as many of you who are moms know, time flies by at just rapid speeds as the years progress- a fact of life that is made all too evident when children come into the picture.

i can't quite believe little guy is already 4 1/2 months old <sigh>. i feel like he has tripled his size and just completely morphed into his own little being. it's so amazing to me how someone of his extremely young age can already have such a specific personality! at this stage i can't help but feel like his little babyisms just continue to slip through my fingers like raindrops one after the other each day but then i'm blessed to have an amazingly sweet, good-mannered, agreeable child- so maybe this is not the norm for everyone. it is SO fun to watch him change, develop, and grow but in a way i really hate it. i KNOW this is the best time (as the parent) of his life right now and that scares me. my years of experience nannying all ages of children has given me a pretty good bank of knowledge to know what is coming in the years ahead. and in this case i don't think the statement "knowledge is power" rings true because, let's be honest, there's nothing I can do to avoid the inevitable. perhaps for the first time i'm really understanding why mothers have such a hard time letting their children grow older, detach. and keep the "baby" a baby as long as they can. it's such a sweet time of motherhood and, frankly, i don't want it to change. in my opinion it feels a little more like "knowledge is fear".

perhaps motherhood is the bravest position in life...

Among the Dents and Scrapes...

Yesterday morning my mind returned to where I was when we ushered in 2011. Very precisely we were pulling out of a gas station somewhere close to Jacksonville, FL on our way to Savannah, GA on the back of my husband's motorcycle. Not particularly the warmest place at the time but I was happy. And that's saying something...

My husband started this tradition (that he hasn't necessarily carried on) that we had to pick a "theme song" each year and it HAD to be the first song we heard just after midnight into the new year. Well, the song I chose for this past year was "Angel" by Jack Johnson which is rather ironic b/c these particular lyrics became quite poignant AND true- more than I had intended. Particularly the part that says, "You gotta be careful when you got good love 'cause an angel's will just keep on multiplying".

...We are now expecting our first child in less than a week, ha.

I didn't quite believe life could get to be any more of a roller coaster but that is EXACTLY what this year has been- in EVERY single way. Maybe it was just the hormones but I have a hunch that was the least of it. In any case, we were laughing the other morning, sitting on our front porch, that the condition of our vehicle described precisely what 2011 has been in our lives and marriage- dented and scraped up, touched up, not necessarily pretty or coveted but still going forward and running faithfully.

Some days that is all I can really know to hope for but honestly 

others I mourn that we lose who we are so very often.

This reminds me of the passage in Ecclesiastes that talks about "Seasons"- that there is one for everything. Isn't THAT the truth?

After (well, ok, maybe I'm just in the middle of) this season, I can wholeheartedly say I've never been a better person- which if you've been in a place like this you understand that does NOT mean life has been all glitter and roses. However, I"m reminded all the time that even in nature and creation we see that only through difficulty and hardship comes purity and newness.
And a very blatant theme of the past year for me has been GRACE in the midst of just that.

Time and time again I was faced with whether I would decide to give it away or keep it for myself. In the most harsh of circumstances. The one truth that I could never quite shake is how much grace GOD has given ME- every day of my life. And perhaps my one purpose in this life is to share that same grace- it's up to me to accept that purpose or reject it with every chance I'm given. I'm sure there have been times I have failed to make the right choice, or in the least failed to display it like I ought to, but as very hard as it was those first few times, now it is second nature. This is in and of itself by God's grace because I am very much by nature a stubborn person with a very keen sense of justice- which now that I think about it, remember my parents verbalizing at my high school graduation that they prayed God would use for His glory at some point in my life. I think that prayer has been answered, Mom and Dad. For only NOW has my sense of justice been refracted by God's perspective... and THAT is a powerful thing. Perhaps that has been the ONLY point. I'll never know this side of heaven but what matters is being OK with that.

Anyways, we did a LOT this year. OK, I guess that isn't too out of the ordinary. Maybe just with all the drama along the way it seemed like a lot more than normal. In a nutshell, it's been a year of drastic moves, drastic changes, drastic revelations, drastic decisions, drastic insecurities, and drastic discernment.

Perhaps that's why I'm sitting here at home on New Years Eve, typing on the computer at 10:30p without any plans and only the bed waiting for me- probably before midnight because, why not- and this seems perfectly appropriate.

After all, it is in the quiet moments, when it is just me and you in the very rawness of who we are- singularly and cohesively- that life breathes on exactly as it should. Only then. I can only hope that when you look back on this year that you can see all I really wanted was to be your Angel...

there's no telling what this next year will bring- most likely some excruciating heartache as well as exuberant joys as life is celebrated on both ends- but I am ever more confident in the Lord's providence and sovereignty through all Seasons and look forward to the new area of life He has planned to chip away at through the realities 2012 will bring...

BRING IT ON!

The complexities of what faith encompasses...

Soooooo, not sure why but for some reason have been totally uninspired to write on this blog lately... can pregnancy hormones do that too???! they are so multi-faceted...

Anyways,

...here's a rather astounding truth I've been coming to terms with as of late...

I've been doing a Bible Study with about 4-5 friends each week. One that is centered around believing God:
-believing He is Who He says He is
-believing He can do what He says He can do
-believing I am who God says I am
-believing I can do what God says I can do        and
-believing that God's word is active and living in me

some pretty good concepts if you ask me- they seem pretty simple but in actuality are pretty complex. I've been mulling over #2 specifically

~believing He can do what He says He can do~

this one in particular because I've come to realize that in order to believe this of God i must ALSO believe that just because he chooses NOT to do something in my life does not mean it's time for me to work on fixing it.

this certain point has made me realize that in the past when God has chosen not to do something i've asked Him for, then i tend to try and take over the steering wheel again- instead of accepting and CONTINUING to trust even when He does not work miracles.

this past week's study was particularly encouraging as it touched on examples of lives of people in the Bible that had to learn this same lesson. a couple examples:

1. John the Baptist- this one really blew me away b/c i don't remember him being at a point when he doubted what God was doing or Who he was- after all, he is the  one who proclaimed 

"Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world." 

YET
when he found himself in prison he couldn't help but reevaluate his beliefs about God. Hmmmm.....

2. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego- you know, the three guys who found themselves in the fiery furnace because they refused to worship an idol like the King commanded? yeah... ASTOUNDING faith. again, never really noticed this part of their story
BUT
when they were told what would happen to them if they refused to bow before the idol they responded,

"our God whom we serve is ABLE to deliver us from the furnace...

BUT EVEN IF HE DOES NOT

let it be known to you, O king, that WE ARE NOT going to serve your gods or worship that which you have set up."

THAT is the kind of faith and fortitude i want to exhibit in my life!

WOW.

and then last night i was re-reading a chapter out of Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist again... and in the process was reminded of why her writing speaks so deeply to my soul...

"I believe that God is making all things new. I believe that Christ overcame death and that pattern is apparent all through life and history... I believe that suffering is part of the narrative, and that nothing really good gets built when everything's easy. I believe that loss and emptiness and confusion often give way to new fullness and wisdom...

But for a long season, I forgot all those things...

I realized all at once... that the story I was telling was the wrong one- or at the very least, an incomplete one... Looking back now I can see that it was more than anything a failure to BELIEVE in the story of who God is and what He is doing in this world... Instead of living that story I began to live a much smaller story, and that story was only about me. I wanted an answer, a timeline, and a map. I didn't want to have to TRUST God or anything I couldn't see. I didn't want to wait or follow... even when I sat in church and begged for God to direct my life, those things didn't have a chance to transform me, because under those actions and intentions was a rocky layer of faithlessness, fear, and selfishness."

I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped in significant ways. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of trying to learn something about patience or anything else for that matter.

I couldn't make peace with uncertainty- but there's nothing in the biblical narrative that tells us certainty is part of the deal..."

...in the very least it was a good reminder to me of what a healthy focus is for me right now. over the past couple months my prayers have consistently been for redemption, reclaiming. the Enemy is so very persistent but i have NO doubt my God is orchestrating His own battle... it's just the waiting, the putting up with, the tolerating... living within a wasteland of souls that weighs me down so that i forget that MY story is ALREADY one of redemption and life, growth and abundance!

as nervous as i am, i can not WAIT to hold this little one in my arms... 

a new promise, a new blessing, a gift of grace.

redemption. 

it's all around...

the consequences of life change

i know, i know. it's been an ETERNITY.

it's been somewhat of an intentional hiatus as i found myself pregnant about 5 months ago and at that point wasn't at liberty to reveal what was really going on...

then there was the greatest storm of my life that has finally died down after 3 or 4 months but zapped EVERY part of my being that i wasn't already giving away...
perhaps in time bits and pieces will come out but

~FOR NOW~

it's time to come back and find TRANSPARENCY again.

so at this point, i am 22 weeks pregnant. i have been loving every- ok, MOST- minutes of it... until this week.

i knew the day would come when i would 'pop' but it's rather disconcerting. at this point it feels a lot more like a 'beer belly' and that i've simply gone on a 2 week binge- scary. one thing that always helped me 'measure' myself was by the way my clothes fit. well, let's just say that a consistent 8weeks of that changing constantly has gotten me a little tipsy turvy in the department of being ok with ME.

i have to say, it did surprise me a bit that it hasn't hit me 'til the past couple weeks but at the same time it has me surprised in every way. ugh.

i suppose at this point this all probably has a lot to do with no longer working as of 2 weeks ago.

i've been staying busy just fine and so i thought i WAS fine, but it wouldn't surprise me if this has a lot more to do with finding worth in myself as a WIFE and MOTHER. imagine that.

i should've known this would come up.

i've had a job since i was 14- HALF MY LIFE!!

and now THAT is not any part of my identity.

now, i am TRULY stripped! AHHHH! darn.

how does an overachiever measure worth

when there is nothing to measure it by?!

yikes.

maybe this is where i start trusting in what God says instead of what i can deduce about myself? double yikes.

but, honestly, when it really comes down to it, the pregnant body IS AMAZING! and who created and formed and ordered such a life process??! the very ONE who says i AM full of worth. maybe i need to see this whole mothering thing a lot more differently...

maybe the things i want to attain in this stage of life are wholly and completely unattainable.

what's more, maybe all those things are wholly and completely WORTHLESS.

how could i have forgotten?!

...anyways, i'd already scheduled another 'image board' making day with a friend tomorrow but i have a hunch it will simply bring me back to who i am organically as God created me to be.

it will remind me of all the thing God has created me to do and will show me all the things i am doing that are worthless and are 'grasping for the wind'.

my heart is open and i'm excited to see what i'll find...