This should be interesting....

It was about two months ago, but I remember the feeling like it was yesterday. It was nothing short of miraculous really. I am only being slightly dramatic. You know how some crave chocolate? I started craving efficiency in our home like never before. Instead of craving Publix cake (it's a southeastern thang, and it's DELICIOUS!), I began craving more meaningful moments with my son and romantic escapes from reality with my husband. Our idea of romance is probably a heck of a lot more casual than yours, but you catch my drift. 

This was momentous. Not because I don't treasure our home or adore my little family. I do. Oh, do I. It's just that as I have said before and continue to say, the whole stay at home mom thing isn't exactly a natural for for my personality. Don't get me wrong. It's 100% the right fit for us, and 100% the right decision for us right now. Notice the keys words here: "for us". I don't at all believe that I have the right to tell you what's right for you, and I don't believe the Bible is as conclusive about that as some would believe. But I digress, all I mean is that it's a very personal decision and I just don't think it's cool to judge a mom and family one way or another. You know what I mean?

Okay, moving on. Back to that magical feeling. It was magical and I was probably also a bit delirious. 

My son was teething, and in our home this means that no one gets to sleep. Oh, and don't you cry for him Argentina, he's not crying, fussy, or miserable. For that I am grateful, but it's still rough on us. When he is teething he turns into a bit of a rockstar, maybe? No sleep. All play. It's at times excruciatingly exhausting. So yea, I was sleep deprived, but happy, oh-so happy at home. Somehow, by some miracle, I remained happy as I stayed up cleaning for a home showing (our home is on the market) until about 1:30am one morning. I had a John Piper sermon playing on Chromecast. My son was asleep in his crib, and my husband was asleep in our bedroom. It was awesome. No kidding. At 1:30am, I took one last look at my clean house and then crawled into bed and fell asleep. 3 hours later, my son woke up. Do the math ya'll. It was 3:30am!!! He decided that he wasn't going to go back to sleep so after trying for longer than what would seem reasonable, we gave in. I partied along with our little rockstar, and when it was time for our showing, we took a field trip to Chik-Fila for a little mother and son date. I called my husband after leaving Chikfila, for reasons I don't remember. What we both remember is that I got strangely nauseous. It was all I could really talk about, and to this day my husband thinks that's why I called him to tell him. But nope, I don't do that. I didn't call for that reason. The next day, we found out we were newly pregnant and expecting baby #2. 

Okay, so this whole pregnancy thing makes it all make sense right?! It kinda does, except for one thing. I had other things going on, God things, that deep inside I knew that God had said, "This is only a taste. It's not time yet.". But, but, I am highly emotional at times. So I thought, "Nooo, All signs are pointing to nooooo. It's time God!!" Silly rabbit. Me, being the rabbit of course. So I muscled through opportunities that were God given, but I went through them (for the most part) without the vulnerability of what was happening. Being vulnerable, which really is just another facet of being humble, could have been a point of surrender to God. It could have been me saying, "Here am I send me!". Oh but that word "here" is usually tossed out and made of little importance, but I don't think that's what God wants. He wants to take this thing deep and personal. Remember Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden after they sinned? God asked them where they were. He knew, but God wants us to know, acknowledge, and surrender. I wish I would have done that sooner, but honestly, there's no textbook for speaking in front of women when you have morning sickness, inability to focus (or even think straight..wait. Isn't that the definition of focus. Ai yi yi. lol!), and you are only about 4 weeks pregnant. That's not exactly prime time to go public. So, no, there's no textbook, but there's no condemnation either. Thankfully, we have grace, overwhelming buckets of grace reminding us that it was never about us anyway. We are still vessels that God pours through, as cracked as we are. And then there's mercy, every morning brings a new stock. This is the life ya'll!! 

Yesterday marked the ending of a study that I co-led with an amazing woman at our church. It was such an honor to observe her and learn from her in her teaching but also from her life. I was asked about what I might be doing next in women's ministry. I bit my tongue. I really wanted to say something along the lines of, "You think they might still let me do more?!" That was my first thought, not at all because anyone has been less than gracious but because I have been so overwhelmed with life that it's hard for me to feel good about my contributions. So I bit my tongue, and simply said, "I don't know." In the past two months we lost my grandfather, my father (who is battling cancer) was hospitalized, our home has remained unsold as our new home has begun construction, teething invaded our sleep, we were without a family car for awhile, and of course a surprise (though not completely unplanned) pregnancy. I mean. I think I just need to breathe. I just need to pour myself into personal things for a bit longer. If I am being honest, vulnerable, and humble, I have kinda lost a lot of that magical feeling due to the overwhelming struggle to just survive under the gazillion circumstances. 

So my current goals.....

1. Local date night needs to be a regular thing.  We tend to wait until we are where family lives to go on dates, so our dates have been fewer and far between, and therefore never in our city. I LOVE our local family date nights, but we need Mr. and Mrs. time too here where we live. Sitter has been booked for tomorrow, and I am thinking about talking to her about being on retainer so we have our date nights scheduled. 

2. Find a local Mommy Community. I think we all struggle with finding a community that we click with, us non-crafty, socially awkward mommies tend to struggle more. I have been working hard on this one and will continue to. 

3. Home making: A place of Belonging. That's kind of been the mantra for my home this year. That's what I want our home to be like for us. No matter what goes on outside these walls. Here we belong. Here we are free to be ourselves and be loved simply for that reason. This takes on a lot of meanings for us, but I also want to focus on that mantra in a more literal sense. Every thing has a place and reason for belonging, if not, it's got to go. I got a real good start to purging last year, but I want to continue to work on that while I also begin working on organization, better habits, and routines. 

4. Get my baby out of the house more. I have been awful with this lately as I fight fatigue and other pregnancy symptoms. I want to get back to getting out of the house more. It's tough because we battle with allergies. Our daily walks were no-brainers that my son really enjoyed. It's hard to enjoy when it results in allergy issues for both of us though. I need to get back to thinking and researching local things we can do for free such as play groups, and actually do them. I am aiming for 2x a week for now. It's not much, but 2x a week every week will be awesome. P.s. I am only talking about Monday-Friday. We get out every weekend. 

5. Nurture relationships. I have been searching for that deep, local, Momma BFF connection and mourning the lack of her for so long. I want to better focus that energy on nurturing my relationships with my sisters and nieces, for example. I want to do better at that all the while maintaining healthy boundaries.

6. Recapture our whimsy. I get it. Our whimsy can't look like it did before. I concede to that, but a couple of weekends ago we got in the car and just drove for awhile. We found some more adventure on the way. We thrive on that. It felt amazing and refreshing. I want to further explore what whimsy can look like in this new season of our lives.

7. Blog about it.  I know. I know. Social media is the devil. Yada. Yada. Yada. It's not all bad. It's how and when we use it, like most things in life. So I want to get back to blogging regularly and I plan on focusing on these new goals and others that might come about in this process. 

And here's the thing. I never asked for any of the opportunities that came my way and despite my shortcomings, I know God was glorified in them all. It's what He does. So I don't want to trick myself into thinking that I know what this season will look like for me. It should be fun though. Nothing has changed since I last confessed that I don't have it all together. This is only His grace at work friends. It's going to be an adventure, and I am excited to take ya'll with me through blog posts. 

Who knows? I might even turn into a Mommy blogger. LOL!   

But for now I leave you with this, it was a quote from the last Bible Study yesterday. 

"God does not have to depend on human exhaustion to get His work done. God is not so desperate for resources to accomplish His purposes that we have to abandon the raising of our children in order to accommodate Him. {my added note, that's not just for mom's either.} God is not so despairing of where to turn next that He has to go without sleep five nights in a row. Chronic overloading is not a spiritual prerequisite for authentic Christianity. Quite the contrary, overloading is often what we do when we forget who God is." - Richard Swenson 

Coincidence? I think not.