So today I had a pretty rough day. Nothing exceptionally terrible happened or anything out of the ordinary. I just had a really tough day. At work: an endless to do list. At home: my daughter. I have a really great job that adds purpose and hope to my life. It has been a joy and privilege to work for this company. But there is something about having a baby at home that just twists my heart. So today as I helped Briana with Physics, Thor with Math, and Jessica with Biology, I couldn’t help but think what I would really like to be doing is reading “Goodnight Moon” to my 5 month old. Or maybe kissing her belly. Walking with her to the park. Singing her songs. Spending time teaching her.  Instead I am here. With other kids. Awesome kids. But not my kid.

Not to mention I’m almost 4 months into my life without my husband. As he is on the other side of the world. A man who, as you know, has been the greatest blessing of my life. I’ve said it before so I’ll say it again, being a single parent is a rough business. Only a select few people truly understand what it is like to go days in and out without your husband. Alone with your darling(s).  It’s a rough business.

So it was a hard day. It’s been a hard month. A hard 4 months. Sometimes I feel like I’m walking and walking. Always alone. Always in solitude. And Between You and I sometimes I doubt God and His goodness. His faithfulness. His ability to heal. His desire for good things in my life. I have a constant battle in my head “Is God really good?” I struggle and wrestle with my faith.

Faith.
Faith.
Faith.
I have to say it over and over again. What is my faith? WHERE is my faith?

I close my eyes. Inhale. Try to pray.
I see my friends blog. I see her heart breaking words. Words of tremendous loss. 3 babies to be exact.  And my heart aches.  I get updates from one of my best friends, Kelli. Who has suffered the past 7 years of her life with Lupus. It seems to only get worse. Now she waits for a transplant. And my heart aches. I think of a woman’s blog I follow. She had a baby around the same time I did. But she doesn’t have a baby anymore. My heart aches.

And between you and I, I just simply do not understand. Faith. Have faith.  Where is my faith?

I can’t tell you why bad things happen to good people. But I do know this “What Satan intends for evil God uses for good” and even in the worst times we have hope and hope does not disappoint us. {Romans 5} I’ve watched God do this in my own life. When I opened my hands and let go of everything I was holding on to, trying to control, God changed the mess that was my life into something amazing. But as we all know, this isn’t always the case. And false hope can kill us. Faith you just have to have faith. Trust in the Lord. And I wrestle with this statement and I ask God “how?”

Understandably, we have problems to solve on a daily basis; however, this passage is talking about something deeper. Suffering. It happens a lot. It feels pointless. But where is our hope? Faith. I have to believe there is something greater than me. That God is greater. That He is good. No, I don’t have to believe it I choose to believe it. But does that make the suffering any easier? Usually not. But it does give us hope and hope does not disappoint us. It grows our faith. In plants our roots deeper and deeper into the truth.

But I still sit there in my room. Looking at pictures of my husband. And I’m restless. And my faith is weak.  And Between you and I, I doubt.  I doubt a lot of things.

And then I think…

I think as Christians, pain and suffering are some of the hardest things to deal with. It shrinks our trust in people and in God.  But it is not meant to shrink it but to grow it. In Romans 5 we are told that suffering builds our character, which in turn gives us hope.  And when all is said and done our faith maybe ragged, torn, and ugly. But there is hope.  Hope that God is still doing good things.

Joy doesn’t just come to us. Faith isn’t the easiest thing to grasp. I don’t know a single Christian that hasn’t wrestled with God. Questioned the suffering. We have to make a choice.  Wrestling with all of these is us choosing. It is our faith. 

So when my day ends and I wrestle with God and look at my life I have a choice to make.  So I sit in the rocking chair in my babies nursery and I read her “Goodnight Moon” before bed. She giggles. She kisses. She looks at me.

I inhale. Hold my breath. This is good. She is good. And I exhale.

And then I pray for the mommy who has lost her baby. Pray for what? I’m not sure. But I pray. That just maybe there would be peace; and perhaps someday, joy.

Because God gives us hope and hope does not disappoint.

I pray that today you can sit back in the midst of your suffering and inhale deeply all the grace and hope God offers us. And it’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to wrestle. It’s okay for your faith to be ugly. Be kind to yourself. Absorb all that grace has to offer.

Love,
J

I was sitting in bed this morning; missing my husband terribly as I watched my daughter laugh at herself. As I watched her I thought: “I wish he was here to see this. To share in the giggles.”

The last 3 months of my life have been, to put it lightly, the most challenging months I’ve ever experienced. Sometimes it’s hard not to have a pity party daily. I’m alone. Working full time. With an infant. Hardly getting sleep and working what feels like around the clock.

When mom’s used to say to me “Being a parent is a full time job” I didn’t really comprehend what that meant. Why? Because you are always worried about your child? Because they are yours forever?  Well yes. But that’s not what we mean.

For the working mom your day probably looks something like this: Wake up early. Feed baby/kids. Get baby ready. Mommy get ready. Pack up work stuff. Pack up baby stuff (which typically takes longest). Get in the car. Drop kid off at daycare. Feel guilty about dropping kid off a daycare. Vow to stay home. Look at bank account. Realize you cannot stay home. Drive to work. Work for 8 hours. Wonder where the day went. Drive home. Pick baby up. Play/cuddle/feed baby. Then maybe nap? Maybe play? Depending on baby/kids age. Clean bottles from daycare. Clean bottles from last night. Throw a load of laundry in. Make dinner. Feed family. Clean up dinner. Play with kids. Bathe kids. Read to kids. Bedtime. Clean bottles again. Maybe get to take a shower? It’s 9pm now. I should sleep. Sleep through the night, if you are lucky. Wake up. Repeat. Long sigh. Deep breath.

When is there time? When are you are alone? For friends? For baking? For community group or bible study? When is there time? Especially when you are alone. GIANT SHOUT OUT TO MY SINGLE MAMA’S or MAMA’S WHO HAVE DEPLOYED HUBS.

I sat in bed this morning with my daughter and I took a lot of deep breaths and wondered when I would feel inspired again? When I was in my early 20s I had so many hopes and dreams. So many things that inspired me. Nothing in my [current] life has got in the way of those hopes and dreams except me. And the lack of time? Maybe. Who knows.

Then I read a blog about {Being Present} and staying in the moment. Her name is Leeana and you should read her blog. It’s refreshing.

With so much to do on a daily basis I forget to breath. To inhale deeply.  Exhale. There is Grace.

Inhale all of God’s grace. Grace for all my failures. Grace for the busy days that get away from me. Grace for all complaining and anger in my heart during this season of life. Exhale. There is abundant, unending, free of charge Grace. 

Today, while I sat in my bed, asking the Lord for forgiveness for such an ungrateful heart. I asked him to inspire me. To remind me of my many blessings {as if I deserve it}. Just then my silly little mini Chase {aka my daughter} laid her chunky little head on my chest to cuddle. Then lifted her head up. Look me right in the eyes with those giant baby blues. Smiled. And opened her mouth to kiss me.

Inhale deeply. Thank you, Father. 

Today my daughter, God’s greatest gift, {inspired} me. She inspired me so deeply. To seek after God more. His word. His Law. His ways. His grace. To be the best example for my tiny human.

My husband emailed me a couple weeks ago. Talking about how much I inspire him. We’ve done the same devotional together for several years now and he sent me the line from that day : “Transform your fear into confident trust”  then he said “Trust that God has a plan, my love. And even in your worst time He will transform your fear into confident trust.”  My husband. Always bringing me back to truth. Always leading me back to Jesus when I go astray. We talked that day and both agreed Isla has inspired us more than anything else in our lives.  She, and other children God may bless us with, are our greatest opportunity. Opportunity to change the world.

I read a quote the other day about parenting that said this:

{Most people think they need to make a better world for their children, but the reality is we need to make better children for our world.}  So we see this as the greatest opportunity of our lives. To show this little girl what Love is. What Grace is. What Truth is. To not be of this world but be a light of Truth in it.

It helps that her daddy will probably never let her date so she’ll just live with us until she’s retired and we’ll all grow old together. That’s normal, right?

My husband inspires me. Who he is. What he stands for. Mainly in his silence. He doesn’t shout from the roof tops but he hangs back and does what is right. He loves well. My goal this year, in 2015, I want to inspire you. I want to inspire my friends, my daughter, my family, my husband.

So this week I’m doing things that inspire me. 1. writing 2. exercising 3. spending time with some women I really love endlessly. 4. showing myself some grace

Love,
J

I decided that this is the day I start blogging again. For many reasons. 1. I love to write. 2. It’s something I am passionate about and 3. Love.

I have a strong pull to stay home and raise my kids myself. Some mommies are really blessed that their full time jobs only take them away from the home 1-3 days a week. As a teacher this is 100% not the case. In most cases teachers know its 5 days a week 8-12 hours a day.  Being away from my daughter longer than 8 hours a day is just not an option for me.  Not all moms feel this way and that’s okay too.

I continually put off writing and blogging for fear of what other people think but today I said “NO, you’re going to do it.” And so I’m doing it.

15 weeks ago when I gave birth to my daughter my life was changed drastically. More than I EVER expected. Honestly.  It’s been 3 1/2 months of really hard, difficult, messy transitions and mostly trial and error on our parenting attempts. But even greater than that there has been a ton of LOVE. The first 6 weeks of her life I thought to myself “I need to go back to work. This is boring.” fast forward 6 more weeks and I feel completely different.  Love is funny that way.

My daughter taught me many things about LOVE. It has been, to say the least, the most humbling experience of my life. I wish I could put it into words. I feel like being a mother has given me the ability to love in a greater capacity. NOT saying this is true for everyone but being a mommy has soften my heart and opened my eyes.

Judgement. I used to pass a lot of judgement. What a silly waste of time. NOW I see every friend, family member, stranger, student, coworker in a new light…”someone is their mommy. someone loves them the way I love Isla.” What’s the use in seeing people for their flaws? There is none.  Being a mommy has given me a new concept of LOVE.  My husband is amazing at loving people and not passing judgement. I could learn a lot from him. But instead it took carrying a child for 9 months and spending 15 hours in labor and 6 weeks of recovery for me to get it 😉

My goal this year is to blog through my experience of being a mom. 2015 has a lot of new things for us as a family. Many challenges. Many blessings. Many opportunities.  I’m taking some time to breath. Some time to write. Some time to get healthy and some time to raise my baby. I’m not sure what that looks like but I’m pretty excited, nervous, nauseous, anxious to find out.

I would also like to put a disclaimer on my writings 🙂 I am a woman of faith, and while I fall shorts on a daily basis, my strength coms from the Lord. I have to give Him the glory for everything in my life. Good and bad. No circumstance can take away from that.  If you read my blog well THANK YOU for encouraging me in my journey, but if I mention my faith it’s not to judge you or to say your way of life is wrong. It’s simply different.  Again LOVE is my new outlook on life.

One of my favorite quotes says it perfectly: “Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You do not have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.” – Rick Warren

I have many friends with many different beliefs and I love them all the same. But I ask that you give me the same GRACE 🙂

More to come…

Love,
J