on motherhood

Today our little house goes on the market. 

I don't even know where to start except to say that God moving so much around me and in me right now that I just feel like I have to write to make sense of it all. I feel so abundantly blessed right now it's not even right. Since we jumped out on faith and made the decision for me to stay home with Dane, I feel as though I've been riding this roller coaster of crazy emotions. 

Looking back on Dane's first few weeks of life, if I had gone to the doctor he probably would have diagnosed me with postpartum depression or anxiety. Then again, I've never had a very sound-mind to begin with, so maybe that was just me getting over postpartum hormones! I still have days when this SAHM thing is HARD. Hard doesn't even begin to cover it. When your baby nurses 12+ times a day and you're up with him all night too, any woman could easily find herself on the threshold of the loonybin. It was, and is, during those times, times of weak-sleep-deprived-clouded thinking, that satan would convince me I had made the biggest mistake of my life. "You gave up a career and a good income to just stay at home?" After all, how many times do I, or other SAHMs, hear that? "So are you working or just staying home with the baby?" Just? Try it for one day, my friend. You will begin asking, as my amazingly kind and very in-tune former boss does, "Do you work outside the home?"

I have found so much comfort in God's word in the last few months, probably now more than ever before. I am comforted by passages that remind me not to store up treasures on earth, that this world is not my home, and that I was called to go and make disciples. Not that you can't do all of those things as a working momma, however for me, they are reminders that I am doing what I am called to do for this season of my life. He reminds me that He is all I need, and that my greatest job right now is making a disciple out of the little prince who is currently sound asleep in my arms. So, on the hard days, I claim those promises in Jesus' name. 

A loop on this roller coaster of emotions that is parenthood that I have still not mastered is fear. If I was fearful before Dane...well... then I just don't even know the word to describe what I feel now. To be fearful and struggle with control is enough when you're praying to release false-control over your own life, but when you have been given the most-precious gift that is a baby boy... I don't know how I'm ever going to let this go. If he sleeps in our bed his whole life and never goes to school or college that would be okay with me... okay, so I'm kidding, kind of. Seriously! Watching the most precious part of my existence learn about life and all of the pains, heartaches and frustrations that come with it is not going to be easy. Lord, I'm praying now! I prayed Hannah's prayer from 1Sam that God would give me a son who I would then give to him. And I meant every word of that prayer. Every last one. Every time I prayed it. Even the meaning of his name showed us that God has a most beautiful plan for how He's going to use our son to change the world. As his momma though, while it fills my eyes with tears of joy to think about how my boy is going to bless God's kingdom, it scares me to death to think about one day kissing his sweet face goodbye as he hits the mission field for the first time. Why I am thinking about this now? I've got 80 years before we send him off. Ha! :) 

I say all that rambling nonsense to say that I am amazed at how God continues putting together all of the details of our life into this most beautiful story. While there are some days when I want to throw my hands up in the air and say, "REALLY?! Really, this was an important detail to add to our story?" I feel Him smile and say, "Oh, just wait, my daughter. What you see as stumbling blocks, I see as periods at the end of a perfect sentence that I, not you my dear, am writing." I'm thankful for a God who is able to do immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine.