When I'm stressed and overwhelmed, this is where I come and sit and update so if it causes me more stress or makes me more overwhelmed...you see the problem.
So that being said...
Exhibit A:
Running through my head is Philippians 4:6...Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.
Yeah, I don't always do that. But I'm working on it.
The small group I've been blessed to be a part of here has been studying Kelly Minter's Ruth: loss, love and legacy this fall. For the last two months because of the regular busy-ness of holidays and the added busy-ness of this move, I have not been very good at keeping up with this study. Last week we came so close to meeting and then had to cancel. This week is it. The last Friday we have before the move. I wasn't sure we were going to make it happen, but it sounds like we're going to try. Last night I decided I needed to get busy. Most of this study has been about stepping out in faith and being willing to trust God with our future. Timely.
I have to be honest and admit that I am still struggling with this move. We have a great life here. It isn't perfect, but nothing is perfect. We were just getting into our groove. I am still struggling with the goodbyes I don't want to say and especially with how much further away from family we will be. There isn't an ocean between us this time, but it feels like there may as well be. I have to put on a happy face most days because I have three kids looking to me for how they are supposed to react to this move. While I don't discount (or try not to) their feelings of loss and sadness, I want them to see healthy coping and to know that everything is going to be okay. I was truly blessed as a child that my parents kept the grown up stuff from my shoulders until I was capable of handling it. I felt safe and secure. I want to do that for my kids.
I want to do that. I want to be faithful and willing to trust God with everything in our future. I want to remember that God's Word reminds us to "fear not" hundreds of times in one form or another. But the truth is, I am afraid and I do worry.
Last night I picked up the study of Ruth where I had left off...almost at the end of the story where Ruth marries Boaz and has a son--an heir to save her former husband's name and a redeemer for her mother-in-law, Naomi. As God's Word always does, the story comes full circle. After Naomi's husband and both her sons died, she tried to send her daughters-in-law back to Moab because she thought she was their only hope in finding new husbands--and she was too old to have babies (not to mention widowed) and she felt bitter and betrayed by God. She didn't trust. Ruth, who was not born a Jew or born to know God, did trust. Naomi didn't think there was any way she could be redeemed and "wrote the whole thing off". Then God brought the story full circle through the faith of a woman from Moab. As the author of the study wrote: God rewarded Ruth and Boaz for their extraordinary obedience, but He also blessed and redeemed a woman who had lived in a land far from Him and who returned in deep bitterness.
Like Kelly, I relate more to Naomi than to Ruth--the obedient one. I'm so thankful to see that God's Word speaks to "those of us who can only think of one way for a particular situation to be resolved." We can't think like God.
I'm so thankful He thinks bigger than I do. He has a plan and I don't get to know what it is. I have to be okay with that because that is what faith is.
When I tried to get on here last night and "catch up" on this blog, with aspirations of one day putting together books with posts of each of the kids to make up for their baby books that sit mostly empty in the basement, I spent some time looking back over the last few years and realized I have been slacking. Still no birthday updates from kid one and kid two, with kid three's party just three days away. Technically, this is a new year so I guess kid three becomes kid one and I'm only behind on the other two from last year...
I get overwhelmed. I want to be uber-organized. I want to have everything put together for the party coming up this weekend--the "last" weekend. There are multiple sleepovers, multiple parties, a final basketball game and a final small group. There is less than a week to get organized and packed before the packers arrive. There is a missing library book. There are so many little details that make my list and keep me busy, but sometimes all of this "at home mom" stuff keeps me from feeling fulfilled. Sometimes I think my job for the last six years has become Director of Relocating. Still I don't do it all. I'm blessed with a husband who takes on a lot of the coordinating and he does it while balancing the ending of one job and the beginning of another. This is always the hardest part of the moves. He goes on to his new job while closing out another one. He handles a lot of the correspondence with relocation, realtors, lawyers and financial institutions. I'm very thankful that he doesn't expect me to do it all and that he is so gracious for the things I can do. I don't always appreciate myself for the work involved in raising children. Although this isn't exactly where the author of the Bible study, Ruth, was going with her writing, God spoke to me about this through her writing last night. (He does that). She wrote about her grandfather's funeral and his legacy. Naturally I have been thinking about my own grandfather and his passing as what would have been his birthday just passed. I also recently found a paper I wrote in high school about his best friend's tragic murder. I have thought many times about how oblivious I was at that age when my friends and I interviewed him for our "homework". I can only imagine how painful it was for him to talk about that, but at that time, I don't think I had a clue.
Anyway, Kelly had fantastic things to say about her grandfather. She related her heritage from his life to the heritage and legacy we all have from God--one we did nothing to earn. That is the way I see my family legacy as well. I did nothing to earn my life. It is a gift left for me by God and by those before me..."a gift we leave others". When I'm feeling like, this isn't enough. Taking care of the details in my kids' lives....from their birthday party planning, to pulling out the plunger almost every single time their dad is gone for a week or so, to sitting and reading and snuggling at night, to just listening, to praying for them and with them... I am thankful for God's Word. This verse doesn't flow the way I logically think it should, but thankfully I don't have to rely on my logic:
Proverbs 17:6 Grandchildren are the crown of grandparents, and parents are the glory of their children.
Last night, that spoke to me. Was I still a little bit grouchy and irrational when I finally got a chance to talk with my husband? Yes. It isn't magic. Just healing, and healing takes time.
This isn't exactly an update. This blog has been a lifeline of sorts, a way to chronicle family life, a release from stress, and at times a source of stress. When I think about being "behind" on updates, it changes the blog from being an outlet to something less fun. I still read other blogs. Mostly uplifting ones. Mostly blogs that don't make me feel inadequate for what I feed my kids or what electronics we own. Then again, nothing I read can "make" me feel like that. I do that to myself. I try to balance my life a little and not be chained to the social media that I often use as an outlet when the stay at home mom gig gets me down and lonely. It's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. Thankfully I have grace from God to allow that progress to happen. Thankfully I have His Word to run through my head in place of the negative, anxious words I put there.
Be anxious for nothing, but in all things by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, bring your requests to God.
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