I Lost Me

I haven't posted in a long time.  And I could make excuses about being too busy, or life getting in the way.  But if I'm honest, I just couldn't.  I lost me.  Somehow, in the chaos that is my life, I just gave up.  I'm not talking about wanting to give up on life altogether.  

I'm talking about just putting one foot in front of the other until I get to go back to bed.  Shuffling through my own life as if it were this boring TV program, and I just didn't care to watch what happened next anymore.  And the last 18 months have been pretty emotionally stressful, but nothing truly terrible happened, so where did it all go wrong?

I think it just got too easy to focus on the hard.  In today's society, there are bad things happening everywhere.  You don't have to look for them, they are all over the place.  And if you have access to the internet, it seems like there is nowhere to hide to get away from all of the bad.  And so that becomes the head space you live in.  Not only is your own personal life hard, but life everywhere sucks.  Or at least that's what gets to be easy to believe.

But is it really all that bad?

No.

I have a fabulous life.  I just really needed to get back to God.  To get back to seeing that I have 3 beautiful, physically healthy children.  To pray more often.  To focus on what I can do to help, rather than what I can't do in the world.

To realize that even though I feel like I'm failing every single day as a Mom, I was chosen to be their Mom for a reason.  Even if I can't begin to fathom how I am qualified to take these beautiful souls and not mess them up.  My job is to love them, to pray for them, and to do my very best.  The perfect part is up to Him.

My house is always messy.  I have 3 kids under the age of 8, 2 of which I homeschool.  While the other destroys the house.  And I know it won't always be this way.  One day, sooner than I'm ready for, they won't want to play all of the games with me, or have me read them books while they snuggle on a cold winters day.  And I can choose to see the mess, or create the memories.  

I have the opportunity to not only instill the basics of the 3 R's into my kids lives, but I also have the availability to show them how to have those other basics skills not so readily taught nowadays.  How to do laundry.  How to clean a house, plan a healthy menu on the fly, and how real life really looks.  You know, outside of the TV "reality" shows that are loved so much.  I have spoken to 18 year olds at the grocery store that still have their parents doing all of these things for them and have no idea how they'll function once they move out, so they just don't move out.  I love my children, I truly do.  But I do want them to experience life independently, so I can give them the skills to move into adulthood with confidence.

I can look around at the need in my community and feel awful about it.  Or I can step up and do small things to make it better.  I don't have to solve all the problems, and I really can't solve them all.  But I can take a look at my abilities, and use them for the good of others when I have time.  And it's pretty hard to feel sorry for yourself when you're pouring love into the lives of those who need it so much more than you can imagine.

In short, I can find myself by focussing on the "Yes, I can" moments.  I can stop at the end of my day, and write down one good thing that happened today.  And on the days where I just can't pull myself out of the funk, I can look back at the thing's I've written down, and gain inspiration for tomorrow.

I don't know if you're feeling like you just don't know how to do life and like it.  And I'm definitely not saying that if you're feeling like life truly isn't worth living that a trip to the doctor isn't also called for, because sometimes it's simply more than we can change ourselves.  And it's okay if you need to do that.  It's actually an awesome thing if you can, because it shows how brave you are, and that you realize that sometimes the brain needs a little help.  Society has decided that you have to have it all, strive for even more, be perfect, and happy all the time.  And society has it so wrong.  Do what it takes to make you a priority again.  So ask for the help, do what you can, and have faith that it will get better.  

I would love to lift you up in prayer.  Leave me a comment!

Love In The Ashes

Fire is scary. And unpredictable. And can consume everything in its path with no rhyme or reason as to where it chooses to go. We witnessed that first hand this summer. 

Life is slowly beginning to go back to normal. Or at least as normal as it can. We still have days that are hazy with smoke. We still have to remind ourselves that those clouds are really just clouds, not another massive fire ready to come over the mountain again. 

Some days, it feels like life is safe again. To be completely honest, this whole ordeal has affected me more than I ever would have imagined. 

I have avoided taking my kids to see the destruction, striving to protect them from the images when things were still so uncertain. I didn't want them to have those pictures in their heads when it still felt like we were living in the thick of it. 

Now that the smoke is almost gone, and the gorgeous colours of fall are appearing, I thought it might be cathartic to give the kids cameras and go hunting for the life rising from the ashes. 

As we drove down the road from our house, we talked about how this summer is a perfect example of how life is sometimes. I told the kids that at some point in their lives, you're going to face hard times. How it's going to feel like you're never going to see the light at the end of the tunnel and how it's going to feel like they're all alone. They're going to wonder if God has abandoned them. 

So this afternoon we went looking for the life that comes after the hard. I challenged the kids to find the most beautiful green thing that they could amongst the ashes.

As we walked through the devastated forest, we were all excited to see the grass in the bushes and the trees returning to green from the roots. The kids explored, touching the bark on the trees and finding the holes left by the burning tree roots.

I told them that this summer we all walked through something really really hard. And the hard in life is going to happen again so I wanted them to have pictures in their minds from today to remember. That what we saw today was going to be their example that His love is even in the ashes. That seeing the green today would remind them that He has a plan. And that if they can trust Him to walk through it with them, at the end they'll see green too.

We talked about how we all came out of this stronger. And more sure of His love. 

After we got home, I looked over all the pictures we had taken that afternoon, and my beautiful, soft-hearted little boy somehow managed to find this.  Love in the ashes.

I don't know what it is that you're facing right now.  I do know that you are not alone.  You are loved.  You are enough.  And if you can find a little hope, you will get through this.