How It's Been

this post has been milling around in my mind for months.  It is hard to describe how life has been since Corban joined us.  I'm worried that trying to give words to the hardness will create misunderstanding.  I don't want to give people the feeling I am unhappy or that I have any regrets.  I want to be a champion for families and I hate to think of people seeing behind the scenes and thinking "that's not for me", or worse, "that's what you get for having so many kids."  I feel a lot of pressure to put on a happy face and make it all look perfect.

The reality is, this life of mine is perfect.  It is exactly the kind of schooling my person needs to be refined into something better.  But it looks kinda messy.  It feels like waking up to the impossible every day, every minute.  Which means either really exciting or really scary. 

The past few years I have deliberately worked to remove fear from my life.  Because of this I can honestly say this isn't the hardest time of my life.  There have been times that felt heavier than this because I didn't have the  spiritual fortitude to keep out the bad guys.  But I have certainly felt dragged around and beat up by life in the past 6 months.  Waking up to the impossible means I get up and work relentlessly: mentally, physically, and emotionally, and at the end of the day there is so much still left undone, unanswered, or below expectations.  I am constantly dealing with so much input and trying to keep track of so much.  I'm constantly tempted to let the bad guys in who want me to fall into despair and overwhelm.  I'm constantly thinking about ways to improve the management of the household so it will run more smoothly and give me the time and space for things that are missing.  It is hard, hard, work that rarely lets up. 

It leaves me feeling vulnerable. Being A naturally  confident person, this is a new feeling for me.  It is hard for me to feel safe in social situations that normally would be no problem. I have to wonder if people understand the intensity of my life and that certain things just aren't a priority for me anymore.  And it has been hard to write.  I feel so humble and incompetent and, well, just too tired.

But it has been so refining! If anything could rub off my rough edges this would be it. I appreciate the things that I have learned especially my ever-increasing need to rely upon the Lord.  He never fails to come to my aid, not always with answers, but always with peace.

My life is perfectly hard, and perfectly good. By choosing to give life once again  and all of the hard things that go along with that choice, I am finding life more abundantly within myself.