state of the heart

I reread a bunch of blogs from earlier this year - just before Glory was born and just after we became a family of four. I know you're not supposed to like what you've written, and I didn't so much enjoy my lack of eloquence due to sleep deprivation, but I did think - I'm so glad my kids will have this to read in coming years. With bloodshot eyes and tired fingers, I was able to pound out what was going on in my heart and for that, I'm thankful. So I was reading and thinking, where am I right now? What's the state of my heart?

So much has changed this year - we moved across the nation, added a baby, found out we were adding another baby, felt overwhelmed, missed family, made friends, really began to solidify our marriage, and got a small step closer to figuring out who we are supposed to be in Christ. My life looks really mundane from the outside - I am literally a "stay at home" mom. I don't leave the house everyday. Outside of walking to the trash can, taking the kids on walks, or watching Elias play in puddles - some days I literally stay inside these four walls. I've started to make some amazing friends, been in two awesome womens groups - but I'm far enough away from them that seeing them is a hard process sometimes. If this all sounds like one big complaint - it certainly isn't. The mundane for me has always been thrilling & patterns are really comforting in my life.

But there is a struggle to find and pay attention to the grace and power of Christ all day - a struggle to find purpose when your children won't remember this day and you still have to be on your toes each minute. It might seem like there isn't much to do, but day by day I feel overwhelmed with how much still needs to happen and how the list starts over each morning. Laundry, meals, naps, crawling, toys, words, books, nutrition, walks, stairs, schedules, coughs, rashes, baby food, teeth, hair, fingernails, baths, diapers, diapers, diapers, and poop.

So here is where my heart is... I'm praying to understand two really powerful things I heard at my bible study last week and I hope I quote the right women. First, Jackie challenged us all to continually place God on the throne, instead of ourselves, daily. That way, however the day goes - you know who is in control and who should be getting the glory. That is freeing in so many ways for me. If I live in this - when my kids only nap for thirty minutes, Glory poops all over me and our bed, I feel lonely and miss friends, I massacre an entire dinner & have to throw it out - I know who is on the throne, who is in control and I don't feel the weight of all of this on me.

The second great word I have been praying about came from Elizabeth, I'm pretty sure. She said she wants to be intentional about working to be the kind of mom she wants to be when her daughter reaches the end of infancy. That got me thinking - sometimes I feel like these next few years are pretty much going to be a wash, if I just get through them - I'll get to the good part soon enough. Soon, I'll have my body back, I'll have some sleep, my hands won't always be so full. But I know - this is the good part. This is the good day and I need to be intentional NOW about how I want my life, my heart to look like at the end of this day, this month, this season. And that takes more than intentionality, it takes execution. So I'm praying through that... praying through what that looks like.

... and that is the state of my heart.