My Babies

Right now life is hard.  With two and four year old little girls sometimes I just don’t even know if I’m going to make it, but after a tragedy like that in Parkland all I can do is be reflective.  They will grow older and they may not remember these days and sometimes when it’s hard I forget.  But I know that I will never forget the way my baby kissed my knee today because I bumped it.  I won’t forget the way my baby girls said mommy please don’t cry when I finally broke down.  The memories that last won’t be the ones about my two year old’s tantrums or how hard it is to get sand out of their hair.  The memories from these days that will last forever are the cuddles and dancing.  The way that right right now my girls are loving me so much I literally can’t move.  One day my girls won’t pester me with why’s or need to sit in my lap, but the sweet memories will always be there.  I hate to think of what this world is going to have in store for them and my only hope is that one day they will be some of the light that this world desperately needs.  I pray that God will call them to be His light in the midst of so much darkness.

Treading Water

Do you ever have a moment where it feels like you faith is treading water trying not to drown, but faith can’t stay the same.  It either gets stronger or weaker everyday.  As I attempt to tread water I’m slipping farther and farther away and I feel like I forgot how to swim.  I feel like I’m waiting helplessly just hoping someone throws out a life preserver.  

This week I have started an online study of Romans and even only a couple of chapters in I know God put this there just for me.  After starting this book I realize that I am having a crisis.  A crisis of FAITH and I feel like I have no right.  I know so many people truly struggling through events in their life, but their faith is so strong.  It makes me wonder what am I doing wrong.  Why can't I feel God's presence in my life?  What did I do?  I know that God is there.  This opportunity to go through this book with some other ladies at exactly the right time and many other things tells me that God is here, so why can't I feel Him then?  

It also makes me question so many things.  I know that I have serious issues and one of them is definitely trust.  I have found that it is so much easier to secretly expect everyone to let you down in the end than it is to truly trust anyone especially when that is exactly what has happened so many times before.  What about me is so screwed up that I can't even trust God not to let me down?  He never has before.  Things aren't always the way that I want them to be, but God has always gotten me there in the past.  Why can't I trust Him now? 

Feeling lost

It's been a while since I've written anything because it's been a while since I've had something to say or knew how to say what I needed to.  For a while now I have felt lost and disconnected.  In the middle of all these beautiful moments that the holidays have brought with my family I have felt there, but not there.  It's a terrible feeling and one I haven't really known how to deal with.  I have just felt isolated felt people and from God.  It's weird because never once have a doubted that God was here.  I knew it and could even see it, but I couldn't feel it.  I don't know what had happened to cause this rift. I know that some of its been on me.  I have not been making the effort to reconnect like I should, I have not been making it a priority.  I have been praying for that connection to come back, but not putting in the work.  Feeling a little at loss for what to do.  God works in beautiful ways.  I didn't put in the work like I should and was just content to wait anxiously not knowing what to do.  Then in a moment it changed.  God used the beautiful words of a child to turn my heart toward Him.  A child singing her heart out to Him, beautiful words sung from the heart.  Hearing her pour out her heart about Jesus and the power of the water was what I needed to hear.  Sitting in that pew a wave of emotions brought tears to my eyes and a swelling in my chest.  I could and can feel God's. Presence in my heart and in my life again.  Then when her beautiful heart felt songs were concluded I got to hear the heartfelt conclusions of our congregation as this year concluded.  Listening to these people, who have quickly become such a big part in my life, confess, praise, and even mourn was beautiful and touching.  Again during that service I felt tears in my eyes.  Feeling God's support so powerfully and the love of that room of people for each other and for the Lord broke down walls in my heart that I don't know how they got erected.  God knows what I need and He has perfect timing.  I don't know what the purpose of all this was,  my isolation, being so lost.  I do know that God has a purpose for all of it and I am very thankful to start the new year feeling connect instead of loss.  I for one am hoping this is a sign of the year to come.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.  These words have taken me out of the dark and have brought out the light.  These words have been running through my head like a mantra since I heard them in church yesterday.  These words have been a salve to my heart that has been hurting so badly.  Lately things have been so hard.  I have felt life my life was drowning me.  Between work and home and my girls things have just been so hard.  Honestly I have felt broken and I have not know what to do about it.  I mean what do you do when you feel like your life is sucking everything out of you and there is nothing left for yourself?  I honestly don't know what happened.  I do know that since yesterday I have been thinking of the end of Joshua 24;15 almost constantly in my head.  But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.  This section of Joshua talks about serving God sincerely and turning away from idols to serve God fully.  Joshua 24:23 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”  What I realized in that moment is that I may not worship the "gods" that this chapter is referring to, but I am putting other things in my life before God and that might as well be the same thing.  My life has not changed drastically since yesterday, but its all about perspective.  All of the same things are still going on in my life, but when I think but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  The one and only thing that I should be worried about is serving the Lord and the rest of it will fall into place. I heard a song on the way home from school today that talked about how God sees all the suffering that you go through and sometimes He puts you through that to come out stronger on the other side.  When you are in the middle of these tough times it is hard to see the purpose and honestly it is hard to feel like God is with you.  Its hard to even feel like He cares about you sometimes.  But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  Who knows what the days to come will bring and how I will respond to those things that are coming my way?  All I know is that right now I don't feel like I am drowning today and this mantra is still running through my head.  But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Steal My Joy

Do you know the song Old Church Choir by Zach Williams?  I hear this song all the time and I love it.  For about two days now there is one line from that song that has been stuck in my head: There ain't nothing gonna steal my joy.  No there ain't nothing gonna steal my joy.  I have realized that God is trying to tell me something.  God is trying to show me how often and how many different people I let steal my joy all the time.  The wonderful joy that I feel when singing about Him alone in my car.  The joy that I feel because of the wonderful children He blessed me with.  So many times a day I let people steal my joy.  Between some of life circumstances that come up and some of the students that I teach I let them steal the joy from my heart.  I let this profession, where I go in all day just trying to do what I can to put a band aid on a system that is broken, beat me down.  I let these students taking out their other issues on me take away pieces of me.  Sometimes I let all the burdens that come with having two little ones, working full time, and being married to a football coach steal away little pieces of my joy.  Sometimes my heart feels so heavy because I have given up so many pieces that I don't have any left.  I know that the big answer to this is that I just have to rely on God and He will project the joy in my life and exude it out of my heart.  I know that I need to trust and rely.  That always seems to be the big answer.  The problem with that is that I don't know that next right step to take.  I don't know what it is that I need to be doing in order to be able to truly trust and let go. 
I have gone my whole life thinking that I needed to be self sufficient and that they only person I could truly rely on was myself.  Now I am slowly learning that I cannot rely on me.  That I can't do it.  God always wanted me to know that I can't do it.  How do I overcome years of conditioning telling me that I'm the only one?  What is the one next step?  I know what the problem is, but where do I go from here and how do I start to fix it?  Maybe one day I will figure it out.

This Chapter

Today is my husbands last JV game in his first year as the head coach and I don't know that he has any idea how proud I am of him.  At 15 I didn't really have any idea about what kind of man he would become.  I never would have imagined that 15 years later we would still be us and have these wonderful lives together.  I also had no idea about the many ways that he would touch people's lives and the influence he would have.  I am so thankful that he is here to give our girls the same love and guidance, maybe a little more delicately that he gives his boys and his students.  He is such a caring and dedicated man.  I know that this has been a challenging experience for him.  I know there have been some long nights spent wondering what more he could do and what else he could try to make them better.  The way that he is concerned not only with the game but the character of the young men in his care.  The tenderness he shows as he draws the hard line and as he cares for these boys on and off the field is astounding.  I don't care about the record they come away from this season with.  What I do care about is, that even though the long hours drive me nuts, he is becoming a better man.  These boys make him better.  Our girls make him better.  When we were kids and first started dating I knew he was a good guy, but I didn't the man he would become now and I wouldn't change a minute of it.  He balances me out and partners with me in the trenches of the preschool and toddler years.  This man makes my life bearable.  He will touch lives and I'm just waiting to see it.

I don't know how to feel

Today has been a hard day to top off a difficult week.  This difficult week has involved some parent conferences, the craziness of the end of the quarter, some "spring fever" for my students, and the culmination of frustrations that comes with being in the third month of football season.  In teaching the mood ebbs and flows quite frequently.  Frustration can be quite common, with the kids, with myself, and with anyone and everyone else.  This week has culminated in today.  Today started out hard.  I got frustrated with my husband when through no fault of his own he was not as helpful to me while we got ready for school as I would like.  Then my students were hard to handle and I received a couple of sets of upsetting news today.
Today I feel like my heart has been taken out of my chest and broken.  The news that we have lost a former student of mine was shocking and tragic.  I hadn't thought of that young man in years and when I heard the news images came flooding back to me.  When I think of him all I see is that big grin on his face.  I remember him being a handful, but really what stands out to me is that big smile that I used to see on her face.  Hearing the news shook me.  He's not the first former student of mine to be lost and like I said I hadn't thought of him in years, but it still stung.  In shock "That sucks" was all I could think to text back to my husband.  I still don't know what else to say or how to feel.  Much later in the day I got some other news.  News that made me concerned for someone close to me.  The feelings of anger and unfairness that it brought up almost had me in tears.  I know that life is not supposed to be fair and God never said we wouldn't suffer in fact He said the opposite that we need to be prepared to suffer for Him.  That is all well and good, but when you have to watch so much pain and heartache come to someone that you hold so dear it is hard to understand and to wrap your mind around it.  Before I left work today I bowed my head and prayed my head in my hands at my desk and just began to pray.  To pray that God would help me and those in these terrible situations.  My heart cried out to say that I was pretty sure I just couldn't handle any more.
I don't know whats going to happen tomorrow, next week, or even five minutes for now.  What I do know is that my heart hurts, not for myself, but for those near to me.  I know that when I can't handle it that I am going to pray.  So far prayer has at least gotten me through the next moment and then the next, and then some more of those moments. I don't know where it will take me next, but prayer is the only thing that has gotten me this for so continue to pray I shall.