Not Nice Spice
This chilly end to summer is only making me realize how fast time is going. Last August I was pregnant and swirling with the chaos of life, desperate to jump ahead into a more glamorous adventure. Now I am finding that I’m wishing there was a way to keep the sand from falling between my fingers. Somehow this is the first almost autumn season that has left me with the resemblance of a broken heart. It’s as if you could gather up all of my years on one side of Lady Justice and place last year on the other—and the scale would be balanced. When it rains, it pours When we found out we were pregnant with Chickadee there was a huge shift in our family dynamics. I was speechless when my husband said, “Well, the best thing is for you to stay home.” Come again??? But the further, and sicker, along in my pregnancy I was, the more excited I was to stay home with our little sweetheart. Oh she’d be that perfect little cherub and we’d have a picturesque life in NYC. In no time at all I knew full well that a SAHM was no freaking joke. It’s some ninja jungle warrior sh*t! Because, well, there was literally poop everywhere. I thought this was time God gave to me for rest while we raised our family. Hold up! No, not literally. Because if one baby was ninja jungle warrior, then what happens when you have three?! Well, Stud and I can’t exactly tell you what happens since sleep deprived parents have next to no memory. But what I can remember is that my last day of teaching and then my last day of tutoring, very truly busting at the seams, was also the beginning of the end of a scheduled life. Wake up. Go to college. Travel the world. Meet interesting people. Become driven by a dollar. Get your master’s. Experience love at first sight. Carve out your career. Get married. Have babies. With our first baby I hadn’t yet realized that God had placed me into a season of rest. A place to regroup, refocus and bring back to life what the world was subconsciously pounding down each day. I was still driven, and I mean driven, to succeed as a mom. What was the bar of parenting I was trying to hit? I couldn’t honestly tell you, but if I scheduled a nap for my baby then she sure as hellfire had better take it. No mind to my soles wearing ever so thin with all the pacing and swaying involved in getting no where fast. Creek a floor board wrong and hours upon hours of hard work towards napping gone! Of course there’s the fun bit— take her around the neighborhood with blazing fire trucks, cigarettes galore and not a peep!
Since I obviously couldn’t figure out rest with one baby, God gave me another little squish to nudge me in the right direction. And yes, I did learn how to slow the pace but it wasn’t quite there. It was like getting a high-end piece at a discount store; it only looked the way it should on the outside. So a little La-Di-Da God gave me another squish (albeit far less squishy). And this time I quite literally felt as though I could hear the earth breathe. Was there still chaos and ninja jungle warriors hyped like a toddler getting a puppy on Christmas? Yes, yes, yes. But that chaos that bombards moms on the daily? It stayed out; even though my world last year was a bit of an air show with rings of fire. I’ve learned to take the time of (seemingly, it’s always seemingly!) insignificant rest and invest it. I was able to birth without fear, to not have lackluster relationships dim the joy that’s still to be found, to have repeated setbacks not bring me back to unhealthy habits, to know without a shadow of a doubt in uncertainties I’m still hidden in the shadow of his wing. A while ago I read One Thousand Gifts and the only thing I can remember is the pain she opens with in the first few pages and how somewhere in the middle she becomes grateful for even dish soap bubbles. It was in those bubbles, when life slowed down, whether mentally or physically, that the heartbeat of God was revealed. You. Me. That’s the heartbeat. That’s the essence. I'm content right here, in the now.
1 Comment
Emma
8/28/2019 06:25:17 am
Beautifully said ❤️
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Kate FrancesWhen you don't know what else to do, then it's time to write. Then write a little while longer for good measure. Archives
February 2020
Categories |