Not Nice Spice
Things have been a little quiet and anyone with kids knows that is better than winning the lottery. Unless, of course, that means your children are off showering the world with glitter and taking poops in corners of the house you didn’t know existed. Let’s play the optimist and say we’re all the former right now, because we all have been the latter more than we like to admit. All of this glorious quiet time has given Stud and I a chance to refocus our family. We went over our “goals,” for lack of a better word, from last year. We had a few areas that we spent beating ourselves up over, and rightly so. But many of our shortcomings weren’t that at all. Our perspective was so limited by what we have conditioned ourselves into believing. Of the nine areas for last year, one was to be used in a new way in our local church. Honestly, when Stud read that one I rolled my eyes. I had just had our third baby and quiet frankly having three kids in four years is no walk in the park. Naturally my overwhelmed mind hit the whining trail with a heavy foot. We both already volunteer twice a month, which means we alternate weekends wrangling the kids. But in our minds our roles are very basic, though helpful, leaving plenty of room for growth. As we waited, random opportunities came and went, never really working out. Now, two months into the new year I found myself questioning whether God always spoke truth. Then I had one of those 2 A.M. epiphany moments that you have to run and tell someone right away, otherwise it’ll be forever lost in the black abyss. One crying kid later and Stud was on the receiving end of all of my insomniac thoughts. This summer Little Dude and I chased baby toads around our backyard. We had to really stretch ourselves and strategically step around the butterfly garden, inevitably losing them. I had spent the spring loading up the garden with all of these “good” flowers that when they began to blossom and grow there wasn’t room for the gardener. You see we were so busy all year yammering around, trying to talk God to death, and shove him ever so strategically into our preconceived notions. Thankfully, God is always bigger and never fails to, in time, reveal his grandiose plans. Is your inner busybody curious to know what the epiphany was? Does it really matter? Would it push you closer to God? There are certain things shared in intimate moments with friends and other times that God wants to have those moments just the two of you. Checking this “goal” off of our 2019 list impacted us in a powerful way, but only you taking this time to create your own list would show you the vastness of God’s power. This is our third year writing out a list of “goals” for the year. Essentially they are things that God has impressed upon our hearts that he has in store for us this year. They aren’t random desires or losing the baby weight or kicking addictions to the curb. It’s time taken in the beginning of the year to sit and listen. To be still. To know that beyond a shadow of doubt God has far better plans for us than we could ever dream up for ourselves. And in that moment when our minds and hearts are settled we can trust that what God has for us is found in his deep-rooted love for us. We cannot wait for this third year.
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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
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