My Blessings

This last year I struggled. I struggled with my faith not being good enough. I struggled with feeling like I had no goal or aim in my life. I struggled to love the life I lived...and to live the life I loved. I felt guilty almost constantly...not a good enough mother, friend, wife, daughter...person. I thought that there was no way God would want to save or protect me and my family because frankly, I didn't deserve it. What I know about my relationship with the Lord is that I deserve none of it, but he gives His all for me and to me. I knew this then but just couldn't feel it. I also knew that the distance and space I felt between Him and me was hard for Him too...but necessary. My entire life, through bad and good, I've felt God working. I've never lost my faith. My prayers were answered...almost easily. I think God was trying to show me that He works in my life and is present. It was a child's relationship with him. Faith solidified by getting what I asked for. Faith solidified by constantly feeling Him with me. God needed me to grow up and my relationship with Him needed to mature. I worked hard to find him this past year. What was so frustrating was that he continued to bless me and my family and while I knew he was working in my life I couldn't find Him. He also allowed me to struggle through a few non-blessings. It wasn't cruelty, but He needed me to rely on Him even when it felt like it couldn't get worse, or when it seemed like He wasn't there. I couldn't communicate with Him or see Him communicating with me. I prayed without feeling like I was being heard and I worshiped without feeling like my faith was present. Something broke in me one night. I sobbed to my husband and told him that never in my life had I wanted to have a sit-down conversation with God like I wanted that night. I was desperate. I've never felt such desperation in my heart or experienced it in my spiritual life, I was on my knees. The next morning we went to church for the first time in a long time....months, actually. Not going to church wasn't a reflection of my faith, we just...got lazy. Well that Sunday morning lazy wasn't an option and either God was testing me or the Devil tempting me because as I recall Daughter was throwing a fit, the shirt I had put on got something on it, we were running late, you know the drill. We conquered and overcame and when we got to church, I knew He was speaking to me that day. My favorite Bible verse, Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you" says the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and hope" was front and center. The homily spoken was of focusing on the eternal life Christ gives His children - and that while we should look to it and for it, we cannot neglect the finite life we live on His earth. I changed that morning. God had been on the outside looking in for the last year of my life and I knew He knew He had me. We acknowledged each other that day in a way we never had. I felt my faith again. Since then, I've had a few days here and there where my own fears and anxieties have taken over. I've battled emotions that were out of control. The difference since that day when God told me He knew His plans for me, and that I have a life to live, is that I've overcome the days where I was feeling down. I've prayed and felt comfort. I've sought and found. He is fully present again...somehow I feel like I passed His test for me - and He knew I would all along.

As you know we are expecting our second child, our second greatest blessing. I am in love with my life. It seems an odd thing to say...but this kind of love I can only compare to one other best love I've ever felt, falling & being in love with my Husband. I can't get enough of life and I'm enjoying it again. I'm so grateful. I can't imagine why the Lord sees fit to give me these people, these beautiful beings that are my children and husband. I only know that they fill me up, that maybe they complete my bigger purpose, though a humble one, of being a wife and mother. I've never aspired to be anything else and I've never been as good at anything else as I have been at these two roles. It is the one area in my life where I don't feel mediocre - I am meant to succeed at caring for these individuals, my life's purpose, my blessings.