The Journey Awaits

I sit with you, on my deck, rocking back and forth in my porch swing. I’m letting Koda wander the yard getting out his last wind as he chases and taunts the birds that reside in our backyard. The sun is setting and the air is turning colder with each shift in the light, as the sun slowly finds its way further down the tree line.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve sat down to write. I can almost surely say that as I sit here with you, listening to the birds chirp their evening song, that I am a very different person than I was the last time I wrote. I’ve spent the last year bending and shifting like the wind I’m feeling across my face. This year has been a year of growth. A year of trust. A year of dying to my own plans and learning to lean in to the story that God is writing for me. I have learned time and time again that my plans will never have the creativity or the meaning that God’s have.

Each morning, as I've strived to sit with my bible, I’ve asked God life’s biggest questions and I’ve also spent a fair amount of time whining, as I fret about how uncomfortable and weak I feel in my daily fleeting emotions.

I don’t know about you, but I always enjoy looking back at my facebook memories. I check them, usually everyday, and I always marvel at how much the kids have grown, how our house has evolved (because I’m constantly moving furniture around lol!) and how different my perspective has shifted over the last year. It never fails, a year goes by and I feel like I’ve changed 10 times over, along with the way I handle certain circumstances, whether that be in my marriage or in the way I parent my kids. The constant evolving door of life has taught me important lessons, that no matter how stuck I feel, don’t sit in those feelings too long; because they never last.

Just as I’ve crafted this blog, my evening has turned into morning and I’m now sitting on the deck at our table, watching the early morning sun glimmer a new day over my kids as they run around our back-yard. The iced coffee I’m sipping is strong and the birds are chirping a totally different tune than they were last night.

Life is like that, isn't it? A quote from one of my favorite “guilty pleasure” tv shows, Greys Anatomy says; “The carousel never stops turning.” It can scare us or it can excite us; and I truly believe that it’s a choice which one we choose to feel and run with. The year 2020 was a time that so many of us felt fear, a fear of the unknown in so many aspects of life. Still in 2021, we feel the lasting effects as we continue to press onward in our daily lives, hoping that as time marches on we don’t feel too uncomfortable amongst the changes. But as I’ve bended and shifted over the last year, and come to accept the gradual change that ends up being my present life, I've learned that feeling uncomfortable doesn't have to be bad. In fact, within that discomfort is where we can embrace change, the kind of change that pushes us forward in life and gives us clarity and perspective to make the most of our future.

I’m sitting here once again, in a completely different space as I was in the last paragraph I wrote, now sitting inside in the warmth of our fireplace, it's one of those damp, rainy mornings that make you want to just cuddle up and watch a movie. Life just never stops moving and our circumstances will change so often, that it almost seems silly to place our happiness or stability in them, doesn't it? The best thing we can do for our future selves, is stop this practice.

Stop fretting. Stop worrying. Stop placing so much weight in each moment and how we feel in it, and focus on the bigger picture. But how do we do this? It's ironic. We are to focus on the exact moment we’re being given right now. There is something supernatural that happens; before we know it, it’s been a year and we’ve turned around to see how much has changed. We start to rise above our circumstances and see them for what they are; fleeting moments that will carry away like the wind, only to be remembered and learned from.

It felt so good to sit down and click clack away to the beat of what God’s been teaching me over the last year. I am still in awe at the story he’s been writing for my life. It seems like just yesterday I was struggling through college with a newborn baby, working a part-time pizza job- trying to figure out the new roles of wife & mother that I so carelessly took on. It’s been almost 7 years and I look around and I can visually see the grace of God. Only he can make such a beautiful life out of the messes that I’ve made. I’m 27 now, about to start a brand new job in the Fall, as a preschool teacher. My kids are growing so quickly and each and every day, no matter how frazzled I get in my role as a Mom, I try to cherish all of it. The sound of little feet stomping around the house, the constant noise of giggles and squeels and the never ending eb and flow of a household with little kids. I am thankful.

I never know how to end these blogs, probably because it isn't really an ending, its just a pause. So i’ll leave you with a bible verse that I like to read when I feel like life and its troubles are just too much. “ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all So we fix our eyes not on waht is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4: 17-18

Some captures from our current season ❤