A season of 4,652 days

So I asked our Alexa a question. 

How many days have passed since March 7, 2008? 

The answer: 4,652 days.

This is how many days I have had as a stay-at-home momma.

Tomorrow, I leave the house and go back into the workforce full-time for the first time since that day in 2008. 

Yikes. That is a long time. And it also has felt like a blink, a blurry dream.

I have gradually become more and more ready for this change of seasons. 

And what a season of life this has been.

I've laughed louder and smiled wider than I could have ever imagined.

And I've also been angrier and more frustrated and more heartbroken.

My heart has been stretched and worn and given and fulfilled.

As a full-time stay-home momma, as a basically one-income family, we have sacrificed and struggled and benefitted and nurtured and experienced and adjusted and grown. We have been in plenty and in want, sickness and health. 

And now, the opportunity for me to have a place outside the home has risen and come together and is happening. A little earlier than our original plans, but when the pieces fit and God opens the path and answers the prayers...  

And oh my, if this transition doesn't give me ALL the emotions. 

I mean, having a resume of "home" for the past 12+ years. Um. How was that going to work for future employment? And then. This position and its details. Being able to have this opportunity to have a job that will provide so much for our family, for me, for our future? Being able to gather up into my hands a new purpose outside these walls and outside of this handful of young children I've had the honor to care for these years? Wow. This bittersweet cup overflows. 

Gosh, we are blessed. And gosh, this is hard.

I am thankful.

I am sad.

I am excited. 

I am sad.

I am nervous. 

I am hopeful. 

I am thankful.

I am sad.

These past few days, I've felt like I'm leaving for some other country, indefinitely, with no return date yet. Like I'm packing up and getting things prepared at home here for those I'm leaving behind. And partly, this processing has been a very necessary part of this adjustment. 

And then, in other ways, I have to smile at myself and shake it off a bit! It's not like I'm truly leaving these people or having to say final goodbyes to these dear loved ones of mine. Or this house of ours. And then I can breathe again. I'm still their momma and this is still my home. And I am still me. And it will all be okay. And there are regrets of time squandered and failings and mistakes I've made. But the reality of hope and grace and future eases the hard and washes it fresh.

"Seek Me. Just where you are, seek Me." (Ann Voskamp, "The Greatest Gift")

"And so we offer to you, O God, these things: Our dreams, our plans, our vision. Shape them as You will. Our moments and our gifts. May they be invested toward bright, eternal ends." (Douglas McKelvey, "Every Moment Holy", p. 61)

"Grant, O Lord, that we might take our leave now, feeling a right joy for the blessings of the hours we shared, even as we feel a bright and hopeful sorrow at their close." (p. 220)

"Not my dreams, O Lord, not my dreams, but Yours, be done." (p. 235)

"The shape of that ache for another time and place is the imprint of eternity within our souls." (p. 222) 

"Make us faithful in the meanwhile..." (p. 220)

Every one of us has such a unique journey. With parts we've cherished and parts we've despised. Taking the time to step back and process the sharp turns and windy curves and sudden forks in the path and maddening "road closed" signs and precious dreams dashed: well, these past few days/weeks/months/years of reflecting and remembering and reliving have shown me such a different perspective. 

I am appreciating the looking-back-on... How pieces of the puzzle that never seemed to fit right can somehow still be making a complete picture. Our puzzles aren't done. But looking back at how far they've come together so far? This gives me great hope and anticipation that the pieces will continue to be pieced together. Season by season. Both the bitter and the sweet, the heartbreaks and the victories, the losses and the gains.

"To everything there is a season... He has made everything beautiful in its time." (Ecclesiastes 3:1,11)

In my own time of ChAnGeS cHaNgEs galore... say some prayers and send some encouragements my way? (And, of course: RIGHT BACK 'ATCHA!)

Blessings,

Elizabeth

In season

Digging through plastic storage boxes of memory lane late last night opened up floodgates to pieces of me I haven’t looked on in years. 

Especially the sketches, the writing, the paintings. The art that I had forgotten brought me energy and satisfaction and focus. Since these feeling-long-ago times, my hours and years have been spent in very different ways. 

(I miss this neglected piece of me.)

But I also see life has having very defined seasons. That all, each and every season, have their place and their part and their chapter in this ongoing story.

Parts of my younger self: I shake my head at and want to squeeze her tight and tell her to chill the heck out and just breathe. Other parts of my younger self: I am indescribably proud that girl and want to again squeeze her tight and affirm that gritty, bruised perseverance she’s collected. 

Flashing back through piles of photographs and writings and albums and tangible treasures of scattered memories of the past 3 decades of life... well, it’s giving me fresh perspective on this rainy day. 

Like looking down from above at the collage-scrapbook-calendar of my years so far: at all the momentary and seasonal life struggles and occasions and milestones... (some I warmly miss and some I mourn for and some I am so glad to be done of)... and it helps me today, in this present season, to see it for as fast passing and always changing as it is and will be. Embracing the hard with fierceness and chin-up and clenched jaw, but also savoring and swaying and absorbing the absolutely wonderful. 

I miss the artist in me, but maybe she’ll come out again somehow. Or maybe the years of maturing will keep steering me in those unknown paths where new gifts will reveal themselves. 

For now: we are in right place for this season, for this chapter we’re smack in the middle of today. 

As for me, I am alone for 2 1/2 hours in the mornings for this school year. After 12 1/2 years is always having children to spin around in caregiving... I am so grateful God already has a plan for where my next steps will take me.

(Soundtrack of the moment: Tracy Chapman’s “I Promise.” LISTEN. It just fits.) https://music.amazon.com/albums/B001IAUGMS?do=play&trackAsin=B001IANDNC&ref=dm_sh_yA9eg9JuzAGS5P19ttExSd76Z

Blessings,

Elizabeth