regularly scheduled programming

PHEW.

We're back from our trip... and I'll just say that taking a toddler (with a head cold) to a hotel for four nights is not exactly my idea of vacation. (Praise God for hotel pools that open early!!) It's absolutely downright lovely to be back home.

Thanks for the encouraging words & thoughts after my last post. I think I know what's necessary to help my heart and my spirit - even if my actual situation and circumstances don't improve (or change in the way I want them to change, to be more precise).

One of the absolute toughest parts (for me) in becoming a parent for the first time was the completely unexpected loss of sense of myself. I hadn't realized how strongly I had tied my identity to my activities and involvements - my career, my volunteering, my role as a wife (in a home without children). But once Hazel was born - I was simultaneously head-over-heels in love with a beautiful baby girl... and absolutely lost and reeling, wondering where I had gone.

I've been working on re-knitting my identity in the past year-plus, and it has been slow work - a few steps forward, a few steps back. My heart knows many things about my calling and my role as a mama - but my head often struggles with my selfishness and with the conflicting messages about motherhood that permeate our society.

Even now, as I'm committed to entrenching myself in the discovery of God's design for motherhood - the purpose and mission of my job for many years to come - in the midst of my excitement, I am a wee bit nervous about the change.

Will it be harder to relate to my friends who don't have kids?

Will I become one of those moms who can only talk about "mom things?"

Will I put too much focus on being a mama, and not enough on the other roles God calls me to play?

I don't know the answers to these questions for certain - but I'm fairly sure that at times, I will answer "YES!" to all of them... because I'm a regular old flawed gal, just doing the best she can.

But I am encouraged that I am not playing ANY of the roles in my life by accident or happenstance... God has placed ME specifically in each one of them - and by His grace, by walking in faith in a wonderful and powerful Lord, by prayer and petition and new mercies each and every day... I am able to fill those roles.

I believe that He is not sorry He put me here... He is not ashamed of me.

I believe that He is filled with love that I cannot comprehend - and waiting, just waiting, for me to go to Him for help and guidance.

What a thought.