Life is moving quickly around here. My days are filled with laundry, cooking, dishes, schooling, and diapers. Thankfully morning sickness has left the building and in it's track remains a growing baby with a strong heartbeat. Knowing how precious life is I try to appreciate each day as no one is promised a tomorrow. We have enjoyed a fall of mostly fabulous weather, lots of outside playing, a trip to the zoo, Greenfield Village and the pumpkin patch. We have celebrated birthdays and first days of school, are preparing for a wedding, and the holidays are right on our heels. Mothering an extra large family can be isolating and draining at times. There is little time for much beyond caring for the children and our home. I recently told Jesse that I feel like I can't say the words "I'm tired" or "this is hard". {When I have breathed out those words in the past they were met with "you did this to yourself" or "you wanted this many kids". Those words are less than supportive and always hurtful. Everyone's life has hard days. I don't tell a teacher "well you wanted to be a teacher" when their days are long or a doctor or any number of jobs.} End rant. Being tired isn't always a sign of taking on too much, overcommitting, being out of your league (although I may actually be out of my league here). I think being tired is a sign that you're alive and really living.
Today at the village we rode on the train, all the way around. The weather was perfect and the leaves looked hand painted by God. No one was crying or asking me for anything. We all just soaked it in. It was a nice break from our everyday. I think you can give thanks in your everyday life and still fall into bed due to pure exhaustion. Almost everyday my body aches by 9pm. When it doesn't I wonder if I sat around too much. Body aches, for me, are a sign of hard work and a vocation taken seriously. I mess it all up everyday, of course. I take it seriously but don't have many answers. And most days if you dropped in at any given time it would look as if I haven't done a thing for two weeks but we live here. We REALLY live here. All of the time. No kids out of the house for school (minus one co op day). Every meal is prepared and eaten here, for the most part.
I've spent the last few months reading spiritual works, books by women recreating their lives, and listening to stories about inspiring men and women. All of the time I spent in bed during my first trimester (which was A LOT of time) left me with time to reflect on where I've been, where I am, and where I want to be. It's clear I will never by June Cleaver or Mother Teresa. Those are out. After nearly a quarter of a century of being a mother I want to be just that. A mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend. If my life goes mostly unnoticed by all but has meaning to the 14 most important people in my life I'm OK with that. For them, for God, I am exhausted. Not in a martyr way but in a way that shows them they are THE priority. But, but, but...I'm in my almost mid 40's now and life is passing through my fingers like sand. All the things I once thought I would do are nothing but distant memories from a life I never lived. A friend and I recently discussed the time we give to the Church. She gives significantly more than I do but we both agreed that we must discern how much time we should give and how much we should say no to (and not feel guilty about!). I used to feel like I had to prove myself to the community. I can have X number of kids and still volunteer a gazillion hours at the church (while someone else cares for my kids). That isn't my calling right now. And it's hard to say no. Hard not to do it. It's hard to tell my kids no to this activity or that one. Am I impeding their future success because living in my car isn't my priority? I don't know. I don't know if I'm doing God's will. I don't know the right answers to most of the questions in my head at the end of the day. And so I end my nonsensical rambling back at the beginning. While the baby continues to thrive and grow I struggle not to worry about if he/she will still be alive tomorrow or the next day or in April when the due date is. A priest recently encouraged me to trust. He didn't say "trust that the baby will live" or "trust that it will all work out in the end". He just said "trust". So I am learning to trust that even though I'm exhausted, don't have answers, have disagreements with teens and friends and family, the money runs short and so do my patience....I trust that God has a plan and someday I will understand it.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Matthew 6:25-34
