I am feeling these tonight....
shame, distrust in myself, sadness, guilt, fear, worries, doubt, anger, a lack of hope.....all of these.
I believe feelings can lie and so I am working hard to exchange the shame and distrust for confidence; the guilt for forgiveness; the sadness for joy; the fear, worries and doubt for trust; the anger with compassion and the lack of hope with the faith that my God has big, bold, beautiful plans for me.
I am at the same choicepoint I often find myself loving others through. I know this place personally as well. Can I acknowledge all of these ick feelings and allow myself to feel the weight of them for a moment and then LET GO so I may move forward? I can...sure. Will I? Perhaps I should linger in the suckiness for a little while and fight what I am feeling...stuff it down or mask it. Choicepoint. Since I have learned the hard way that the latter never leads to a place of peace, I am going to focus on the first option. I'm even going to openly write about it here in the gentle hope that I will find relief in sharing with an authentic, open heart and another will find an "I'm not alone" comfort in reading.
I quit my full time job (that I loved) at the beginning of this summer. I felt so strongly that God was leading me in that direction and my heart knew it was best for my family and I. I didn't know what was next and I kind of still don't. I had big plans to sell meals and baked goods as well as provide childcare this summer. I accomplished maybe a quarter of what I had 'planned'. This means we were back to being a one income family for the summer. Quite honestly, we had not budgeted at all for this change.
Instead of carrying out all of my plans, I focused on the healing of my heart, on loving my parents, on the recovery of our family and on letting God and everyone else love us. It's been tough at times, nonetheless, we are traveling down a healtier road in our marriage and as a family and there is nothing more worthwhile than that healing is right now. Thus, the result in that area is priceless and a God gift.
That said, tonight this flood of negative emotions is an outcome of the stress I am experiencing because of the choice I made in trust to quit working full time. Honestly, although I quit in trust and I did not naively think everything would come easy, my plans to help us through didn't happen and we have struggled. We have had help and I despise that at 42 years of age we need help. I have conversations with myself about resuming full time work, yet in my heart there is no peace in that option. I believe that our son needs me home for the hour he is out of school before our daughter gets home. I believe that I need afternoons to help my parents however I can and to take care of our home. I know we are fragile and still in recovery mode. I know my part time job at the school is exactly where I am supposed to be right now. I love the students, my coworkers, friends...every bit of it. I also know that if we can't pay our bills it's not a great thing.
I know God has this covered but I feel an incredible amount of trepidation about what I am supposed to do now. I am also having such trouble with forgiveness and letting go when it comes to our mortgage loan (where a huge chunk of our income goes every month). This is so hard because we are here every day to see the chaotic environment, the damage done to our home, the work that remains to be done and corrections that need made. A very personal struggle to me.
I have a load of guilt for daring to complain about any of this. I wonder if I am grieving God's spirit with my whining. Why do I have such a lack of success at letting go of everything? I have practiced surrender over and over and over again. I guess I'm gonna have to practice it some more, probably for a lifetime.
Last week, one of my kindergarten friends showed me the picture he drew. I asked him to tell me about it. He said, "it shows how rich my family is, we have diamonds, new cars, lots of jewelry and fancy furniture." I acknowledged his hard work and told him that my family was rich as well, but in different ways. I said, "we have love, joy, faith, trust, compasstion and fun." I truly believe that and know we are a privileged people.
It is an honor to live this life, this I know, yet in my humanness I struggle. I don't want a magic wand, I am willing to work HARD. Truly, right now I want my Daddy's assurance that everything will work out. I want my Momma to not worry about us. I want to know with peace and confidence that everything will be okay...that it IS okay already. I want that....yesterday. :)
There it is....my current struggle. I would love you to cover our family in prayers.
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