A New Day

4 years.... last post was over 4 years ago....  and while my readership has diminished, this creative outlet has found new wings.  Do I really have to explain what has transpired in the last 4 years? Can it be enough that the intimate moments of family life just be treasured in the heart of this mother.  How many priceless moments that made me pause and reflect.... innumerable...truly.  But being in the moment versus capturing the moment is two different things.

Alas, my nature is to reflect and type out some inner workings of my heart allowing a peak into these past several years...

I'd like to say that I have been in the moment.... to be honest, I haven't really been nor capturing the moment. The last four years have been a blur of never ending commitments and responsibilities that consumed me. In down moments, I tended to fall asleep, or crash rather, in order to start all over the very next day... a barrage of how I have spread myself too thin, lost all patience, and really let those around me, those I love the most, disappointed in my priority choices, my over-committed schedule and all consuming duties.  Worst of all, was how little emotional support I could offer my family.

The mother is the heart of the home.  Yes?  Of course, I agree with this, and when the heart is stressed or limited.... it can not give.  It can not comfort, it can not be self-less...it needs a lot... it needs rather than gives.  And this was my life... for the last four years.  I have to take accountability for the choices I made, the stress I allowed and truly take a step back and mentally process those places I never wanted to go.... admitting to my own mistakes, fears and failures.

What have I done.

It's a statement. Not a question.

I know what I have done. Most of us, when we really think about it, don't need a lot of time to know that piece. What we need time with, is why we put priority on it.  Why didn't we have the strength to stop the cycle, make a big change, reverse what we saw happening. Why.  How did we convince ourselves it was necessary, it was big...too big to change.  If God allowed us to see it, then He, too, had given me opportunity after opportunity to make changes to life choices that would, in turn, be improvement in the emotional and mental well being of those I cared for and loved the most.  I can even fool myself to the point of believing all my actions were for the family, for the children, help my beloved spouse and so on.  Was I fooling myself using these exact justifications.

Again, it's not a question. We know.  In the depths of our heart, we know just how far we can 'comfortably' run from God. We know how to deny or doubt Him.  We know how to justify our actions, how to rationalize a decision, blame someone or something else.  He quietly waits, whispers in our soul, and gives us chance after chance to find Him again.  To hear Him again.  I quieted Him for a long time, I got very good at it, and no one was the wiser.  Can't we all put on the game face....go through the motions and appear exactly how we want others to view us...without really focusing on our authentic selves.  How often is our public persona the item in our lives that gets the most attention and effort.

How I have longed to actually hear God's whispers on my heart and know, without a doubt, that it was God's voice and not my own. Honestly, how God choose to tug at my heart rings typical of a God that knows me through and through. Whispers would not have been enough to make me move.  He knows me and every hair on my head.  His call would need to be loud and clear, with unmistakable clarity that even I could decipher the sound of His voice through the confusion of others' opinions and the conflict following His will would bring.

In the last few months, God has never spoken so loud in my heart.  Again and again, He searched me out and questioned me, my motives, my movements and my motherhood.  What have I done. It screamed in me a hundred times, if only it was once.

How I take comfort in the the repentant sinner. God, in heaven, takes more delight in the repentant sinner, the prodigal son, than the perfect saint on earth.  Why is that.  Could it be that the sinner gets to experience the most profound piece of love that ever existed or will exist in the eternity of time and space, that which is Mercy. The act of forgiveness restores relationship. We get to re-discover God's love for us again and again, and yet again.... that he is ever present for us, always ready to take us back, to replace the value of our soul that we had lost.  He is the parent we need yet again, embracing us in our brokenness.

How I have loved and hated these moments as a parent!! To see my own child suffer so painfully, it tears at my core more than anything. When they ask for forgiveness, and I get the chance to pull my child to my heart, assuring them of my endless love for him/her, I restore their value, their dignity by my love and forgiveness.  How we reflect God's paternal love for us, via our own parenthood!  Incredible. Simply supernatural.

Just as my child will open their heart and seek out my loving and forgiving face, dear Lord, help me yearn for your face, tenderly embracing my weaknesses and restoring the value of my life. I have heard your voice in the depths of my soul, thank you for your unrelenting constancy.