On the Tip of My Brain

There are a lot of things I want to write about. First of all, I have to say that I am reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, and that is making me breathe deeper and think deeper, so I have a lot to say for the first time in a while. Secondly, my youngest (the hurricane, you know her, right?) she’s upstairs yelling, “Mommy! Mommy?” so my first of all and my secondly may just balance each other out.

There is a lot I want to write about, but first I think I’ll start with external and move inward! I am realizing that this past year has been a blur that I don’t want to repeat. I started feeling fabulous for the first time in like a decade last June, 2011. I began running miles daily out in the sunshine, taking on all kinds of projects, and just plain loving life like never before! Sister Bridge took so much of my Fall, as I was already homeschooling, doing Enrichment classes with the homeschool co-op, and I was recording the CD one weekend at a time. The Holidays are always enough to knock people off their feet, and I was no exception to the rule, yet I kept going, onto finishing the CD, remodeling the basement, and eventually ending off that year (at the end of May 2012) with a 2 week vacation that was wonderful but took me from my normal/healthy routine of eating and sleeping well.

So, it’s no wonder that I am knocked down. Not completely, but enough to see that I cannot do it again. I have to go back to the slower life, where I actually sit down at the table to eat lunch with my kids, where I don’t have so much on my mind that I have to live by a messy ever-growing list, where I realize that if I am to be a homeschooler and a homemaker I must be…home.

It’s one thing to enforce disciplines on myself in order to feel well, like be in bed by 10:30, eat only what is nutrient dense most of the time, have a time each afternoon for prayer, Bible study, and rest, exercise. That’s great, and I’ve been enforcing that stuff on myself since I was a kid (off and on, to be specific!!) But it’s something else to know in my heart and soul that having a full calendar does not equate to having a full life. Just like having lots of relationships and lots of “ministry” opportunities does not equate to obedience. In my heart, regardless of the disciplines that do indeed make me feel better physically/mentally/spiritually, I have to believe and live out the belief that I don’t have to be more than I am.

I’ve said all this before, but here I go again because it’s on the tip of my brain. God is specific and strategic, wise and brilliant, trustworthy and personal. He’s got this. He will give me strength, ability, opportunity, and resources for wherever, whenever, however, to whomever,  He wants me. Because I believe these two sentences, I can live the life I have. There were years where I could not do that!!! But I am free to just want Him, and live the life He has clearly given, trusting if there is more, He will make the space and then make it filled. Because He’s bigger than me, and because I am happily surrendered to Him. He’s got my life to do “something” with or not.

Right now, my “something” may be small, but I’m going to do it with all of my heart.