All around me people are embarking on new adventures. New dreams are being realized, and I sort of feel like I am being left behind.
Not that any of them are leaving me, exactly, just that my life is slow right now. There are still 4am feedings, stuffy noses, and school work.
I'm still in the highly needed stage of parenting, and honestly, I love it. I'd not choose anything else... but at the same time I am feeling a little restless.
Being wife and mom requires that approximately 80% of my time is devoted to someone else. To meeting sombody's basic needs. Feeding, clothing, cuddles. 80%.
Lately I have been noticing a real lack in the refueling that needs to happen in the other 20%. So I am watching people with new dreams and noticing that spark and wondering where mine is. I have written about this before. It's a pretty common 1-year-after-a-baby syndrome.
It is a little sad, but also a lot exciting. This time I am trying ever so hard to shut down the voices that are trying to tell me that this feeling is from my own, personal. lack. That it is a mark of my inadequacies. That I will feel this way forever.
I'm trying to hear God's voice as He guides me.
I am trying to fight against the urge to measure myself by someone else's yard stick.
And when I start to fail, I can hear myself speak these same words to my daughter, and I am reminded to hear them again.
So here I am...again...waiting. Wondering. Dreaming. Struggling.
You're exactly where God wants you to be. This might just be a season of rest and reflection. I have a sticky on my computer with this quote: "Gratitude turns what you have into enough."
As a parent of three children (15, 14, 11) the "highly needed stage of parenting" doesn't end. Their needs change and become more complex as they mature, but children always need good and godly parents. That stage is always fluid.
I recently started a blog due to God's calling. I occasionally click the "next blog" link, which is how I found your blog.
Your "measuring stick" comment is shared by many parents who sacrifice; who put the interest of their family above their own.
Have a good and godly day.