The Past Year

Dear GOD where do I begin? For the past year I put down this blog. I debated walking away permanently, deleting the whole thing. There were several reasons for putting it on the back burner. I needed a break. My original intention when I started the blog was to have a place to vent my emotions as a stay at home mom, and to chronicle the funny stories of our life. I wanted to reach out to other moms and let them know yes, I have a messy house, my kids are unruly, my life is not perfect and that I do have flaws just like every one of you.

Then I started reading all these other DIY blogs and I became a bit obsessed with blogging. I turned this blog into something that it was not originally intended for. I wanted to always maintain exactly who I am, to be honest, to show my flaws and just be real. Then came the problem. I started to worry about what people would think. I started to filter what I would say on here in fear of judgement from others. Then I started to worry that people would think that I was writing this blog just to bring attention to myself. I felt that I was giving off this false persona of who I was. A filtered, watered down version of me and my family. I was obsessed with traffic to my blog and how many "likes" I would get. I started looking at my life compared to other bloggers and other women and I felt like I didn't measure up. My house didn't measure up. My relationship with God didn't measure up. My mothering skills didn't measure up. I started to feel like a failure in every aspect of my life.

I had to walk away. I had to breathe. I had to find myself and figure out who I was. So, I took almost a year off. I focused on working on myself physically, mentally and emotionally. Have I got it all figured out yet? Not. At. All. If anything I'm still continuing daily to try and find my identity in Christ rather than try and do it on my own. It's a battle.

This past year has honestly been one of the roughest years of my life and of our family's life. I've found out areas in my life that I'm truly strong, and I've found areas that I'm very weak. The more and more that I tried to take control of my own life over the past year, the more everything seemed to unravel around me.  A lot of times I think this is because God is whispering (or sometimes shouting) in my ear to let him have control.  I have a hard time doing that I have a hard time trusting him, then he reminds me of a sermon by one of my favorite preachers Matt Chandler.  In his sermon on Colossians titled "The Afflictions of Christ" he says the following.

"The passive wrath of God is the most terrifying thing in the bible.  For God to just to leave you healthy and content with everything going perfect all the days of your life all the way to the judgment seat until you are damned would be cruel of God.  For him to put a thorn in the flesh, break your hip, free up your hands on the myth of control and show you how dependent you are on Him is one of the most merciful things He can do for you."

"It is not the wrath of God for difficulty to befall on us...He is revealing to you out of His mercy your desperate need for him and your lack of control and ability to manipulate your environment."

Wow.  I do not know when I will EVER learn to trust him completely, to give him FULL control of everything.  I think once I actually DO learn that I will be able to just breathe, to relax and to rest in the fact that HE has it handled.

THAT is the point I'm working toward.  That is what this past year has been about.

I don't know when I'll be "back" as far as blogging is concerned.  I have no idea if this is the first of many posts or the last of them all.  Those nagging feelings of inadequacy are still there, the insecurities, the worries, but I'm working on them.  The fact that I'm able to hit "publish" on this is a huge victory for me.

I'll be in touch...or maybe not.  We will see.