Showing Up

There are just so many sad things in our world today. We have friends and family fighting cancer, burying children, and being tested in their faith. The greater world seems dark and heavy most days. I get swept up in the devastation and have trouble sleeping at night. Our own summer was plagued with sickness (oh.my.heck. SO MUCH SICKNESS) and the constant adjustments needed to keep our family of nine afloat while Matt lived in another state. 

And selling a house.

 And house hunting.

With all the challenges, I neglected the joy. Faith and trusting in God is so much easier when LIFE isn't being a two-year-old asking for a lollipop juuuuuuuust out of reach.

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ENOUGH!

Can't think. Can hardly breathe. Already up to my eyeballs in diapers and realtors. There should have been awards for the nights when the children ate oatmeal instead of cold cereal for dinner. Honorable mention goes to the days when I got to shower alone in a bathroom AND remembered to wash my hair.

But what I forgot, and was sometimes just too blind to recognize, was all the ways God came to me during these past few months. A visit from a neighbor, bringing a meal for our family. A kind word from someone at Church. An e-mail or text from a friend, letting me know I wasn't alone. One of the babes, complimenting the consistency of the oatmeal I made (again...). You know? I just forgot. I was too deep in my own self to look up and see the grace. 

But, Man! There was grace!

So Much Grace.

God isn't keeping track of all the times I looked down. God doesn't need me to solve all the world's problems. God isn't even disappointed that I struggled badly with this time of transition. God just wants me to keep showing up. To continue trying. To dust myself off. To show these precious babes that it is okay to falter and question and cry and hide for a little bit...

and then start SHOWING UP again.