Some things I've learned this Summer...

I sure hope to get back to regular blogging soon, because it's almost like it's all clogged up in my brain and screaming to get out! I keep saying I'll pick up a notebook when I can't get to the computer, but it never does happen. I have learned some things this Summer.... Some that I'm glad I learned, and others have been harder to swallow. I'll try to share a few here and there as I think of them.

First of all, I need to get a life. I have lived everyone else's lives my whole life with some kind of guilt complex that I'm going to damage someone else if I do something for myself. This is a huge revelation mind you, and it could very well be life-changing for a lot of people. I am so immersed in what everyone is doing around me, I have forgotten that I am an individual that has needs of my own that have to be tended to. I can't count on anyone else to do it, so I must do it myself.

What does this mean? Well, I have to set a better example by not worrying so much about being an example. I have been so concerned with setting a Godly example that I haven't allowed God to be God at times. How dare I think that I can be so Godly that others can look at me as an example. What I have missed is that I have to be so reliant on God that THAT IS my example. There really is a lot of freedom in this thought, and it releases me to be human. It still leaves me a little bit afraid of messing up and disappointing someone, but I think I'm at a point in my life that God is trying to help me take that leap of faith.

It also means that my kids have to grow up. Jordan is almost 18, Lauren is almost 15, and Cassie and Kylie will be there before I know it. Yes, they need me, but in a different way now than they did when they were 4, 5, or 6 years old. They have to fight their own battles. They have to learn what it means to make choices. They have to rely on their faith, at least for Jordan and Lauren, to see where their lives are going. I recently had a situation where I stepped in where I wasn't really needed. It was a weak moment in my faith I believe, for if I would have relied on my faith I would have already known that everything was fine, God had it handled and in His plan, and everything was going to work out to what He has in mind.

Another meaning of this is that my husband has to be a grown man. Much my fault, he is reliant on me in many ways that aren't my responsibility. When I say it's my fault, I mean that I have facilitated this way of thinking. I simply need to be a wife, a partner, and a friend, and not a parent to the biggest kid in my house. I fell in love with that same big kid that now drives me nuts sometimes, and I almost took on an instant mothering role when we married. He has a mother, and I'm not her, and I should find some rest in that.

Here again, I feel released from an obligation, and I mean that in the very gentlest and loving sense of the word. I have a protective mothering instinct that sometimes gets in the way of my faith. An example of that is how I feel so moved to support others. This is not a bad thing, and there are those that I will support until the day I die. Funny, a couple of people come to mind, both much younger than I, and one of them I kind of released years ago. I still love this person dearly, but he is busy in serving God and doing what he has been called to do with a sweet wife by his side. The other one has been a more recent process, and a slow one, but while my motherly love is still strong for this person, I am so thankful that God now has moved him into a place that he has a beautiful, strong wife and a very loving family surrounding him so that he can also serve the Lord to his fullest potential. In all of this, I really have trusted God in His best for both of these young people, but realizing that they are not my responsibility was sad at first to my selfish self, and now it is an opportunity for me to simply move into what God wants for me now. God did use me in their lives I believe, and this means that it wasn't anything I did on my own. God is still working in their lives, and for this I am so thankful. It's a wonderful feeling to be a part of God's plan in the growth of others, and it's a weird feeling to know that it's time for God to release me from that and now grow me in some way.

So, now that I've realized all of these things, what next? I don't really have the answer to this. I sit on the cusp of something that God has in mind for my life. I'm having a difficult time making decisions right now, because I am in one of those different places that leaves me unsure of what God wants me to currently do. Do I teach Sunday School, or do I not? Do I return to pursue my college degree, or do I not? Will I be able to continue in the job that I love, or will I have to take a look at other opportunities? Do I keep on the same path I'm on? Nope. Of that I am sure. I just hope I am sure of the path that I do need to be on very soon. In the meantime, I'll float around waiting on God to move.