birthing the beautiful

When you've only posted twice in the past year, there's so much say and where do I start, really?

I've wanted to post something, often, but either don't have the time or talk myself out of taking the time because when you've neglected something for this long, it's easier to believe there is no point in picking up where you left off and why not focus on something new and hope it sticks.

I've gotten really good at that...starting and not finishing.

Perhaps it's the thrill of beginning that gets me every time. The excitement, the anticipation, the dreaming of where *this* could take me. ("This" being any new endeavor that requires a commitment longer than a few months.) Then reality sets in...things don't go as I envisioned, challenges present themselves, other life priorities begin screaming for attention, it doesn't seem to make a difference anyway. And the list of reasons to quit goes on.

Yet the desire to write is written within my soul, and so I plunge back in...

Ben's Red Swings playground in Salisbury, Maryland - check it out if you're in the area!

In a little over a month, when school begins, a new season begins for me. One where all four children are in school and there are six hours a day at my avail. Many of these hours are already earmarked and I have no illusions that these hours will mean I suddenly have time to accomplish every project on my never-ending list of things to do.

However, I'm praying these hours will be enough to fortify the places where I feel worn thin in this 12-year battle of laboring through motherhood.

You see, everyone talks about the painful labor, but no one tells you in the bloom of pregnancy that motherhood itself is a painful. Because it is.

It is a pain born of questioning whether the decisions you make for your children and your family are the "right" ones and the pain of crumbled illusions and dreams of what you thought parenthood might be and what you thought your children would be like. There is a pain in the battle of wills which are bound to happen between two sinful human beings. And then there is the pain of seeing the sins, the ones you never knew were there but the ones God saw all the time, bubble to the surface and suddenly you have to deal with the ugly when you'd much rather have the beautiful.

on Assateague Island, VA - bring the bug spray if you go!

In the pain it is easy to blame God, rail against Him, question His wisdom in allowing such stinging wounds.

Without God, this pain would seem cruel and unnecessary.

Yet, this is exactly what He told us would happen. It is exactly what He put Himself through, for us. For the love of us.

And there are so many more verses and stories in His Words-that-are-not-idle-but-are-our-life that warn of us pruning and refining and His faithfulness in growing us to be like Him.

So I press on with hope that there is purpose in the pain and by exposing the ugly, my Creator is birthing the beautiful.