The truth is, I don’t have many good days.

Surprising, right?

But today has been a good day so far.  I didn’t wake up to back pain, but got up at 6:30 anyway (I know, sounds late to a lot of people, but it’s early for me).  I went for a walk/run (probably more of the walk, less of the run).  I made a phone call I had been putting off, just ’cause silly things like making doctor’s appointments usually fill me with anxiety.  My heart isn’t heavy like it has been so much lately.

There’s almost…joy.

I hesitate to say that.  I hesitate to think it, even.  I don’t know why, but I think it has something to do with always wanting to keep my expectations ridiculously low so that I’m less likely to be disappointed.  Yet, even in the face of my obvious push-back to biblical truth in this area, God has poured life into my soul today.

I’m thankful.

Baseball has started. We have four kids signed up, which means 2 kids have practice each night, Monday-Thursday.  We’re only one week into it and I’m already exhausted.  It’s going to be a long two months.

Today I really wanted a burger for lunch, but I made myself a black bean and veggie burrito instead because the scale hasn’t been my friend lately.  This afternoon, though, I made orange-glazed cinnamon rolls for a snack.  That’s what my willpower looks like.

I told Tim yesterday that I feel like I’m shriveling up from the inside out – just empty, dry, hopeless.  This weight in my heart never goes away, and just seems to be heavier as time goes on…my spirit grieving more over hurt and loss and seeing no way back.

My kids’ cold-weather clothes got swapped for their warm-weather clothes this week, but I keep wondering if I missed something, because it was almost painless.  Bins even got put back where they go (usually this takes weeks or months).  I guess I underestimate how capable my kids are in helping with such endeavors.

We’re shrinking our vegetable garden this year.  Maybe that will mean we can keep up with weeding.

With the exception of giving birth, and one half-day I spent at jury duty, I haven’t been anywhere without children for more than three hours, or so, since Caedmon was born.  Sometimes I feel worn down.  But, I rarely wish I could be away from my kids for longer than a few hours.  I really don’t know the good or bad of any of it.  I’m tired, though.

May is coming.  May is hectic.  I always dread it, honestly.  But, for the first time ever, I am way ahead on my mom’s Mother’s Day gift.  Like, I’m ready to mail it.  Small, but it offers a small amount of relief.  Now, just three more Mother’s Day gifts, two anniversaries (PLUS ours), 7 or 8 (?) birthdays within our extended family.  And a new baby nephew due to be born.  And baseball.  And gardening.  And finishing up a school year.  And house projects.  And…maybe I’ll find a hole to crawl into until May is over.  It sounds more appealing.

So I should be folding laundry right now.  But I’m tired…like, legitimately tired (as opposed to most days, when I’m tired for no good reason at all).  It’s legitimate because we got a delivery of construction material delivered and dropped on our driveway and front sidewalk yesterday.

The exact numbers were:

30 sheets of 5/8″ plywood

24 sheets of 1/2″ plywood

72 2×6″ x 8′ boards

24 2×6″ x 10′ boards

63 2×8″ x 14′ boards

72 2×8″ x 8′ boards

12 2×8″ x 10′ boards

4 2×8″ x 12′ boards

26 5/8″ 4×10 sheets of drywall

All of it had to come in the house.  Tim brought all of the drywall and thicker plywood in by himself (one sheet of that drywall weighs 88 lbs(!)…not to mention how insanely awkward it is to carry a 4’x10′ sheet of anything by yourself).  He also pitched in with a few of the other boards here and there, single-handedly got all of the 10′ 2×6’s from the front hall into the attic (and with just a little help from me got the 14′ 2×8’s into the back of the second story), but the kids and I did the rest.  Okay, so I know it doesn’t seem like I did much compared to what Tim did (I think he, literally, did a ton more work than me, at least)…but a solid three hours of fairly heavy lifting was much more of a workout than I have been used to lately, so now I’m sitting.

To be honest, I really enjoyed the work.  I like to say that I was built to be a pack-mule, and yesterday just confirmed that.  ‘Cause I really can’t stand exercise that doesn’t have a point.  I get bored super-easily.  But yesterday…even though I was exhausted early on…I was able to push myself because it was accomplishing something.

Plus, I think the truth is that I was made for heavy-lifting.  I bemoan my size a lot (much to my husband’s annoyance).  I get frustrated that even if I were in great shape, it’s not possible for me to be smaller than a size 10 .  I get mad at God for not making me small and feminine and graceful (sounds petty, but it’s completely true).  But if I were all those things that I often wish I could be, I wouldn’t be as much the helper that my husband needs and values.  I know that my husband was thankful yesterday that he didn’t have to move all of that wood by himself.  I know that he was thankful that he didn’t have to worry about me being too fragile.  I know that he was thankful that I could lift the 40 lb boards from the first floor up to him in the second floor, fifty times over.  My husband is glad that I’m “sturdy” even if it means I’m not what the world considers feminine.

And this is a line of reasoning that plays out in a dozen different ways most days.  Who I am is not who I want to be, because who I am is not who someone else says I should be, but who I am is who God made me to be and there is a reason for me being the way I am.  It happens with homeschooling my kids.  It happens with keeping my home.  It happens with the food I make and the furniture I buy and the way I communicate and the fact that I don’t walk around with a smile on my face all day.

The world and the Church and articles I read and people I talk to can all have very definitive ideas of what is right and wrong in so many areas.  And I am susceptible to believing it all.  I really am.  I want a standard.  I think everybody wants a standard.  But we enter damaging territory when establish any absolute standard that is something other than what we find in the Word of God.  We were created to be different in so many ways, and we were created to be absolute in relatively few.  It’s not a new lesson for me, but it’s one that is constantly under attack, so I need reminders. 

I can be who He made me and trust that He can use it for His glory.

As hard as it is to walk out, there is freedom and a simplicity in that truth.

It’s not where I want to be.

And, honestly, I still think it’s not where we’re meant to stay.

But this is how I am seeing God’s provision these days.

In unknown songs that make it harder to enter in at first, but don’t carry with them any painful familiarity…anointed worship that helps me remember to just focus on Jesus.  In a crowd of mostly new faces, where I can be okay – for now – just being anonymous.  In so many things different that awaken long-lost conviction and raise challenges to sometimes dust-covered ideals.   In preaching that stirs passion for the Lord, and passion for His Church, and passion for the lost.

In many ways, it hurts to think of calling this home. 

But I know God is here.  And anywhere He is, I can be home.

Sometimes I have days…

…when I’m burdened all day to pray for things I can’t change and wish I could ignore.

…when I actually get more than 10000 steps on my Fitbit.

…when the bacon-wrapped pork loin for dinner is so yummy and I’m reminded why these pounds don’t come off.

…when my second-smallest girl tells me at least a dozen times that her nose hurts, and I can’t get her to drink much of anything, and I feel so bad that I can’t make this rotten cold leave her alone.

…when my heart aches so much that I can’t stop doing, just because I need to have distraction to keep from falling apart.

…when I try to catch up on correcting schoolwork and wonder, again, if I’m completely messing up at this homeschooling thing.

…when I realize that my milk supply has finally stopped and I am officially neither nursing nor pregnant for the first time in almost 13 years.

…when the whole day happens to the soundtrack of worship music mingled with demolition.

…when I notice that someone has turned the page on the calendar for me, and it’s April, and for maybe the first time ever, I wish Spring hadn’t come so quickly.

Honestly?  I want to write not-nice things about not-nice people right now.  But….since I think it’s safe to conclude that is not the leading of the Holy Spirit, I will refrain.  Instead, the response I got from the Lord when I fell to me knees, sobbing and hopeless, this afternoon.

Psalm 27

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?
² When the wicked came against me
To eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes,
They stumbled and fell.
³ Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I will be confident.