I remember when I was in the throws of having newborn twins, moving into a new house, and starting a new homeschool year. We had just transitioned from three kids to five. It was a continual cycle of feedings, meal making, school, feedings, and naps. Rinse and repeat all day. To be honest I was living in survival mode, constantly stressed and frazzled. I never got much of a break and was needed nearly 24/7. I wanted to find joy in my numerous blessings, my five kids, and our life, instead of drowning in all the work it took to keep everyone alive and fed. I wanted to be a calm and gentle mom, not a stressed-out mom. I wanted God’s peace, not a constantly hectic feeling.

Real love means being vulnerable
Opening my heart might leave me bruised
True love means laying down my life
To choose another’s good

Real love makes me take chances
Against the worst of odds
It’s a rose grown by the well-traveled path
Blooms though it may be under-trod

Barely grown, yet standing at the alter
We were so young then, all those years ago
White with innocence and green with youth
So much life to come - what did we know?

Our sweet little Elias broke his collarbone last week. It was pretty rough to see him so pitiful and hurting. After his accident he wasn’t very responsive, which was so scary for me to experience so soon after Jonathan’s emergency surgery and ICU stay. At the ER I watched him being scanned by the same machines that had just scanned my husband and hooked up to heart rate and oxygen monitors, all of which felt eerily similar to what I’d just been though. As I sat in the ER room waiting for answers about our son, I wondered why God would allow this to happen as I was just finding healing from nearly losing my husband. I couldn’t hold back the tears as my precious son grimaced in pain and the surroundings took me back to those trying days in the ICU.

My soul has become languid
All passion lies dormant in my soul
Chilly winds have made me cold
Threatening to consume me whole