Four weeks

Wow. Four weeks goes really fast.

I start back to work on Monday. I don't have a choice but to be ready...so I am preparing myself to be ready...but I'm not really ready. 

See something happened in these past four weeks that I didn't anticipate. Community. I was able to be with women I love. A lot! I got to spend time with them, letting them pour into me, and me into them. Man how I've missed this and didn't even realize it. Its been almost a solid year since I was actively doing "community" with people. Yes I have my core friend group & that that is how I get filled up too, but what I'm talking about is....doing the down right dirty life with people. Walking through muck & the mud. The yuck & the great stuff. Just being surrounded with people who pursue Jesus with their whole heart. Being in environments where you pray together for a goal, for the common good of something great to happen.

I took a step out of serving in the high school room last October. With having a one year old, serving in the high school room...which isn't just a place you serve on Sunday then are done kind of ministry,  working full time, and then all the while trying to be a good wife and mom by serving my family; I was trying to balance all these plates & I was just flat out failing. They were wobbling out of control & I had no clue what to do or what to give up. I couldn't give back my child or family. I couldn't quit my job...so the only thing that I knew to do was to step out of the high school room. For this year I knew that was the right choice. I do not believe this was ever meant to be a forever thing of stepping out of these types of environments. In fact, I know that is and should not be the case. The New Testament is all about the church & doing life together, so I know that is Gods heart beat, but I also think there are seasons. This was a season I got to invest in Ella...aka: let my hormones balance themselves back out & feel NORMAL again. :) But it was a great & needed year for me. Besides going through an adoption & trying to serve in that high pace of environment just would not have gone well. I would have exploded for sure. 

But, I had no idea what a sweet gift these past four weeks would be either. Number one, just purely because I wasn't hormonal with Alivia, this has been THE BEST transition into a newborn by far. Gosh I just feel great! I'm not healing, I'm not emotional for no reason, I can do things still, I can play with Ella, I can love on Alivia & enjoy her smiling at me daily, I can clean & cook & just be NORMAL. Ugh its been amazing on that side of it. But then on the other side of it.....like I said above, I got to be in community again. I have hung out one on one with more people these past four weeks than I have in probably a year...I am sure of it....and you know what....I feel SO FILLED UP. I miss community. The doing life, getting dirty, working through the crap, loving each other still...being there for each other, just knowing things about each other because you have spent TIME together. Even if it means the good, the bad, or the best things. I need community. 

While I think that transition time was a time to just get my bearings on things and transition into what life would be like as our "new normal" with a baby....I think that time is coming to an end. I know it is...I feel it. I feel like I'm that bug that in the pitch black night, sees a light & is just just drawn to it & has to latch on.....and just like Peter I will look to the Lord for direction & to calm the seas I stand on. He knows my hearts desire. I have no doubt He will make something happen. It feels good to be on the verge of something that He is doing.....excited to see what is around the corner. 

But for now...I will walk into work on Monday with my head held high, and be ready to love the people I work with the best I can. ♥