Focus

Do you ever lose your focus?

Do you ever find yourself in the pit of the "what ifs"?

Do you ever have days when you think what you're doing is less important than something else?

No?
Good for you.
Quit reading my blog.


I don't have those moments often to be honest. I really do love my life about 99.9 percent of the time. I really do try to find joy, growth, lessons in even the yuckiest of moments.

However, once in a while I lose my focus. I look behind me and see all the dreams I've dropped along the way. I start to follow the breadcrumb trail of "what if I had made different choices".

You would think by now, I would have learned my lesson that the breadcrumb trail only leads to an empty plate, not the big banquet meal I always hope to find. I do know this and I remember it most of the time. Other times, my hunger gets the best of me and I try once again to find that delicious cuisine of "what I could have been".

Last night was one of those moments for me.

These moments are never easy to work through... to find focus again...to face selfishness and pride and rebellion in my heart...to remind myself that letting go, doesn't mean my life is less or that all of those dreams are gone. It might mean they are on a shelf for now, to be dusted off some other time. It might mean they are gone forever, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It is in these moments, when I so clearly see the truth that God has a plan for my life (Jeremiah 29), that my ways are not always His (Isaiah 55) and that He desires me to have life and life more abundantly (John 10). I don't always understand that. I certainly don't always like that. In the end though, I believe it to be true so I turn my eyes back to what is before me instead of glancing in the rearview mirror.

Last night, I once again let go of the things that I had begin to hold onto much too fiercely. It was painful. Staring down your own ugliness...pride, arrogance, desire to have your way is no easy thing. I allowed myself to wallow a bit. I spouted off all the things that currently dissatisfy, frustrate and disappoint me. Then I stormed off to the shower and cried like a baby while I prayed for a new perspective.

I want to see with new eyes. I want to be reminded that this job of motherhood is far greater than I can ever imagine. If I do it well, or if I fail either way it will change the world. My children are part of the future and how I raise them does matter. I want to embrace again this duty of wife and remember that it isn't drudgery, but that it's a gift. So many people are alone in this world and I have been given one of the greatest men in the world to be my partner.

More than anything, I want to remember that I didn't put *my* dreams aside to get stuck doing these other things. No, I want to remember that these other things are *my* dreams. Yes, I still want to be a doctor. Yes, I'd love to be in Africa. No, not doing those doesn't mean I'm stuck doing and being less than I aspire, less than I'm capable. It simply means that I am following different dreams, but they are still mine.

Parker slept well for a change, I did not. I was up reading for several hours in the night. At 3am, a groggy, half asleep, sweaty little guy stumbled out to the family room and said "why you up? Don't you wanna snuggle wif me all night?"

Of course I do. There's nothing better. He was back to sleep in about two minutes. Me? Well, I snuggled up to him and watched him breathe for an hour as tears of thankfulness and a love so deep I cannot comprehend rolled down my cheeks.

I remember falling asleep an hour or so later, my last coherent thought being "can it really get any better than this?"

A few hours later, I was awakened to Kev's alarm, a whining dog, and snoring little ones. The answer to my question? Yes it gets better.

I went to sleep snuggled up to one sweaty little guy and woke up squished between two of them. Parker's first words of the morning were, "come close for a minute, I want a kiss". I leaned towards him, eyes still closed...not really awake and instead of a kiss, I was met with raspberries blown on my cheek and the hysterical laughter of an ornery three year old. Next came the sleepy words from behind me, "Mommy turn this way to snuggle with me". I turned over to face my Zigity zoo, a child that gives love more freely than any kid I've ever met. He grabbed my face in his hands, kissed my nose and said "now lets go back to sleep".

So this morning...this morning, I've got my glasses on again. I can see clearly and I'm moving ahead.
There is nothing...nothing...nothing greater than the unconditional love and constant joy I find in these little people, in being their mama or in being married to their daddy...one of the most humble, gracious, forgiving, loving men I've ever met.

Thank you Lord for this life and the grandiosity of the little things, for it is the little things that matter most.