security.

I want a house.
And a car, to go along with that house, as well as some nice furniture to go inside that matches the paint colors that I would carefully pick out for each room.
I want to cook in my gorgeous, french-inspired kitchen that has loads of natural light and gorgeous mexican ceramic tile everywhere.

I want to be settled, living in the place that my son is going to grow up, where there is sunshine and blue sky and mountains to be conquered and everything else that makes for a happy childhood.

I want security.
I want to know that we've got something tangible to hold onto, a place for us to go when life gets tough and things get lonely.
I want to know that I've always got a place to call "home" and that it's the place my heart lives in and the place that my family is content.


I feel like that dream I had, the one with the "dream house" and the big backyard, the one where we've got stable careers and cars that work, the one with the friends that come over for dinner and go out with us, has somehow made it's way into the land of "never coming true".
After all we've been through in this country, all the trials and anguish and tears, I feel like the dream of security is the one dream that the Lord has continuously impressed on me will not be coming true.

I'm not sure how to take it, and I'm not sure how to plan a future around it.
I am doing my best to live in the present, to enjoy the way my son grows every day (he has just discovered his hands. It is adorable.), and this incredibly precious time that we're getting to simply be a family.
And most of the time I do enjoy it. Most of the time I am content, in a sense, and we get through our days in a happy rhythm.

But then there are moments, where I wish, just for a second, that we had a direction to go in, a place to look forward to, and the knowledge that I would finally, finally be able to rest in that place.

Lately I keep coming back to the fact that God is my Father, and that He loves me just like I love my son (except in an even more perfect and unconditional manner).
In an effort to understand this, I find myself asking, "If Jameson was here, right now, what would you want for him?"
I can't help but think that I would want to give him the world in a heartbeat, but I know that in doing so, I would force him to miss all of the opportunities to grow and stretch his character that he will need later on in life. If I handed him everything he wanted on a platter, he would never know what it means to work, and to trust in something bigger than himself, because he wouldn't have to.
And maybe that is what God wants for us. For me.
Maybe there is still more to be learned, more growth to accomplish, more stretching to be done.
Maybe I don't know it all, and haven't taken everything out of this situation that there is to find.
Maybe I will never be done.
Maybe I will always be growing, and stretching, and maybe there is no such thing as security until I am in Heaven with the one who invented the concept.

I guess, until that time, I will simply be here.
Trying to take one day at a time and live in it for all it's worth.

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lately:

all I want to do is

eat peanut butter in copious amounts

snuggle with my two favorite guys

lay on a beach with blinding sun and crashing waves

laugh until I can't breathe

hike my mountains and stare at the valleys I conquered when I was younger

find a new place and just be.

ah, desire.
It'll take your heart and steal your mind, and if you're not careful
you might never get it back.

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blank.

I am tired.

Jameson was a month old two days ago, and all of a sudden I seem to have put this invisible expectation on myself that everything should be "back to normal".
Maybe I've subconsciously told myself that one month should be long enough to physically and mentally recover from giving birth, and now I should be back to keeping the house clean, food in the fridge, working out at the gym, and making sure that my social graces aren't lagging.

I've got fifty thank you cards/birth announcements to write.

My living room looks like a bomb full of random clutter exploded everywhere.

My fridge and pantry are so empty that cereal has become my "go-to" meal for the past week.

And (embarrassingly enough) I can't really remember the last time I had a proper shower.

I went to bed yesterday promising myself that I'd wake up and feed the baby, then go to the gym and get myself started on getting back into shape.
Then I actually woke up this morning, fed my fussy baby, and laid in bed thinking about how maybe I could just learn to live with myself the way that I am, and going to the gym was second in importance to trying to get just another hour of sleep.

I got Jameson to bed tonight, stared at the stack of blank thank-you cards waiting to be written, and subsequently collapsed on the couch instead (which is where I am currently located now).

I think that I'm so tired that I literally can't think straight anymore...my attention span has currently shortened to the length of time in between Jameson's meals (which is about an hour and a half) and I just feel like I'm walking around in a daze.

Maybe I just need someone to tell me that it's okay for me to still be a ragged mess a month after birth, and that people won't be offended if it takes me awhile to get their thank-you cards out.

Right?

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