The Legacy that Awaits

We just welcomed to our humble little abode a beautiful new dining room table.  It was not in the plan to purchase a new table, but yet here we are. 

When we bought the table, my heart swelled with joy and excitement and anticipation of the conversations, meals, laughter and fellowship that would be taking place with friends and family gathered in the years to come.

The table we had before we bought ours belonged to a friend's grandmother.  The short while we had it, I was excited to continue to build a legacy of love around it.  It was not perfect, it was not our first choice, but it was well loved and had a story. 

When that table was returned to its family of origin, I began to get all sentimental about owning our own table and the legacy that we would build .... not about the table being a legacy, but the table would be the center in which was gathered around for stories of love, conversations of grace and correction, tears of laughter, joy and sorrow. 

Everything in my home is a launchpad for Kingdom work.  Far too often I forget that. 

From the cribs, glider and changing pad in my nursery, to the couch, coffee table and bookshelf in my living room.  May they all serve as a beautiful reminder that God has something greater in store and that everything I own is only on temporary loan to me.

God has provided a way for me and my husband to own what we have furnished our house with; the least we can do is use it for His greater glory.

So come on by.  Pull up a chair.  Relax on the couch.  Let's share a conversation.  My home is your home.

Grace in the Waiting

Waiting.  It requires a great amount of patience.  Patience.  Something that I long to have an abundance of but that I often find I am lacking when I want something so bad.

Time.  It feels like I am running out of time to grow my family as I want to.  This season of life is not at all something I envisioned I would be experiencing in my first year of marriage.

And it sucks.  The past six/seven months have been the most awful emotional roller coaster I have been on.  From the excitement to finding out we were pregnant to quickly realizing that we were losing the baby, to being pregnant again and having apprehension yet excitement to learning that that baby, too, was in heaven.  Surgery, infection, no answers, learning that our baby, Nolan, was a girl. 

My heart is broken.  Perhaps it is the hormones of another month that has come and gone with no baby yet again. 

I press into God yet it hurts, still. 

My husband is my constant.  My rock.  My reminder to press into God because when that day comes when we hold a child that is ours, the joy will be unrelenting. 

I struggle to fully embrace that a day like that exists.  It is hard to see past today. 

While I read stories of redemption, my heart struggles to wrap around the hope yet to come.   My mind believes it yet my heart is hesitant. 

We pursue foster care but will that, can that, fill the void in my heart to have a baby to call my own?

I pray that I look back on this season of life and I can see the realness and rawness that I felt.  But I pray that I see that God was ever present in all of the pain and through all of the tears.  It feels so awfully lonely to walk this journey.  It has been so hard to allow people into the pain. 

I had so much hope that this was our month to be pregnant.  And the fact that I am not feels extra heavy today.  It is hard to write that somewhere else other than my personal journal.  It is hard to admit that some days I am not okay; and that it is okay to not be okay in those moments. 

Thankfully the good days outweigh the challenging days.  I can find joy in the small things and the large things.  And I have hope and trust in the Lord that while right now, this very minute, sucks, this is not the end.  This is not how I was meant to live.  And I will press into God and find healing through the tears.