Aint nobody got time for blogging

Well, life is a bit different these days. Little Boog isn't quite walking yet, but he is most certainly mobile and he doesn't stay in one room anymore. This makes for a busier day life and not as much time to type out random thoughts or take pictures of myself in my new thrift store finds. However, I love every waking moment of it. Even the bad moments, because really, what would good moments be without bad moments to remind us of how good the good ones feel!

Over the last few weeks I've seen a lot of heartache. A few people in my life who have faced some extremely difficult things. It has me thinking. Life is full of ups and downs. Its full of broken dreams, beauty in the unexpected, disappointment, fulfilled promises, unfulfilled promises, tears, laughter, family, dysfunction, the good mixed in with the bad. I heard a pastor say once, "life isn't always divided by seasons. Good ones, bad ones, easy ones, hard ones. Sometimes, life is a mixture of the best and the worst all at once." You can be in the midst of the greatest success of your life, but your spouse has been diagnosed with cancer. That's what happened to this pastor. He had just written a best seller, his church was exploding and in the midst of it all, his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer. How do you deal with that? How do you separate the emotions?

You don't.

If we don't learn how to take the bad in life, with the good, we will always battle with depression and unhappiness. We will never be able to enjoy the good, because we are too busy focusing on the bad. I do this. Too often. Far too often.

There will always be bad. There will always be things that make life hard. I think most people who read my blog know that challenges in life are what strengthens our character. We hear it in church, we've learned it in our own lives through experience, and yet, we still struggle with the hard stuff in life as though we are experiencing hard for the first time. Why do we do this? Part of me wonders if its because we have our idea of what life should look like, and we wont let it go.

My ideas of what marriage should look like ruined my first marriage. Have I mentioned that I've been married before? Its a long story. Actually its not, but its not what this post is about. My very specific idea of what marriage and a husband and "the married life" should be like, ruined my ability to deal with the hard stuff that comes with life...with marriage. I couldn't get my own ideas out of my head. So, I fell further and further into depression and it was all based on my disappointment. I may have had plenty of reasons to be disappointed in this marriage, but when we make choices in life, we don't get any guarantees that say that choice will forever be an easy path. Life happens. Crap happens. If we cant cope with the crap, we are in serious trouble. We will quit everything hoping the next decision will be the "right" one.

I say this as I sit in my beautiful home, with my healthy, happy one year old sleeping soundly in his bed, my husband whom I adore, although not at all perfect (sorry, baby) rubbing my feet while he watches football. Comfortable, happy, secure. Some might think I have no right to talk about these things, and maybe I don't. I recently spoke to a women who just finished her last session of chemo. I can only imagine what the last year has been like for her. A very close childhood friend of mine just lost her mom, who was only 56 years old. Surely, these were not things that they dreamt of years ago when dreaming of their futures.

In light of these things, I've never really, truly been tested. Not like that. But I know what its like to lose sight of my dreams. I know what its like to give up out of hopelessness. I also know what its like to see dreams come back to life. I know this, because I was finally able to let go and see what God had in mind.

I know that I still have plenty of lessons to learn when it comes to this, but tonight, my thoughts are on how far I've come from that 20 year old who had her whole life thought out just so, and how completely different everything turned out. But you know what, out of all of my dreams, the ones I came up with on my own, this life, the unexpected one I'm living today, is far better. If you had told me 10 years ago what I would have gone through to get here, or that I would be in my 30's before seeing some of my dreams come true, I wouldn't have liked it. But I can honestly say, sitting on this side of my twenty's, living out the dream God has given me, I shouldn't have held my dreams so tightly. It wouldn't have hurt so much when God took them away, only to give me something better.

Let go of whatever you think everything "should" look like and let God do something even more amazing. And trust. Trust that there is something better than what you have imagined. No matter what things look like today, this is not it. This is not the end of the story. Don't give up because there are bumps, disappointments, road blocks. There is so much ahead. Both good, and bad.

I hope, through the disappointment that I have experienced up to this point in life, that I have learned to fight. I hope that when, not if, but when I get hit in life, I don't go down with the first punch. And if I do - because who are we kidding, I will go down - that I get back up, knowing God is a God who fulfills His promises. Not my own idea of His promises, but HIS promises. The ones He had set for me from the beginning.


 This is what my life looks like right now.

 

This was worth waiting for. 

His first steps caught on camera!!!

...in case you cant tell by the look on my face.

 

I hope this week is a week of all good things, but if its not, I hope you find the strength to fight.

Fight for your joy.

We serve a God who has been bringing beauty through ashes since the beginning of time.

 

~Mimzi~