Breathing in a fresh wind...

As I prepare to dive into 'Fresh Wind Fresh Fire' by Jim Cymbala I can't help but feel a need for not only a 'fresh wind' in my life but also for my blog. Who is sick of my motherhood drama? I am! I just feel like I need to close that crazy chapter in my life and begin anew. I need a fresh start. A deep breath of the sweet sweet life my Jesus has planned for me before I dive in to all that entails.

I feel like I've been getting my feet wet for the past couple of months. I've had a taste and I like it. I am ready to leave all of my cares behind and let Him drive my emotions. And I want to bring you all with me.

Becoming a parent is easy. Most anyone can become one. Parenting, however, is a whole other story. What you may find dramatic about me, I take passionately. I love my babies. I loved my babies before I had babies. I knew I wanted to be a mommy when I grew up. That's really all I wanted. Well that and to have a ministry of some sort. I am living my dream and for that I am grateful to my Jesus. I am grateful for how far He has brought me. I know I have a long way to go, but I have come so far and I owe that to Jesus!

Because I take parenting so passionately I tend to over think it. I tend to seek out advice and look to how other people do it instead of seeking God. I've been trying to put myself in a box according to other people's standards.

I've had enough. Enough!

I have come so far and not to be stuck in the state in which I have been in any longer! I won't let my shortcomings haunt me any longer!

I feel the need to share some of my shortcomings with you all tonight. Not for sympathy or advice or encouragement but because I am through with these things and I need to lay them down at Jesus' feet once and for all. I need them to become just a memory. I need to move on and take a deep breath of that fresh wind my Jesus has for me.

For the past 7 years of my life the Lord has carried me so close to Him and now it is time for to grab ahold onto Him and let Him continue to carry me.

7 years ago I was dating my husband. Life was good but there was conflict when we decided to get married. Mostly with my family. I felt very alone but I had a need to please. I lived my life basing most of my decisions on what others wanted for me but during this particular time in my life, the Lord was starting to stir something in my heart. I knew He had brought Jess (my husband) into my life again for a reason but I also wanted to respect my parents.

When my family began to question our relationship and me for too-private-to-blog-about reasons, I began to question my life. I came to a place (much like where I am now but for different reasons) where I had to take a step back and reflect on what was going on. I felt like I was spinning out of control. The younger, more immature, version of me decided to run-away from my problems to clear my head. Instead of running though, I drove. I drove and drove in the middle of the night. I left notes for ea. parties and left it all behind. I had no timeframe in my mind. I just knew I needed out from the craziness that was my life.

Now looking back, for understandable reasons, I made the choice to pursue my relationship with Jess which meant (because me and my family's poor communication and lack of a real relationship) my relationship with my parents began to quickly drift. I knew I loved that boy but I also loved my parents. I didn't feel like I could have both and because of that feeling, I went into a 3-month depression. I lived with Jess and his family and was in poor communication with mine.

Up until that point, Jess and I had truly tried to honor God in our relationship. We had set boundaries. But we let our guard down. One time. (if you know what I'm talking about) We felt awful. We had done the one thing that we were saving and that was special to us. It makes me tear up just thinking about how, by stepping out of the guidelines Christ gives us, we can really mess things up but my life is a testimony to what God can make beautiful out of what we mess up.

Well, dear friends, that one time led to an unplanned out-of-wedlock baby. I was excited and nervous. Jess was scared out of his mind. So we did the only logical thing to us, we kept it a secret and planned to elope. We were already engaged and didn't like living together without being married so we moved forward with plans to elope. Before we could finalize our plans, 2 days before, I began to miscarry our baby. I was so sad and so scared and so very alone. Jess was the only one that knew. We were both sad but decided to move along with our plans and so, on March 12th of 2004, we eloped. No one knew (except two friends) but they didn't even know why we were getting married or what we had just gone through 2 days before. They were our close friends at the time and they were our witnesses.

That was and is a bittersweet day to us. Bitter because of the pain we were going through and caused with our secrets but sweet because we got married.

What began to unfold for the next year of our marriage was not pretty. I held on to a lot of hurt and put a lot of unnecessary expectations on Jess out of the hurt I was feeling. I really wanted to be a mommy. He really wanted to just be married but he wanted to make me happy. And so, we got pregnant with Olivia. We were very young. I can now see and understand how scared our parents were. We received mixed emotions.

When I started having some complications during my pregnancy because of stress, I was scared out of my mind that I would lose my baby. I was 25 weeks along and started experiencing contractions. I was put on bedrest for the remainder of my pregnancy which ended in a healthy beautiful baby at 39 weeks.

As soon as I became a mommy, my expectations for myself and for my husband sky-rocketed. Everything had to be perfect and my baby had to be raised in a loving home dang it!!!! And I was determined to do everything in my power to make it happen. And that is where I went wrong. I tried to fix everything. (church friends: the demonstration i shared with you is my life) It was not pretty. Jess and I almost got divorced around the time Olivia turned 1. But thank the Lord we didn't!

The Lord began to do a work in me that I couldn't understand and fought for the next 2 years after that. My heart truly began to change when we started attending the church we are at now and when I began to learn about God's grace. And now, for the past 2 years, I have been soaking it all up. I have been changed. Thank you Jesus!

I feel like I have come full circle. This was the last bit of it. I had to lay it all before Jesus. I am finished with trying to fix it all or live out ridiculous expectations I have for myself and my life. I am ready to breathe in that fresh wind and dive head first into the beauty that my life will be. (and already is thanks to the finished work of my Jesus)

Thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for your encouraging words. Thank you for praying. You all mean so much to me. There are many times where I have thought to just stop writing and delete my blog and move on with my life. But, what life is worth living if only kept to ourselves? My life is testament to who God is and what He can do with the mess we can make out of life. He isn't looking for perfection, He is looking for faith.