restless

I have a blissful hour to myself today - it's a rare, rare thing these days. As a mother to a homeschooled teen, a threenager and a high needs babe, I am with someone almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But in the last few weeks, God is stirring something inside of me. I don't know all the ins, outs, ups, downs, wheres and hows right now - but what I do know is I'm ready.

I'm excited to see where God leads me in all of this.

A bunch of years ago I had the word Hosanna in Hebrew tattooed on my back. I wanted it to serve as a reminder of this line in the song Hosanna by Hillsong: "Break my heart for what breaks yours"

Over the past few years, I have let that passion slip to the wayside. I have let myself become burdened by family stress, by motherhood, by change, by finances, by sleeplessness, by ministry. I told myself that the best I could do was to donate money to causes I felt passionate about. I felt fortunate that we were able to do this. Sponsoring a couple of kids in Peru? Check. Volunteering at my church? Check. Tithe? Check. A husband in ministry? Check. Isn't that enough? And in truth, at times - it was as much as I could handle.

But it's been way too easy to get wrapped up in my new normal - a normal which leaks stress and tension into every area of my life. A normal which has spanned over the last year and included some of the most difficult, dark, lonely, and angst filled moments I've ever experienced. I have been sleep deprived to the point of insanity (at least it feels like it!) My doctor told me I was in adrenal fatigue. My counselor told me I was heading towards a breakdown.

And even though what we have experienced with Declan and other things going on in our life is real and valid, I have felt the not so gentle tug to stop focusing inward. To stop letting myself be weighed down with what is going on within my four walls. I've felt a nudge from God that says I can carry more burden.

Say what?

Isn't this the problem when you ask God to work in your life? He's going to answer you, and the answer probably isn't what you want to hear. What I wanted to hear was that God was going to remove the problems and the stress. That He was going to bless my baby and make him start sleeping through the night. And while we are seeing some progress with Declan, it's been slow and I have been chanting to myself "The days are long but the years are short."

And in the midst of that, God told me that I can open my heart to the burdens of others around me. After all, isn't He the one that takes our burdens from us? Isn't He the one who asks us to cast our worries on Him?

A few weeks ago, I had a friend ask me why I was 'white knuckling it'.  I had to really take a good, long look at myself and my life and come to terms with the fact that I was trying too hard to control things I have very little control over.

He is whispering at me to look at things from a global and eternal perspective, and to hold my hands open in worship of Him, to beg Him to break my heart for what breaks His. I am ready to accept His call. I don't know what it will look like yet. I am at the very beginning stages of finding out how God wants to use me. It might be small, it might be big. It might here in my home, in my family or it might be elsewhere. I'm ready, and waiting.

I have been sitting pretty in my "comfortable Christianity" for too long. I am ready for my world to get rocked.

Who's with me?

xoxo