On Doing it All

This new season of life seems to demand more from me than I have had to give, be, and do before.

To quickly update you, Husband's losing his job (which was something I was surprisingly okay with) has resulted in two things:

One: his decision to go to college to get an electrical engineering degree.  He's really, really excited about this opportunity, and he begins taking classes online and at night in July.  The next four to six years will include a lot of night classes, since most of the courses for this degree are not available online.  We talked at length about how hard that is going to be, since he'll work during the day and then go to class or have homework at night, plus the responsibilities of being a husband and dad.  Since I'll be working full-time, too, it promises to be a little rough.

Two:  he got a job at a local electrical company and started last week.  It is turning out to be a little more than he bargained - they do piece work, which means they get paid per job completed, not by the hour, and Saturdays are expected as well.  He'd worked more than 40 hours in the first four days, and has left by 6 am each day this week.  He's exhausted.  He's also had several things going on in the evenings this week, so we're getting a glimpse of how rarely we're going to get to see each other once he starts classes.

Needless to say, this stresses me out a little bit.  Okay, a lot of a bit.

This brings me back to this season, where I feel a little afraid apprenhensive as I think I feel like I'm "doing it all."  Can any of you working moms relate? 

Once school starts, I'll be back to work full time.  I'll have four in-building Spanish classes, Student Council (a class AND a heck of lot of after school/evening time), and (most likely) an online Spanish class.  I nearly always have some sort of work in the evenings. 

I'll also have a baby to pick up from day care, feed, spend time with, and get ready for bed.  Since finances are tight and we want to be healthy anyway, you can add in preparing dinner for the family and getting my lunch ready for the next day.  I can't stand a messy house, so I'll need to make sure that the house is picked up and somewhat clean.  And I'll want to support Husband in any way that I can, helping him with his school-work however I am able.  He'll help as much as he can, because that was part of the deal when I agreed that he should/could go back to school - but it appears like he'll be gone a lot, and when he's home, he'll be exhausted. 

I'm not really meaning to complain here, nor to freak out about something I'm sure many moms do, but I want to be honest.  I'm a little nervous about how much responsibility I think I'm going to have.  Maybe it won't be as hard as I think it will be, but I think that until now, I've been able to be relatively selfish and focus a lot on my job (which I LOVE).  But my priorities are different now, and I want to do these things the best I can.

God has, however, been working in my heart in a few areas relating to this topic.  I'll tell you about that later, because for now, I'm off to get the baby up from his nap, finish the laundry, and get something to eat for lunch.  I'm thinking vanilla greek yogurt with a nectarine and some almonds mixed in.

Truth

Truth #1: I want to write a post that is light-hearted, fun, festive, and new, since this is my first post of 2012, but if I am to be truthful about life, and where I'm at, well then, fun, festive, and new will have to wait until tomorrow.

Truth #2: Even if my heart was ready to write my 30 Before 30 post today, I don't have my list complete yet.   Better get cracking as the clock is ticking!  Look for that coming soon.

Truth #3: Marriage is hard.  Now, I know that some of you actually know Husband in real life, and so I hesitate to write what's on my heart.  But I continue to remind myself that you love him, and you know that I love him also.  Whole-heartedly.  And that we are commited to each other for always.  So I'm going to be a truth-teller, because my heart is thinking a lot about this.  Marriage is hard.

Truth #4: I can't share with you right now what is going on with Husband, but it's pretty tough.  Maybe someday, when his journey is a little farther, he'll allow me to share so that our story can be one to hopefully help others.  For now, though, I can just tell you that it's rough.  He's hurting, I'm hurting, and it's rough.  And deep.   And there is definitely a spiritual component attached to it, for which I would covet your prayers.

Truth #5: As I sat last night trying to stop bawling like a baby, I opened first the Bible and second my journal, and was reminded.

I haven't been doing all this spiritual growth recently for no reason.  God's in charge, and He has the master plan.  He knew this was coming, and He prepared my heart.

First, God reminded me in Psalm 31 to

Be brave.  Be strong.  Don't give up.  Expect God to get here soon,

and in Psalm 32 that,

We're depending on God; he's everything we need.  What's more, our hearts brim with joy since we've taken for our own his holy name.  Love us, God, with all you've got - that's what we're depending on.

Then, as I went back through page after page after page of writing in my journal, He showed me that He has been working in me, preparing me, teaching me.

Most of all, that there is Hope.

That His promises are swift and sure in coming, and that He always makes good on them.

That, in all things, I can praise Him and give Him glory, because He Is Good, even when things are not.

That I can trust Him with Husband.  That Husband is not mine to fix.  That I must be a praying wife, a loving wife, an encouraging wife, a supporting wife.  That God has Husband in His hand, and that God alone can be what Husband needs.

Truth #6: Because my heart has been being prepared, worked on, because I've been learning these things, I do not feel desperate.  I do not feel downtrodden.  I do feel hurt, I won't lie.  I am scared.  It is hard.  But I feel hopeful.  I believe that God is working, and I believe that Husband is His.  Because God has been walking with me, teaching me, I have faith.

Truth #7: I believe Satan is ticked.  I've been praying in faith for some very specific things for Husband regularly for the last month or so, and those very things have been attacked.  I don't like to throw spiritual warfare around casually in conversation - too easily we can blame our sin on it, in my opinion, and begin to see demons everywhere - but in this case, I am confident.  Join me, friends, in praying for a hedge around Husband, that He will not believe the lies that are being whispered to his heart about the very core of who he is as a man. 

Truth #8: Months ago I posted this song, and thought I should listen to it this morning, because I praise God that He has been faithful to me in preparing my heart, and that He will continue to be faithful, right until the very end. 

I forgot that it talks about Glory.  And you know that Glory is something I've been thinking and learning quite a lot about recently.  Okay, God, connection again.

And, for potentially the first time in my life, I started to understand this idea of being the Bride of Christ, of marriage to Him, of truly loving Him and Him loving me.  In marriage with Christ, He doesn't hurt me or let me down or be humanly stupid.  He loves unconditionally, perfectly, passionately, jealously.  I've been praying that I would learn to love God, to understand that relationship at a deeper level, and because of my own marriage and what we're learning now, I'm starting to get it.

Faithful.  Absolutely to the end.

Thanks for walking with me as I tell some truth today.  It's where my heart is, and I desire to be a transparent, real person, to live with integrity.  Even if it's hard or reveals that I, like all of us, am far from perfect. 

Please, again know that I love my man, and I believe in him completely.  This is a journey, and one we need to take to be the people that God wants us to be.  

What I'd Really Tell You Over Coffee

Sipping on a now cooling cup of coffee, listening to a mix on Pandora, and being thankful it's Friday.  Some weeks, although not bad ones, just seem to last longer.  This has been one of them...

I wrote last Friday a quick post about Student Council elections and telling students they did or did not make it... it was definitely not fun to see the absolute dejection on some of their faces.  And we're not done - this week was regular class officer elections, so I'll get to, as I told Husband this morning, crush some more students' hopes today.  Fun!  But the good news is, it's high school, and it's character building, right?  (Tell that to them, see if it makes a difference....)  Truthfully though, it will be exciting to get to see who I'll have in class next year, thus beginning the awkward limbo of finishing this year well and looking forward to the future.

Before I go into anything serious, I should tell you I have an addiction, and a pretty big one, at that. It almost rivals my love for Gingerbread Lattes..... I eagerly anticipate the arrival of these bags of goodness each year, and everyone knows it - I got facebook posts and text messages from college friends about how the purple bags were back in the holiday aisle.

Mmmm..  Delicious.  Cadbury Mini Eggs, my favorite Easter candy.

I've eaten a few so far.... umm, yes, I mean a few bags.  To be fair, Husband has helped me quite a bit - but I believe we've gone through 5 bags....... (and I have two more hidden away for later).  Oh Cadbury Mini Eggs, how I love thee.

And on to the more serious things.

Are you ready for this?  It's kind of big.  I'm a little bit surprised at myself for even thinking about blogging it, but then I figured, so few people read this anyway, what's the difference?  Husband and I have decided that we are no longer going to skirt around the issue of kids.  For several months we've been in the "we're not trying but we're not not trying" phase of life, and it's been nice.  No pressure, no worries.  But over Spring Break and some more in-depth conversations, we decided it's time to be committed. 

We're going to start trying to have kids.

Shoot, I'm stressed just typing those eight words.

It's a little intimidating, to be sure, for a lot of reasons.  I mean, we're only just really trying to step into our grown-up selves.  Kids?  Are we nuts?  I love sleeping.  Am I ready to not do that?  (I know, right, how silly is that?  I'm worried about sleep?) I have to work a full -time job (not just have to - want to - I LOVE my job).  How will I do that and still be there a lot?  (And sleep, when will I sleep?)  And I teach high school - I see what these kids go through!  Will we be able to prepare them to live in this world and to do it while loving God?  (I'll be awake at night wondering if they are making good choices....)  I could write for hours all the big things this decision implies, but that would be borrowing a lot of trouble, and I'm not even pregnant.

But, a friend of mine, who isn't even a Christian, told it to me straight a while back.  "If good people," she said (insert "people who really love God"), "don't have children, then there isn't any hope for the future."  And I know that God is with us, and if He wants us to be parents, He'll allow it, and He'll walk through parenthood with us.  So deep breaths, Beth.

While I'm being honest, I am going to tell you another truth.  (You may not want to read this part - I'm going to be a little blunt and write something my mother definitely would not think I should blog about.) 

Seriously, you might want to skip it, I'm just saying.  It's not bad, it's just very real and very non-talked about it public circles.

Did you know that in order to have children naturally, you have to have sex?  It's true, in case you didn't know.  And that becomes an issue for me, if I'm being real.  I have some residual emotional issues left over from a time of life that wasn't so good, and I have an incredibly low libido, and while I like being close to my husband and making him happy, I don't love sex.  And I don't desire it.  And I could go forever without it. 

And that won't work, if I want to have kids.  And it won't work even if I don't want to have kids, because I'm learning that sex is pretty dang vital in a healthy marriage.   I've read a couple of great books on the topic, but nothing has really changed.  Right now, though, I'm reading the book Sheet Music by Dr. Kevin Lehman because a friend who empathizes with me recommended it. It's intense. I mean, intense.  And scary, and blunt, and full of things that you don't normally read in a Christian book.  And it's challenging me to think about sex differently and to think about being with Husband differently, to try things I've not done, to work towards things I've not yet experienced in three years of marriage.....

Hoo-eee, can't believe I'm typing this.  I'd talk to you about it over coffee, sure, but umm... right now I can't see your face and gauge how you're responding.  Let me sip my coffee here and imagine we're best friends and you are sitting across from me sipping your coffee and nodding that you understand.

That's about all the "real" I can throw out for now.  I'll have to garner up a little more courage another day.

Can I just say this?  It's a bit scary to be real, but I can't help it right now.  It's who I am, and this is what is on my heart.  God has been growing me a lot recently, and this week, these have been some of the thoughts.  I don't ever want to not share what God has been saying, because I don't ever want to come close to shutting Him out or ignoring Him.  And I'm excited.  I haven't felt so stretched and good in a long time. 

I like it.

Happy Friday, friends.  May your weekends be restful, blessed, and beautiful.

Participating in our weekly Coffee Company Blog Hop over at Home Sanctuary.

Editor's Note:  Just so you know, I was never abused or mistreated sexually in any way in my childhood or at any time - in fact, I think my parents raised me with a pretty healthy view of sex.  When I referenced some residual emotional issues, they are the result of my own willful disobedience during a dark time of life, nothing else.  I think we as women come to the marriage bed with a variety of issues, some worse than others, and while it sex a BIG struggle for me, I would never want to minimalize the true issues that come from abuse or indicate that I have overcome something like that, because the women who have done so are worthy of my respect and admiration.