It's Nice
I'm sitting in the student center next to a window, looking out on a cool overcast day. It's nice. A nice quiet time to sit and reflect.
I have been making it to campus a full hour early, just so I can quiet down with my thoughts before the day gets in full swing.
I get my bagle and one tall skinny cinnamon latte extra foam no whip.
It's nice.
I have been thinking over the last couple weeks that I am more content now than I have ever been in my life.
I have a job that I am passionate for, that is challenging, but that doesn't take over my life.
I have a beautiful, healthy baby who loves to sit and talk to me while I do housework.
My relationship with B has never been better. We are communicating and cuddling and just being together more than ever before in our marriage.
My dad and his family are coming closer to the Lord.
There's just so much good. So much to be content with.
I'm not anxious about anything really.
... and I'm not sure I've ever been able to say that before.
Sure, there are stressful days or times, but it's not an all-consuming stress over some big life-altering decision.
I'm content.
It's nice.
We were considering getting pregnant again next summer, and B has basically left the timing up to me (with the one exception that he has to be teaching before we can try).
But I think I'm going to wait another year... until the next summer.
We will be more financially stable. All of my schooling will be completely finished BEFORE I get pregnant. And it will give CJ a chance to be a baby for longer, before the next one comes and fills that role.
It seems right. It doesn't seem as rushed. And since I have been healed from the PCOS, I have no physical reason to be in such a hurry.
I'm happy the way our little family is right now.
It's nice.
Things at the church haven't improved much. We still walk in the door feeling like the zit-faced braces kid that all the popular kids talk about.
But, I have started a media fast... praying for more volunteers. Fasting my free time, praying that they will give up theirs for the sake of the kids.
During this fast, the Lord has been revealing so much to me about my own attitude at the church.
I was driving home from church one night, totally humiliated by the way I had acted. I wasn't rude or stupid or anything... just... fake.
I think I'm a pretty sincere person, but I had become so consumed with what everybody thought of me, that I had changed my entire personality to try to fit in.
On the way home, I said out loud, "Who WAS that? That wasn't ME!"
Almost immediately, the Lord replied, "That was someone who fears man."
I suddenly realized how much that fear was impacting every area of my ministry. I was always late because I wanted to wear something that nobody could complain about. I hadn't done anything new to the children's church room because I knew certain people didn't like what I had already done. I prepared lessons fearfully because I was afraid parents would complain that their children weren't learning enough.
I have a proposal I should have submitted to the board a month ago... asking for a lot of money for the ministry. But I was so scared that they would think my ideas were stupid, or that they would just flat-out say "no."
Eventually, I became paralyzed. I had unknowingly adopted the attitude, "Why bother? Nobody is going to be happy with me either way; so why go through all the trouble?"
The progress in the ministry had come to a stand-still because I was so afraid of what people would think.
It has been a very long time since I struggled with this fear. For most of my highschool and adult life, I didn't care. I was going to do what was right regardless.
But suddenly, without my knowledge, it sneaked in and took over.
But not anymore.
I KNOW what the Lord is calling me to do in that ministry. He is giving me strategies and designs and ideas that are going to turn this ministry on its head.
Self-doubt will no longer get in the way of what the LORD is doing.
And I think that is why I have suddenly become so conent. I have stopped looking at what everybody else has. Or listening to what everyone says I should have. I look at what I want... and I hear what the Lord is calling me to... and I'm content. I'm content to be where I am and not longing for more or less.
It's nice.