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<\/a><\/p>\nBut I’m ready for several reasons. \u00a0One, I don’t have time to scrapbook right now. \u00a0I love, love, love going back to read our family’s story. \u00a0It’s nothing amazing, just normal life. \u00a0But as I read I remember so many details I’d have forgotten. \u00a0I see the faithfulness of God woven through our story in the mundane and the miraculous. \u00a0I remember what it felt like to be that person in that time. \u00a0Sometimes I cringe a little, but most of the time I melt inside at the precious gift of life. So even if no one else reads it, I’m going to write again so that I can remember these days.<\/p>\n
I’m going to write again because I think storytelling is important. \u00a0We learn through story. \u00a0I’ve benefited so very, very much from watching other women. \u00a0There is negativity online but there is also a strong, positive community. \u00a0There are strong women who are wrestling with life in beautiful, varied ways. \u00a0Sometimes they make me laugh. Sometimes they show me how. \u00a0Sometimes they don’t know the answers and I watch them search and learn and wait.<\/p>\n
I’m going to write again because in the same way that the children of Israel were told to set stones as a remembrance, writing is my “altar.” \u00a0It’s my way of recording what God is doing so that I don’t forget. \u00a0Sometimes you will see it, too. \u00a0Sometimes it’s hidden and I only allude to something, but I will remember what God was doing in our lives at the time. \u00a0I often called my time in Maryland my #lifeinthewilderness because it really did feel that way. \u00a0It felt physically like a wilderness, but it was also a personal emotional and spiritual wilderness. \u00a0David and I often felt that it was for a season and that it was preparatory. \u00a0We still don’t know for what, but I learned so, so much inside my soul in those four years and four months.<\/p>\n
I’m going to write because sometimes those social issues like the refugee crisis stir things so deeply in my heart that I feel as though I cannot function unless I talk about them. \u00a0So far they’ve been long Facebook posts that get typed out and then deleted instead of published. \u00a0Or scrawls on the back of envelopes lying around on the counter because my head feels as though it will explode if I don’t get it out. \u00a0As a friend of mine once said, “Silence is not always golden.”<\/p>\n
I’m going to blog again because while there is plenty of selfishness left inside of me, I’m getting lost in the shuffle of motherhood. \u00a0I’ve always said that our marriages and families benefit when we stay alive as women. \u00a0I still believe that. \u00a0But it *feels* next to impossible to do anything for me. \u00a0These days I’m happy if I get a hot shower. \u00a0I’m feeling that urge to just not care. \u00a0To let it go. \u00a0To lay it all down. \u00a0While it’s good and noble to lay down our wants for our families, I think a little tension is actually a good thing. \u00a0When it’s easier to not care that I don’t get to do anything for me, then I know I need to carve out some space so I don’t get lost as a person. \u00a0We are women. \u00a0We are caretakers. \u00a0And while we’re taking care of everyone else, we really should take care of ourselves. \u00a0I don’t think when God called us to be mothers that He imagined lost personhood as a way to glorify Him.<\/p>\n