Long days.  Long, long, long days.  Ya know the kind of days where you’ve fed, bathed, colored, ran, inhaled coffee, cleaned crayon off the floor (hence the inhaled coffee), fed the cat, changed diapers, make additional coffee, and then realized it’s only 9 am?  I know you can’t enthusiastically AMEN! from your side of the computer, but I’m going to assume I’m not alone here.

Short years.  Short, short years.  Yall, I was looking back at pictures of sweet little Nolan (2 1/2 years old) and he grew up, like all of the sudden.  He was itty bitty Nolan who learned how to feed himself bread one day (and then also enthusiastically fed himself dog food and a leaf before I realized I had to up my mama-game).  He’s the little boy who one day, eventually, slept through the night and I thought I might pee my pants I was so excited.  He’s the little nugget who loved having his head rubbed as he drifted off to sleep.  And now he’s huge!  He talks in full sentences and runs around my house and has pretend conversations with his daddy on the phone (or  lego piece or car).  He’s the boy who tells me about the man who closed his eyes and then opened them (a sweet reenactment of the BSF* lesson he learned about the blind man from the gospel of John).  He’s suddenly this big boy with his own thoughts and desires and passions.  And it feels like it just happened overnight.

(*BSF is Bible Study Fellowship- an in-depth weekly bible study that Nolan, Emma and I venture too each week- you can check out their website bsfinternational.org if you want more information- I definitely recommend checking it out!)

I think about this often- how do I truly live in the moment and (hopefully) ensure that I won’t look back on this season and wish I’d been more present?  What am I going to miss?  How do I not miss it?  How do I love the heck out of the long, long days knowing they too will become short years?

I’m reminded of Ecclesiastes 3– a time for everything.

Have mercy on me…. I’m not who I used to be.

Y’all heard this song?  As with most songs, those 11 words are the only words I can remember from the entire song and they have been playing on repeat in my head since I woke up.  And there might be a reason why.

I’ve been thinking about life, lately, and how unimpressed I am with myself sometimes.  My sweet, sweet children drive me absolutely up the wall, especially when I’m trying to do “important things” (COUGH FIND US A MINIVAN COUGH).  Like, can a girl get 10 minutes, uninterrupted, on the internet to do a little research?  (NO- NOT IN THIS HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!)  So, is it too early in this blog post relationship we’ve got going to tell you I’ve lost it and yelled at my kids?  Hey, let’s just be real from the beginning.  (AHEM- I TOLD YOU I DON’T HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT!).

Let me back up a little.  I used to work full time at my current job, administrative specialist at a foster care agency.  And I loved it.  And truth be told, I’m pretty good at it.  I’m organized, OCD about details, and loved what I was doing.  Then, I got pregnant with sweet Nolan.  Now, my agency is awesome and let Nolan come to work with me fulltime for the first 6 months, which was both amazing and horrifying at the same time.  How does one do full time work while also being a full time mom, not to mention a first time mom so every cry and hiccup is like majorly over-stressed about event?  So, I dropped my hours, then dropped to part time.  Then, add another baby 21 months later.  And, now, here I am.

And that transition from productive, in control, organized girl to mostly stay at home mom has been tough.  I’m used to starting a to-do list and finishing it– a mere dream these days.  It’s been two years since I made the transition and I’d say I’m just now starting to get the hang of it.  In fact, I remember writing an Instagram post about this not long ago… The gist of it was that I needed to lower my expectations of what I could do in a reasonable day with two little kids.  Pick something I wanted to do and something I wanted to be- and realize that the person I wanted to BE was just as important as the something I wanted to DO.

I’m also reminded of the quote from CS Lewis that I’m sure a lot of you have heard already- Children are not a distraction from the most important work, they ARE the most important work.  Or something really similar to that.

So, how does my mostly SAHM status, that instragram post, and this quote all tie together?  I think they’re all symptoms of the same problem.  I take myself WAY to seriously.  I think that I’m way cooler than I am and way more important than I am.  In this season, which is drastically different than other seasons I’ve been in, in THIS season the Lord has called me to love little people.  WELL.  To love them well.

Anddddd, I’m pretty unimpressed with myself.  I used to think myself a patient, kind, pretty gentle person.  I thought I was going to rock mamahood because I could pretty much only depend on me.  I was the perfect mom to the invisible kids I dreamed about.  And then, got pregnant, became an actual mom, got less than adequate sleep, STILL get less than enough sleep, and some days I’m pretty unimpressive.

So, why the song on repeat?  Could it be a reminder from God that mercy is mine for the asking?  How sweet is the Lord, that in these moments, I can draw near to him and be reminded it was NEVER about how good I was going to be able to be.  I can be convicted of sin and the war I’m supposed to be waging against it, but I can rest in the fact I haven’t messed this up to the point of no return.  I became a mommy the day I saw the line on the pregnancy test, but I’m still just figuring it out.  And I’m rocking it sometimes and failing others, and that’s okay.  I can keep asking for mercy, keep drawing nearer to my Father, and keep crying out- have mercy on me.

I’m not who I used to be.