A Space for Grace

A friend and I were texting each other pictures of ourselves from before we had kids; admiring each other – and ourselves. (Just being honest here). We dwelt in the ‘then’ for a while before we returned back to ‘now’ when my friend texted, “And they say you bounce right back after having kids. Bah humbug is what I have to say about that!”
My experience after having kids – you don’t bounce back, you just bounce.
Your brain bounces around between who likes mayo on their sandwich and who doesn’t. Who eats green things but nothing red and who eats red food but none of their food can touch. Who has to sleep with the door open and light on and who can’t sleep until it’s dark and the door is closed.
Your time bounces between laundry and school projects.  Did you pay the guitar teacher twice but forget to pay the piano teacher? It bounces between husband, kids, friends, and family until you call out the dog’s name for your husband and your brother’s name for your son.
Your body bounces. Yes. It is bounced off of. It is bounced on. And then one day, when nobody is bouncing on or off you, you notice it’s just bouncing on its own.
All that bouncing is starting to make me feel like I’m landing in a mid-life crisis. I always thought I’d be a career woman – a mover and a shaker. I feel like I’m just shaking.
I’m not even trying to hit the world’s ideal, just my own. Still, I can feel lost and unimportant. Not pretty enough. Not thin enough. Not smart enough. Not accomplished enough. Like those crazy bouncy balls my boys love to get from vending machines. Fun for the first while but soon left bouncing aimless and unattended in a corner.

But He calls me loved.
He calls me chosen.
He has a plan for my life.
And when His plan for my life ends, He will bring me home to glory.
That’s enough to put the bounce back into my step.
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.
2 Thessalonians 3:5