Shhhhh............

So.

I'm, like, "in ministry" now.

It's official.

I have a title.

I'm "on staff".

I actually get paid (it's not a lot but it's more than I was making as a full time wife, mom, cook, lauders, maid, etc. :)

It's weird.

It feels uncomfortable, at times.

I think, maybe, because I didn't grow up in this environment.  I didn't seek this out.  I wasn't educated in the many ways that churches can be run.  I feel a bit like THE MOST AVID attender of Broadway just snuck behind the curtain and is seeing how the magic happens...........and sometimes it's not magic.

It's work.

Just because it's work that revolves around God and His people doesn't make it any more special or different than the work I was doing before............and that was a weird thing to realize.

And in pursuing this life inside the church walls and inside the hearts and the minds of the people who are out doing God's work I find myself wondering....................does any of this matter?

Does my part matter?

Funnily?  Weirdly?  Unexpectedly?

I never doubted that my part mattered when I was at home surrounded by my little ones, kissing my husband hello or goodbye (ok......so maybe once a month I would remember to kiss him and greet my Joe as he LOVES when he comes home....so little to ask and yet, I selfishly stayed on the couch reading books to my kiddies or folding laundry or whatever seemingly important task I was doing.......oh my, this will be what haunts me when we are old and gray and I am wishing for one more day with my Joe...........) and keeping my home.

All those wonderings and questionings from stay at home moms?

Never doubted.

Seriously.

I was probably annoying to many but I was convinced of my place in this world and in my life and I LOVED it.

Now?

Hmmmmm........not so convinced at times.  It's scary.  It's unsettling.  I wonder what He thinks.

I fear that when I am absent from this screen and this space that I have listened so intently for His desires for others and for the spaces I speak into and the people I love and the things I am doing that I forget to just listen.

Just listen.

And hear.

Not speak.

But listen.

In the quiet moments.

In the still moments.

In the chaotic moments.

In the running moments.

In the spinning around and around moments.

Do I hear?

Or am I busy trying to figure things out on my own.

So much of my time is filled with the figuring out and the gathering of information and the pouring into that I wonder where that mom went with her hair pulled back, wearing an old stretched out sweatshirt and black "exercise" pants, playing with her kids with blocks and water and paint and mess who's mind would wander while her body was present.......and in those moments God spoke.  He filled my mind with words and thoughts and pictures and HE SPOKE.

It seems crazy now.

That time.

That easy, hard, exhausting, resting time.

I don't miss it.

And yet...............................

I wonder.

Lord, let me have ears that hear.  Eyes that see.  Let me still my body, my heart, my thoughts so that I have room for You.

Let me not be so busy working for You that I forget loving You and listening to You and knowing You and learning from You.

Thank you for loving me in every season.

I love you.