I had been told by many that I needed to make the fall and winter prior to Daniel's arrival productive because after he came I wouldn't be getting anything done. So, I was challenged by my husband to finish the curtains for the living room; I bought the material for this project quite a while ago but I couldn't muster the courage to try to measure and sew it, no matter how simple this could be. Because he challenged me, and because my mother came and visited us in November, I was successful in hanging the curtains! This was a small triumph, but one nonetheless, because my pregnancy was hallmarked by fatigue and nausea and that equalled less than productive days off.
I am a person who thrives on order and "productivity", although I have been evaluating what this means for years. Do my definition and God's definition of productivity match? It was easy to feel productive when I was in college: I had measurable goals and I accomplished them. It was fairly easy to feel productive when I was single and a nurse: I bought a house and had fun roommates, I became competent at my job, and I was involved in Terra Nova and was growing in the Lord. I met and married Cory, and that year felt a little less productive in certain ways, but I knew it was our season. Our first year of marriage totally rocked my boat. Emotionally I was a
rollercoaster before I got pregnant. Romance was different in marriage, and Cory and I encountered some very difficult circumstances in our first six months of wedded bliss. I got pregnant three months after we got married, so my crazy emotions didn't improve any adding constant fatigue and nausea to the mix.
Wah,
wah; I am not trying to create a sob story for you, I am just remembering how things changed dramatically one year ago.
So, Cory and I worked through our first year. With Jesus at the
healm, I can look ahead with incredible hope. He has never left us, and has always had His strong hand upon both of our lives. We are in Him, and now we are looking forward with great joy to see how He will have us serve Him.
I used to journal at work on a fairly regular basis, and I had 175 entries saved in our work email in a folder called "journal". Well,
unbeknownst to me, IT reconfigured our email and the new layout didn't have a journal tab. I got concerned and called them, to receive bad news. My 5 years of
journaling was gone. I worked day/night rotating schedule for the first 4 years on Labor and Delivery, and many of those entries were penned on my long, slow nights. It is very sad for me to think about all the content that is gone; I poured out my heart on those pages. I feel like God is telling me to let go of the pain that those pages held. I went through a rotten dating relationship, a challenging dating/engagement season, and a rocky first year of marriage through those years. Maybe God is telling me to let go of that season and look ahead to new things. I have hope, maybe I need to focus on what's ahead.
