30 Something and Lost

I sat at my computer, tears streaming down my face. 

My children were playing...somewhere.

I honestly didn't know what they were doing. 

I read the article over and over and over again to try to process the words...

the ideas...the audacity. 

I couldn't do it. 

I didn't even know where to begin or how or... 

I shut my computer off 

and pushed the feelings, the fear, the fierce foreshadowing 

that had me in a choke hold  and I walked away. 

I simply couldn't handle any of it. 

All I ever wanted to be was a wife and mother. 

Everything I ever worked for was to obtain those titles. 

My goal was to be awesome!

I wanted to be a combination of June Cleaver and Lorelai Gilmore.

I wanted to bake cookies with my babes and raise them up well and Godly and secure and at the same time I wanted to be fun and spirited.

That's how I became distracted. 

Distracted from the Truth.

Distracted from who I was following.

Distracted from God's purpose for my life.

I shifted my eyes away from the One I was following and 

looked up to ideals and desires that I had placed above my line of vision.

My ideals seemed to be good and Godly, 

Yet, instead of looking up and getting closer to heaven, 
I found myself looking up and getting further from the His Kingdom.

Matthew 6:33 says, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness..."  

I became disoriented.

I started to look around.

I started to watch others around me.

I started to compare.

I couldn't measure up. 

So I did what I had to do...I started pretending.

I wasn't pretending for anyone who was perhaps watching me...

I was pretending for myself.

I was fighting for my own, self righteous ideals.

I was proud of my ideals and I could not let them go 
even though I knew in my heart that those ideals were suffocating me. 

I could not face the fear of what 
my struggles and failures would do to my life 
if I didn't attain them.

I became distressed.

I couldn't see past the walls I had built around myself.
I had to keep everything together and within those walls.
I was overwhelmed and depression lingered all around. 
I lost the vision for direction in my life.

In the book of Numbers, the children of Israel had once again complained of being" taken out of Egypt to die in the wilderness" (21:5). And the Lord, tired of their constant whining, sends fiery snakes that bite and kill them. Of course, they come back to the Lord and beg Moses to plead with God to take away the snakes. 

"And the LORD said to Moses, 'Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it, shall live'" (Numbers 21:8)

I wonder how many couldn't see it?
How many lost their vision?
How many were so overwhelmed with the slithering, life stealing serpents at their heels that they could not look up past the sting of fear and failure.

I was trying desperately to keep it all together.
I was doing good deeds. I was working hard.
I was loving and serving my family, my friends, my church.
I was serving and holding and pursuing and romancing my husband. 
I was teaching and disciplining and training and playing and blessing my children.
I was being a Proverbs 31 woman.

My ideals were not worldly.
My ideals were good and even God given.

I am called to do good. I am called to work hard. I am called to love and serve. I am called to pursue and romance. I am called to teach and train and bless.

My loss of vision resulted not in desiring to do those things well, but in desiring to do them all; 
without grace, without guidance and for my own pride and glory.

I became disconnected.
Disconnected from God.
Disconnected from myself. 

I disconnected, not because I had too many responsibilities in my life;
I disconnected from God, because I disconnected from my inner being.
I disconnected from who He created.

I disconnected from that girl of years past.
That girl who found pleasure in beauty and singing.
That girl who found meaning and truth in books that would take her 
to centuries of old and places of wonder.
That girl who would write stories of what she was living and learning and dreaming.
I disconnected from the girl who longed to be a loving wife and mommy, 
who would kiss and serve and hold for pure pleasure and joy and life. 

I disconnected from that girl and I lost her.
I couldn't even remember who she was.

I became someone else.

I didn't have time for beautiful, I wanted order and perfection.
I refused to lose myself in a book while soaking in a bubble bath. 
I didn't have time for any of that. 
I was too busy reading the stories in the lesson plans to write any, 
let alone live any.
I didn't want to play with my children or hold them.
I was irritated with their childish ways and tired of constantly serving them. 

In all my desperate attempts to be and do and have, 
I lost my purpose. 

I lost everything I was created to be,
everything I was created to do and everything I was created to have.


I walked away from my computer that day, because for the first time in so many years, 
I caught a glimpse of everything I had lost and everything I was missing.
For the first time I questioned what I was doing and if it was worth anything.

I became paralyzed in fear.
The fear of what if...

And so there I was, 30 something and lost.

I walked away that day in complete fear and despair; 
but by the Grace of my loving God, 
He didn't give up on me, even though I had given up on myself.


Tomorrow I'll tell you a little more about that article and its life changing words.

You are His Beloved,                    

                   

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