Last year, last January, I wrote this. About conquering fear, about hope. About the solution.

Confession: I barely made it through April.

Fear is still a battle for me. My words one year ago still speak truth about who I am. I am still desert dry, thirsting for His Word in the face of new babes and more deployments, and single parenting . . .

My desire this year is for consistency and accountability, so I’m refreshing and starting over. I have the same one year plan I failed miserably at last year . . . PLEASE, I encourage you to occasionally ask me which day I am actually on. And expect a truthful answer.

In the meantime, January 6th produced this, from Psalm 5:3.

“My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct it to You. And I will look up” {NKJV}.

I will look up. 

I’ve fought pitched battles with myself over the past few months reconciling my have-to-dos with my want-to-dos with my sure-would-be-nice-to-dos-if-I-ever-had-a-spare-minute-all-to my-very-own. I tiptoe around my friends who are poised and have make-up on and are on time {!!} wondering how they are getting it all done. Then I walk through front doors and see messy houses and I have conversations where they unapologetically admit that their time, for now, is precious and mostly belongs to their children. I see them in their messy houses with yoga pants on and hair pulled back and I see they aren’t getting it all done either and it’s glorious and freeing and wonderfully imperfect.

The result? Something has to give, what with all the being pregnant, writing, homeschooling, housekeeping, friend seeking, and inappropriate focus on crafting happening around here. Something that, until now, I wasn’t willing to give. So things, moments, time with my babes . . . got lost.

I’m still wrestling over what it might be . . . maybe my house won’t be as clean . . . I’ll probably be crafting less {sob} . . . I think I’ve promised girlfriend/playdate/babysitting time to at least eleventy trillion {or ten} people that I’ve yet to honor . . . It’s a new, not-yet-reconciled place I’m living but I know . . . something has to give.

I’m fearful of the giving. How, how do I learn to live my own wonderful imperfect?

Like this.

When I am ankle deep in dog hair in the corners of my living room and my feet stick to the kitchen floor . . . when the dirty dishes are breeding on my counters and my overflowing laundry baskets have become a sort of sloppy modern art sculpture permanently affixed to my couch . . . when my project pile is draped in cobwebs and my sewing machine is lonely . . . when I’m on day two of pajamas and haven’t had adult interaction for what feels like years days . . . when I get to burrow down in the couch with two babes jockeying for a position and read books ’til my throat gets hoarse . . . when I get to chase the littles through the upstairs in time to Flight of the Bumblebee {also known as music appreciation class at our house} . . . when I get to flour the kitchen making treats with the wee ones that will be remembered mostly for the amount of dough they get to eat . . . when we complete an entire day of my planned curriculum with little to no meltdowns and a surfeit of Dr. Seuss stickers {still in our pajamas, of course} . . .

I will count my thankfuls, marching towards a thousand. {Because even though I’ve been counting for two years, I am an abject failure at writing them down . . . consistency, right?} . . . and I will look up. 

And these days of small beginnings, of choosing my children-these imperfect days reflected in the Sonlight heavenward, in the glory of His mercy and grace . . . these are days worth living. 

~M.

Important note: To many of my dear friends … your hard days may not look like mine … your imperfect might have nothing to with too many diapers and everything to do with the lack thereof. Your dark days may come with grief, with sorrow, with loneliness that will not lift.

Even then . . . His truth is for you. Look up. Your messy, imperfect days are worth the living.