"Listen To Your Heart"

It's almost been a year since stepping into motherhood, and like most mamas, I've grown and matured quite a bit this year.  The Lord has been gracious to me and met me in my lowest moments and counseled me when I have stumbled.  So, I thought I would share the journey my heart has made this year with hopes that it will help other new or experienced mamas examine themselves.

When I first saw those two little pink lines intersecting to make a + sign on that little white stick, I broke down in tears.  Soon after came a period of anger and fear.  I had always wanted to be a mom, but not yet.  Not without my family, without a church family and far from most everything that was familiar to me.  I had a tough pregnancy and dreaded going to work to hear the multitude of opinions and comments on my expanding body.  After Carly arrived, I began struggling with contentment, despite being completely in love with her.  All summer I fought this word, "contentment," and would pray earnestly that God would fill my soul with pure joy and that He would take away my discontentment of not living in Iowa.  Most of the time, I truly was happy, but when I was sad, I was pretty down.  I didn't understand why I couldn't love the life God had given me.  I loved being a mom and a wife, but I didn't love all the other components of my life.  All I wanted was to be in Iowa, with my family, with my friends, being a stay-at-home-mom, and desiring my family to grow up very similarly to the way I grew up.  However, I knew that working was the best arrangement for our family, and that having the freedom to raise my children without judgmental glances and opinions was key to establishing ourselves as a unit of itself.  I was so thankful for our home, our reliable cars, plenty of food on the table, a job that I love, a job that my husband loves, and all the entertainment one could possibly want or need!  I also knew I was incredibly blessed, so it made me all the more upset that I wasn't appreciating that.

In the recent weeks, God has explained all of these feelings to me in a very simple way.  You see, I began following my heart Satan has been feeding me lies about listening to my heart. How many songs can you name that has lyrics which point to listening to your heart?  All those songs do not speak truth, but present false hope. Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?"  I was laying in bed one night praying that I would find joy in everything.  I was explaining to my Heavenly Father that I didn't understand why I was feeling so sad when the rational part of me knew that life is great. It's fantastic.  In fact, I am so rational that I dared say that it couldn't get any better...we are SO blessed.  That is when I realized that those "feelings" of discontent were coming from my heart, which is exceedingly corrupt.  Then God reminded me of the verse my Dad shared with me when I was 14 years old and falling in love with my first boyfriend: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." -Proverbs 4:23.  That was it...those two verses were the answer to my problem.  I wasn't content because my heart was trumping my mind.  Something deceitful was stomping on something rational.  If my heart is guarded by my mind, it is absolutely the wellspring of life.  But if it runs wild, it can destroy me.  The key to finding pure joy in each layer of my life is guarding my tender heart with my strong mind. 

My heart is in Iowa, my heart is with my family, it's with my friends, its the desire to be a stay-at-home-mom, the need to be skinny.  My heart wants my family to look the same as it did when I was growing up.  However, my mind is here in Florida.  My mind knows that working is the best arrangement for our family, my mind loves having the freedom to raise my children as we see fit, my mind is so very thankful for our home, our reliable cars, plenty of food on the table, a job that I love, a job that my husband loves, and all the entertainment one could possibly want or need!  My mind needs to set the tone for running this race, not my heart.  When my mind is on track, my heart will follow suit. 

Being a mother is one of the greatest gifts God has given me.  I love it day in and day out, more than I could have dreamed.  Carly is a companion and a friend to spend nearly every minute of every day with.  She has helped refine me as a person, a wife, a friend, a mother and a daughter of the most high King.  This year has been full of ups and downs a lots of "inbetweens," but more than anything it's been a gift and a blessing.  Praise God for never giving up on us, meeting us in our times of distress, celebrating with us in our times of joy and refining us in ways we could not be refined without him.