The set up means double timing on Fridays. I start work with Boogs at 7 and we load up and head to job number two no later than 8:15. Thankfully Boogs is able to stay with me and the environment is relaxed and comfortable. It's been a blessing.
But I confess I feel stuck between blessing and struggle. To make ends meet it isn't anything for me to work 3 jobs on a Friday and then 2 Saturday. It's exhausting...and it's all the same thing.
On my drive home Friday I had Boogs buckled into the back seat zoned out with inside out leaving me alone with my thoughts and the sounds of highway travel. I was rapidly trying to get him home so that I could shower and show up at my third childcare gig, that day. Tears burned my eyes as I silently cried out to God. Is this all I'm good for? Is this really what you've called me for? Raising other's children? This is it? Kissing booboos, fixing lunch, rocking babies, playing imagination games, singing silly songs, carpool, fun crafts, kissing goodnight, all for someone else's baby?
I feel like such a rebellious and whiny believer. I want what God wants but that hasn't changed that I still want what I want too. I want to hold my own positive pregnancy test. I want to feel the first flicks and flutters. I want to feel the
And, no, the grass isn't greener on the other side. It's as green as it will ever be should I choose to bloom where I'm planted. I desire to. I really do. So why do I feel so stuck clinging to something I feel is a God-given desire and yet seeing no evidence of it? Why do I feel like the only one in my category still longing for my one day dream that may never come true?
As I scan each precious face in this post I am taken back to almost the minute I took these pictures. Each and everyone of them are faces of the children that I have had a personal connection to for an extended amount of time. Their parents entrusted them to my care time and time again.
Ten years of changing diapers, washing fingers, cutting nuggets, playing pirates, cleaning messes. Ten years of saying hello and saying goodbye. Ten years of kissing goodnight, saying good morning. Ten years of treasuring these moments knowing God was preparing me for my own one day. One day.
Yet, here I sit.
26.
No husband.
No prospect.
No visible proof that God has any plans for me to see my own child.
No one day.
I wish I could tell you that I've come to this truth I'm about to state next with a heart in complete surrender. I wish I could tell you that my heart and all it's longings don't keep me up nights. I wish more than anything that I could tell you that my heart is set on this with all its parts. I wish I could tell you I have tearlessly accepted this. But I can't. What I can say is this.
I don't regret one moment of this. One day of stress, pain, exhaustion, work. All of it. Completely worth it.
And here's the kicker. If my arms never know that sweetness of my own baby. If I never watch my husband bond with his child. If I am forever bound to "just" be good at this. If this is indeed all that I am called for. Then I choose to desire this. That not one second of these past ten years or the next ten days would be wasted.
I don't know if a single one these children remember my name or the countless amounts of things I have done with and for them. I don't know if they can recall memories with me, any day we shared together, or anytime we crawled around on the floor while mommy and daddy were out. I keep up with where they are. One of them just graduated high school and is wrapping up his freshman year in college. Several of them are incredible gymnasts gaining medals. Learning new languages, winning trips over seas, making honor roll, welcoming new siblings, singing in choirs, playing instruments, touching lives.
I'm not saying that any of my time with them shaped them into these things but these are the lives I touched. These guys are turning and touching others. They are reaching out and growing and I can say I knew them, well.
I have no promise that God is ever going to or that He even desires to bring about my desire and I would be fibbing if I said that didn't bother me
But for now, I have an amazing honor of knowing that the parents of these kiddos saw Jesus in me enough to entrust them to my care. That even in the face of my sinfulness and selfishness they sought me out to care for the precious lives entrusted to them. This post could go on for days with picture after picture of babies I've held and loved. Time after time, story after story. Going on 12 years of lives that I've been a part of, yes. But been impacted by immensely, even more.
These babies will never know the heart strings they've pulled, the moments they connected, the learning they have provided. But God does.
Thank you Jesus for these precious babes. Thank you for the hearts I pray you will one day be Lord in all of them. Thank you for loving them through me. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to know each of them in different ways. Father, call each of them to you. Fill them with your Spirit and send them out. Make them into men and women after your heart, longing for your will, desiring your plans. Help them to recognize their depravity and lead them to the cross. Give them an unquenchable thirst for Your Word. Be with each of them today and everyday as they continue to grow and mature in this ever-darkening world. Bring along someone in each other their lives to love on in ways that I was able to love on them. Grow in them tender hearts to others that don't know you.
In Jesus name, Amen.
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