Years passed. I met this most wonderful man:
(maybe you know him?).
We fell in love. We got married. We procreated.
Upon the birth of our son, Finn Matthew, I fell in love again:
(maybe you could see how?)
And all of a sudden, all that I wanted to do was to be with this little man. I didn't want to miss a moment or a happening. I wanted to be the one to lay him down for every nap and the first one to see his chirpy little face when he woke up.
I wasn't a perfect mommy. I got frustrated. I struggled with the surrender of my selfish desires so that I could better meet his needs. I got lonely on days when he was my only human interaction. I didn't clean the house every day (or every week....cough cough).
I wasn't a perfect mommy. I got frustrated. I struggled with the surrender of my selfish desires so that I could better meet his needs. I got lonely on days when he was my only human interaction. I didn't clean the house every day (or every week....cough cough).
When I took a year off from school to revel and indulge in Finn's first few months of life, it was very difficult to imagine finishing the degree that I had started sooooooooooo long ago - we're talking 2007 here!
I moaned, I groaned, and I wondered - often - what it would be like to not finish at all.
Long story short.......I went back. I finished.
(See?)
With the support of the most amazing team of people behind me that believed in me and by relying on God's strength when mine gave out, the driving force that helped me to finish was hoping that when all was said and done, I could be with my boy.
When I found out halfway through last semester that we were expecting another sweet baboose, I received an extra boost of drive. I knew that it was not an easy calling and that in many ways, working a full time job outside of the home would be easier and less stressful than mommy duty. But yet.......
When I found out halfway through last semester that we were expecting another sweet baboose, I received an extra boost of drive. I knew that it was not an easy calling and that in many ways, working a full time job outside of the home would be easier and less stressful than mommy duty. But yet.......
all I wanted was to hit graduation so that I could be home with my boys.
Last month, I was having lunch with 4 Kindergarten girls. As they ate, we chatted. Then one of them handed me a book and asked me to read it.
I had never heard of this book before; it was titled "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon.
This book is about a little girl who loves lima beans. However, before she starts her first day of school, she decides that she must hide her love of lima beans because loving lima beans is........well.......weird. Unfortunately, as she hides this love and tries to be like everyone else, she finds that she far too easily becomes what people tell her to become. When someone says stripes, her skin turns into stripes; same thing when someone talks about polka dots, an American flag, a rainbow, etc. Whatever people suggest, she turns into. They say it, she becomes it.
She is completely at their mercy, simply because she was caught up in thinking she needed to be like everyone else.
There were moments these past few months when I have felt that way, as though the only proper exclamation point on the end of this whirlwind year would be a full time school counselor position. It has definitely seemed enticing at times.
Since I graduated, I have been asked many, many times: "What are your plans?"
And truth be told, there have been times when I have been embarrassed to say, "Well, I really want to be home with my boys, so I am looking for something part time so that I can utilize my degree but not miss moments with them."
It sounds simple enough to speak those words......but sometimes it is difficult.
For some reason, at times, that answer seems like not enough. Which has made me feel like not enough.
I feel like I should want and aspire to a full time job where I can use my degree. After all, what if all of those years were for nothing? What if I toiled and tried and cried my way through those classes for no payoff?
Yet as I was reading this children's book to a table of adorable kindergarten girls, it hit me.
I just need to eat my lima beans.
I need to stop worrying about what others might think. I need to accept what I feel that God has called me to for our family. I need to stop asking myself those obnoxious "what if" questions.
I know that the road I am choosing is not an easy one. But I also believe that it is blessed because God is leading me down it. I am positive with every inch of my being that I will not look back at my life 30 years from now and regret the choice to spend as many moments with my boys as possible.
The world may say "go out and use your degree immediately", but my heart speaks something different.
I want to be a school counselor full time someday..............just.................not yet.
It's funny the lessons one can learn from a children's book.
