I'm Just Fine.

Some days I just function. I feel like I may have fallen into the exact hole I was afraid of falling into when I went back to work and somehow now that I am here I am not sure where else to be.  I work, I take care of my home and family, I have occasional enjoyable interactions with others, I function through life. I am not unhappy. Really, I am doing just fine.

Fine.

Not great but not bad.  Fine.

There is no problem. There are challenges, I am busy, I have worries, but we keep going forward.  We are still on track toward our goals.  We are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing right now and going exactly where we are supposed to be going.

It is all Fine.

Fine.

I realize why I have struggled so much to transition from homemaker to working mom, because when I was at home I wasn't just fine, I was thriving.  I was growing, I was experiencing, I was living.  I loved every day, embraced every struggle.  I think the fact that I was doing so well and thriving so much is what allowed me to launch into working full time so enthusiastically and optimistically.  I was AWESOME, I could do ANYTHING.  Bring. It. On!!!!

And now I am fine.

How are you?  I'm fine.

So.  Now what?

My favorite bible story is Joseph.  I love it mostly because frankly Joseph's life sucked but he kept a positive attitude throughout.  It started out pretty good.  Favorite child of a wealthy man, spoiled rotten.  Then something went terribly wrong and didn't go right again for a very long time.  In fact whenever things started to go right, they went wrong again.  And the wrong wasn't really his fault.  His brother's sold him to slavery, Potiphar's wife tried to seduce him and that Baker totally forgot him.  And yet, Joseph never stopped doing his best, never lost sight of the Lord and just kept moving forward in faith.  We know that he eventually interprets Pharaoh's dream, is released from prison and promoted to a high ranking official that gets the nations ready for a famine and ultimately is reunited with his family saving the future nation of Israel.  We know the story.  We know all that suffering put Joseph in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to share God's message and save His people.  But Joseph didn't know that during those years he was in slavery, those years he was in prison.  He only knew that he was a nobody going nowhere but if that was where God put him he would do his best for God.

Compared to Joseph my life is looking pretty good.  But, like Joseph I am sort of in the middle of it right now.  I am in the middle of raising children, middle of John's education, middle of working and frankly I am in the middle of my life.  I have definitely left the folly of my youth and am deeply entrenched in my mid-life crisis.  And as I go forward I am trusting with all my heart that God is leading us somewhere.  We are not in the midst of this huge life change simply for an opportunity to struggle.  There is a purpose.  Joseph's story gives us hope.

So maybe instead of being fine I am really hopeful.

How are you?

I have hope!