It has been a wild six months to say the least. So many ups and downs and somehow I am seeing it all interconnect in beautiful but sometimes hard ways.
The last month and a half specifically have been spent with some pretty bad morning sickness. Weeks of throwing up. Constant nausea that I am still fighting (but it is getting better).
My parents came to visit us in July for our son's second birthday. They had a ten day trip planned and they ended up staying two and a half weeks. Bless their hearts. I spent almost their entire visit laying on the couch while they took care of our son, picked up groceries, painted walls in our house, and offered plenty of physical and emotional support. They were a Godsend and the timing couldn't have worked out more perfectly.
During that time I dealt with a lot of ranging emotions. But the reality of how helpless I felt continued to bring fears as I accepted how alone we continue to feel here. While we have a handful of friends, it is our family and closest friends who came to our aid in the past. And it has been really hard to feel that void.
And yet through it, my husband has been so supportive. Even our son - his sweet two year old hand patting me on the back while I threw up in the bathroom. I was promised that this time away would draw us closer as a family. Boy has it, but at a cost that I didn't realize would be so hard.
It is so crazy to even type this. The four months or so leading up to getting pregnant was amazing. We finally joined a gym. I was being super productive and focused. I was taking care of myself. My son has been so fun and independent and we were getting out so much more. I was eating healthy again and managed to finally lose ten pounds since our son was born.
In the months we spent trying to get pregnant, I finally got to a place where I let it go. I was enjoying our family time, I was taking care of myself, and oddly enough, simply going to the gym on a regular basis felt like I found a place to belong! My people!
And of course that is when I got pregnant!
And then suddenly all momentum came to a sudden halt. I was binge watching TV, spending too much time on my phone, and simply trying to get through another day. Living for the day to pass is not a fun way to live. But being sick, I was simply counting down the days until I could feel a small bit like myself again.
As I scrolled through Facebook I was constantly reminded of my lack of relationship. A tool that is supposed to help me feel connected to friends far away only made me feel further. The fakeness of social media showed it's ugly face and I knew I needed to let it go.
So I signed out of my personal account long term and figured out how to run my blog's account under a friendless blank account. It truly has been freeing. I started personally reaching out to my friend's more - those back home and even one's here. I decided I no longer wanted to take how social media made me feel so personally and realize it's not just about me. People do care - but I needed to change the platform from where I allowed them to.
I started attending a new mom's group at the end of the spring. They only had three meetings left before they stopped for the summer. But through some bold faith I asked God - can this just be it?
And it was amazing. Such kind and relatable women. This is my third group I have tried but after a year and a half and still feeling like I hadn't truly made many friends, I needed to keep looking.
We also tried another church last week. Also our third church in a little over a year and a half. We are committed people and it is hard to feel like we are just giving up on one. But we have some very real spiritual and relational needs. And we desperately needed that hole to be filled. So full of overwhelming tears, I could barely hold myself together during the service. What we needed in this moment, whether short term or long term, was right there.
I needed to be brought to my knees before the Lord, and this is the first time I was able to in a church service since we moved. Thank you Jesus.
My husband has been struggling with some ongoing health issues. It got significantly worse in the fall and we haven't seem much improvement. His doctor is ready to put him on long term medication and we are both very fearful of what that means.
So we are praying and researching like crazy. We have learned a lot in such a short period of time. I so wish we took this more seriously years ago. Yet here we are desperate for a better solution.
And thankfully we have a few other options we can try before jumping into a long term medical commitment. One area that I take more control in is our diet. We are switching to a restrictive diet, including going gluten free. For a girl that just started tolerating being able to cook anything in the kitchen again, I don't have a ton of energy but I am doing my best to take initiative for my husband's health to do what I can. We are walking in faith, praying that we would be directed towards a path of healing.
I just cried through typing this entire post. I am so hormonal right now. But we are constantly being refined and while our burden feels heavy, it is our faith that is giving us hope. It is our family that is giving us joy. And it is binding together that we are able to continue to learn during this time of living here.
My husband and I have been talking about rest, leisure, and work. And how we no longer want to just let time pass as we mindlessly watch TV, look at our phones, and endure parenting. We want to be present. We want to nap when it is time to rest. Take the sabbath more seriously. Spend our leisure time enjoying our son, being outside, and being active.
There are so many distractions to the good things in life. We are awake. We are listening. We have so much more to offer each other and this world. We are ready to be present.
Lord, have your way in me. It is in the arms of Christ where we truly belong.
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