LovingHim-RaisingThem

Its May 2019 and I’m sitting on the sofa, our puppy Barney snuggled into my legs. Coffee in my favourite mug and an empty plate bearing the remnants of blueberry and banana baked porridge sits to the left of me. The table is strewn with notebooks and journals.

And its quiet.

Silent.

This is a reality that I thought would never come, my four children at school, and time to pull my book together. Rewind 6 years and I had 3 boys under school age and I was pregnant. This book was being written on scraps on paper in stolen moments here and there. I can’t believe it is still being written. I thought it would take a year, its taken a decade.

I’m writing the old fashioned way, pen and paper, I know no one does that anymore but I do and I love it, theres something so real and ancient about it, somewhere deep down I think it connects me to a simpler time my soul longs for, I can get a bit idealistic and romantic about such things.

The notebook Im writing in was a mothers day gift from the kids and is bright and beautiful covered with vines and fruit, I smile as I notice, as you read the book you’ll get why.

The pen is a rubbish one from some hardware store, the kind they give out for free, and its partly broken. I always imagined myself as the kind of person who has beautiful pens kept in an orderly manner. But my 35 year old self has finally accepted I will never be that person. I will remain until the end of my days the kind of person who runs around looking down the side of sofas and in my kids bags grateful to find anything that writes. Im all for transformation as you’ll soon learn but my need for perfection is waning at last…thank goodness.

After being a mum for almost 12 years my pen issue isn’t the only thing I’m finding peace with. Im journeying with intention to find peace with who I am. The type of mum I am, the type of wife I am, the type of friend I am, the type of writer I am, the type of body I have and way my voice sounds when its recorded. Ok I admit it, Im never going to find peace that last one.

One day Im going to shout ‘I’m enough!” from the rooftops in my beautifully flawed humanity, my weird voice and soft tummy thats held my 4 babies and mean it deep down in my bones.

With my wide array of flaws and mistakes Im loved and seen and known by a God who is  so very good and who is for me. My head knows its true and that knowledge is trickling into my heart day by day and transforming me. Its so beautiful. Where fear and control used to dominate my decisions and self worth, grace and surrender and gaining traction. Where what other people thought of me used to wrack my body in anxiety, peace is available for me to choose, and it isn’t always easy and I don’t choose well every time but I am making progress.

The book you hold in your hands is the culmination of the decades worth of notebooks and journals in front of me.

Who I am now as a mother is also a culmination of those years. As I do the final edit part of me wants to eradicate some of emotions and stories from the early days, when I was mid 20’s full of insecurity, doubt and striving. But I can’t edit her away because she is me. The broken, wounded parts of my motherhood are part of me, a beautiful part of the redemption story that has played out and will play out until the end.

This book is the result of a simple decision I made in 2009 when my second son was born. Its the result of imperfectly living out that decision every day for the last 10 years. That decision was to seek intimacy and connection with God in the busyness of being a mum. I can tell you truthfully that Ive never stopped searching, trying, failing, rejoicing, weeping and finding that connection.

So join me on a journey of discovering

I hope it leads you to grace, to self acceptance, to joy and to connection.

I hope it leads you to the heart of God every sacred, ordinary day of your life as a mum.

He is ever present, ever good and ever for you, and I have learnt that no matter what that is the deepest reality of our lives. He is the vine and we are the branches. Nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.