We are in my last week with 2 kids home full time. Next week, my first baby, now a little man, starts pre-k.  He is ready, and excited- and I find myself feeling so mixed, and mostly sad! I know how good it will be for him, and I truly believe he will love it.  Selfishly, it is a huge schedule and social shift for us and I am having a hard time dealing with that.  And as a mother, especially when I have been home with him in one way or another for all of his life so far, it is really hard to give up that control and contact with your kid to someone else (even when you believe he has truly been given the best teacher EVER!).  I just can’t believe how quickly time really does go, and that next year it will be full days for him.

The truth is, for me, the days really are long, and the years are just so short.  I struggle at home with the kids sometimes, not because I don’t value or appreciate the time with them or know how lucky I am, because I do.  But in those long days, mom doubt starts to creep in, where I wonder if I am really doing a good job with them, and doing right by them by giving up my career, or full time in my new one, to be home with them.  It is a big sacrifice but I know it carries an even greater reward.  I struggle with motherhood because we spend all this time teaching our babies and growing our babies just to prepare them to one day leave our homes (even if it is just for 2.5 hours for now!).  It is really hard.  I saw a quote on a social media feed a few days ago that stopped me in my tracks, literally took the breath out of my lungs for a moment.

Don’t forget the days and years you prayed for what you have now.

Don’t forget the days and years you prayed for what you have now.

I struggle to even really put in to words how that quote makes me feel. The thing is, as I have written about in this series, there are a lot of areas of my life that are huge surprises to me.  But being a mother and a wife, or wanting that with every fiber of my being…that is not a surprise.  13 years ago (what?! How did that happen!!) when I started college, I had such a great plan for my life, that involved being engaged before I graduated, getting married the summer I graduated, and having a baby a year later- because everyone should have 1 year married before they have a baby, and 23 was the right age.  What?! I can hardly type that without nearly passing out in embarrassment…I was one of those girls who was in college pursuing a major passion to build a career (I DID want to teach and grow a career while somehow simultaneously staying home with those said children)…but also wanting to fall in love and “start” life.  It is so embarrassing now…but it is a part of my story, and hopefully some 18 year olds can learn from it! It was so not the way to live!

Anyways, through various tricky relationship experiences in college (none going where I so desperately at the time wanted), I started guessing near my last couple years that this plan wasn’t quite what was going to happen for me.  And truly, it felt devastating.  When I finally got out of the relationship cycle and just started living, I was able to really start trusting God.  My prayers starting changing from this desperate need to “find” God’s will for my life and live it (also, in my mind, to find who I was supposed to marry) to praying that my heart just become more and more like His, and that I could just keep moving forward and living a life that attempted to bring Him glory.  But my focus, my dream, in the back of my heart, was always the same even when the timeline changed.  To find someone that I fell completely in love with, someone who made me want to be a better person every day. Who pushed me and grew me.  I wanted to be the same for him.  And I wanted us to get married and have fun and travel and buy a house and fill that house with a dog and kids.

Don’t forget the days and years you prayed for what you have now.

The days are long, but the years are short…and my goodness, did I pray and pray for what I have now.  So desperately and seriously, with so many tears over so many years.  This looks different for everyone, for every adult.  And I think it keeps evolving- there are new things on my list now that if they happen in the future, I’m sure I will feel like I am not the best steward of. But I believe in a God that is in our midst.  That is very present in our lives, giving us things in the time that is right and fighting our battles with us.  When I think about what my life would look like now if I had my initial timeline given to me, it is terrifying! Truly!  But God knew so much better.

And I don’t ever want to forget how long I prayed for this.  Even in those long days, when I don’t know if I am doing a great job.  When the dishes aren’t done and the laundry is in 15 baskets all over the house and I worked more than I played on the floor.  When I worry and over-plan and fret.  This is what I prayed for and wanted, and it is so much harder and greater and scarier and more fulfilling than I ever imagined. Whatever it may be for you…

Don’t forget the days and years you prayed for what you have now.