Making More Sense Of It All

Sometimes, I just don't have the words to articulate what I am trying to say... Sometimes, using other people's words seem to help me make more sense of what I am feeling...

So, I just got finished with the post about taking Allie to see Wicked on Broadway. It was an emotional post for me to do - for several reasons. As I pushed the "Publish Post" blog and glanced at my side-bar to see if any of the blogs I read had been updated, I saw that one called Resolved2Worship had. In her post from today, there was a quote that pretty much sums up a lot of what I am feeling right now... and what I felt that night that we were at the Broadway show... and the entire trip to New York City... and in mothering a daughter that is now a teenager, for that matter.

Suddenly, through birthing a daughter, a woman finds herself face to face not only with an infant, a little girl, a woman-to-be, but also with her own unresolved conflicts from the past and her hopes and dreams for the future.... As though experiencing an earthquake, mothers of daughters may find their lives shifted, their deep feelings unearthed, the balance struck in all relationships once again off kilter. ~ Elizabeth Debold and Idelisse Malave

Indeed, I often feel like I am experiencing an earthquake these days. In motherhood and friendship alike, I feel shifted. I am a perpetual ball of unearthed, raw feelings and often feel off kilter. All of these things leads me back to my strong belief that God is using our lives - our relationships, in particular - to refine us for Himself. My undying love for my children has shown me a fraction more of His love for me. The shortcomings that I face daily as their mother, as a wife, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend show me more clearly than ever that I am inadequate. He is the only thing that makes me valuable or able to fulfill the jobs that I have before me. I am thankful for the sanctification that I find in all of these relationships and for the chance to experience a life of loving and living and growing because of them.

I have been - and continue to be - changed for good.