I'm Not Ready to be a Wife or Mom. And That's Totally Okay!

The baby had been crying for over an hour simply because he was tired, and refusing yet again to go down for a nap. His dad walked in from work and found me, the nanny, sweaty and red faced bouncing the baby up and down and singing to him as I walked around the living room. My pony tail was falling out, I probably smelled like baby puke and I knew that I looked like a hot mess. As I walked out to my car, I thought one thing:

"I'm not ready to be a mom." 

Luckily for me, I am not pregnant. Or even engaged, or in a relationship at all so that's not something that I need to worry about for the present moment. However, this thought truly caught me by surprise as this is something that I say that I am ready for and want ALL the time. I talk to my best friends on a regular basis saying to them "I'm just ready to marry my Jesus lovin' country boy, adopt my puppy, have some babies and be a mom!" I sometimes sit and think "Holy crap- I'm 24, and still haven't had a relationship. This is NOT what I had planned for my life!" But as I pondered this thought the other day, it really gave my heart some clarity and peace that I have been praying about recently. 

I realized there are MANY reasons why I am not ready to be a mom, and also not ready to be a wife. And I am not about to throw typical "I need to get my relationship with God to my top priority so he'll give me a husband first" type reasoning. 

The first reason? I am in a selfish season aka learning how to make myself my top priority for the first time in my life. The concept of Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last (aka JOY) can be really dangerous. If you always put others before yourself, you will burn out. I have done this in some form for 24 years, and I finally burned out when I came home from Shelterwood. For this reason, I have HAD to make my own needs my top priority in order to get back to the joy I find from serving others. Sometimes I have to choose working out over talking with a hurting friend because my body needs the physical outlet instead of helping someone I love. And that is OK. I'm finally realizing that. Telling people no does not mean I do not love them. I also LOVE having freedom to make my own choices- like if I want to go to Starbucks after work I can. I don't need to worry about picking up my kids from daycare, or making dinner, or running late for soccer practice. I can do what I need to do for myself whenever I need to, and that is a blessing for this season. For that reason, I wouldn't be physically able to cater to the needs of a husband or kids right now. Thats where my heart is, its what my soul longs for. But, I physically can't right now and that is completely okay. 

The second reason- I am just now learning who I am as a person. For my entire life I have let other people determine who I am as a person. I have let them give me labels both positive and negative, and let others direct my choices out of fear of hurting them. I told myself for a long time that my life would be "complete" when I got married and had kids. But I've learned through a lot of counseling that my wholeness cannot and will not ever come from or be dependent on other people. If I continue allowing other people to direct who I am, I will never be who God created me to be. For that reason, I have to figure out who I am, and who I want to be before I am able to have a true, fulfilling relationship with a husband, and be able to be a true role model and example for my kids. 

The third reason? I am just establishing the building blocks and foundation of my faith. Yes, I have been a "Christian" my entire life. I've gone to church, I know the sunday school answers. However, I've only found true freedom in Christ and in my faith within the past year and a half of my life. I am in a season of rapid and foundational growth, and I spend much time developing my relationship with God on a weekly basis. For that reason, I need to continue growing before I can expect myself to parent kids in a godly manner. I want to be a faith role model for my kids. I want to be able to challenge and nurture them as they grow in their dependence on Christ. And if I am still a baby in my faith, it would be like a baby leading babies. I am thankful for this season of learning so that I can learn how to help my kids grow in their faith when I am blessed with that opportunity someday. 

The fourth and final reason? I've got a lotttt of broken pieces that are just, just starting to be cleaned up and be put back together. I've mentioned before that I've struggled with anxiety, depression, bad eating habits, severe anger issues, manipulation, and serious trust issues along with many many other things. As much as it kills me to be patient, and work through these painful things, I do not want to pass on these issues to my kids. They deserve to have a mom who loves herself enough to face her past, conquer her issues, and learn how to take care of herself properly. I want to learn how to cook healthy meals for my kids. I want to learn how to deal with my frustrations so that I don't end just shutting down and screaming at people when I get angry and overwhelmed. I want to continue to learn how to accept and give love without being manipulative about it. I want to continue to develop my personal boundaries so that I can learn to love and trust my future husband. A marriage is supposed to be focused on Christ, love and trust, and the marriage is the center of the family. I am not in a place right now where I can leave my past in the past and focus positively on the future. But, I have made immense progress over the past few years and I am super excited to see where I am at in a few years and God brings me into the relationship I have prayed about and dreamed about for my whole life. 

As much as this season is frustrating and painful at times, I am daily choosing to remind myself that it is a blessing and this is just a season. I want to look back on my single years when married and get to tell my kids awesome stories about how I used this time that God has given me and the exciting things I chose to do during this time. Until then, I will be praying for my future family and my future husband each and every day. And who knows, I might already know my Jesus lovin' cowboy, and I just don't know it! I'll just have to wait and see!! ;) 

"Preach the Gospel at All Times and When Necessary Use Words"

"Daddy knows his Bible, but he doesn't know me." 

I heard this yesterday while sitting in on a meeting for youth group leaders during Tool Time from a story shared by Pastor Duncan about a little girl who's family he had stayed with a long time ago. Her father was a pastor, and spent many hours at church every week, and not a lot of time at home. Now, before you think I'm gonna go hating on parents, I am not at all. This phrase just really made me think about Christianity as a whole. 

I thought of my girls at Shelterwood complaining that their parents and many other people in their lives would oftentimes shove "Jesus answers" at them, and they never really felt like they were being listened to, their parents were simply waiting to shove another Bible verse at them to get them to shut up. They weren't comfortable talking to their parents about real issues they were facing because they didn't want anymore "christian answers" to their problems. This is part of the reason I always waited to talk about faith with my girls until they brought it up with me. Don't get me wrong, they knew where I stood. They knew what I believed, and that I prayed for them always. But the last thing I wanted to do was shove Jesus at them when they couldn't even trust me as a human. I was messaging one of my girls a few weeks ago, and she said to me "Marissa, even though you left Shelterwood you never stopped caring, ever. And I know your littles loved you and still love you very very much. I love that about you." I had Jesus talks with many of my girls. But we also had talks about being homosexual, about drugs, about alcohol, about self harm, sex, guys, stealing, addictions, pornography, and everything else under the sun before the name of Jesus ever came into one of our conversations. 

I want you to think about the phrase I mentioned before outside of a parent/child relationship. Do you really know the people you hold close to your heart? Do you know what makes them angry? Or what they love? Their favorite foods, or something that could bring a smile to their face? Do you know what makes them feel loved? Or what hurts them the most? Do you know their story? Do you really know them? If you don't, why should they be vulnerable and share where they are at in their faith with you?

I think sometimes as Christians we get really wrapped up in Jesus. Don't get me wrong that's not truly a bad thing. But, it really depends on if we are wrapped up in who Jesus really was and imitating Him, or simply just going through the motions of religion. You see, we can be GREAT people, and even great Christians who can quote the Bible backwards and forwards and are involved in 500 different ministries that take up all of our free time. Am I saying that God won't use you if thats true? Absolutely not. However, if you are so wrapped up in being a good looking Christian that the people who are closest to in your life you don't even truly know, there is a problem. 

I think the biggest thing I learned while at Shelterwood is the power of community and vulnerability. If you don't have a solid community where you can be vulnerable, your faith is not going to grow. It's just not. Jesus called us to live among each other and to treat each other with love and grace. Community isn't perfect- it's really messy actually. People are going to hurt you, and make you angry, and make you wish you could just hide in a hole and never talk to anyone ever again. But its necessary. I don't like to call people out, but if you do not have someone in your life who is continually asking you hard questions, and challenging your faith, and calling you out gracefully when you screw up, you need to re-evaluate your faith. I don't care if it's your pastor, or an older member from your church, another person from small group, or your aunt. You need someone to challenge you to help you grow. 

I want you to think about the relationships in your life and replace Daddy with your name:

"Marissa really knows the Bible, but she doesn't know me."

If I heard one of my girls say that, I would be crushed beyond words. If my niece or nephew said that, I would be crushed. If one of my friends said that, I would be crushed. I want to live my life in a way that my faith comes through my relationships, not my faith being shoved on people to try and create relationships. I firmly believe and trust that all my Shelterwood girls knowthat they could tell me anything, and I am not going to freak out on them. I am not going to tell them that Jesus is condemning them and they are a sinner and going to hell. I would give them a hug, and say "Wow this is hard, but we are going to get through it. Can we pray about this together?" I am not going to try and get them to change, but I am going to love them and speak the truth through that love. You can't try to force knowledge, logic, and truth onto to someone who only knows enough about you based upon what they observe about you, or the little knowledge they may have of you. 

I've struggled through these past 6 months as I have learned and grown more than ever in my life. My heart desperately still wants to be working with teens. Like desperately. But, God has brought me into this season for restoration and healing. My focus needs and has to be taking care of myself right now, as hard as that is for me to settle down and accept. But, I know that God will use me to work with teens again someday soon. And as I am in this season and continually growing more rapidly in my faith than I have ever in my life, I am deeply challenged by this statement. Not only do I want to continue growing in my faith, and my knowledge of the Bible, I want to challenge myself to allow myself to have vulnerable community again and let people truly get to know me, and I want to get to know them. 

So here is my random thought of the day: Do you really "know" the people you hold dear in your life? I want to encourage you to really get to know the people you hold dear in your life, and even those you don't. I challenge you to take this leap of faith and dive deep in your faith in a new and exciting way by getting to truly know those around you. It will teach you more than you will ever begin to expect. It's never, ever too late to start getting to know someone. Give it a chance, it will change your life and theirs. 

It's Time to Be Well

If you know me, you know I have an obsession. I LOVE books. I have more books than I can count, on any variety of subjects. I love fiction, non-fiction, self help, christian faith books, devotionals, biographies, really anything. But there are few books both fiction and non that have completely stunned me, and left me dumbfounded knowing that my life was changed because I read this book. This book, The Road to Becoming is one of those books. 

I was a fan of the band Addison Road a few years back, and was sad when I heard they would no longer be touring, but their lead singer Jenny Simmons would still be creating music. I downloaded one of the songs off her first album, and fell in love with it. It's called "Don't Lose Heart." You will love this song even more after reading Jenny's story. This song saved my life on a lottttt of nights when I was fighting serious depression and wanting to give up hope. I've followed Jenny's page on FB for a while, and have loved seeing the updates about her life post band and her adventures with her daughter Annie. After commenting on one of her statuses at some point, and receiving a personal response and being told that she wished we could grab coffee and tell our life stories, I knew this was someone I wanted to keep on my radar. 

Fast forward a year or two, and Jenny starts a kickstarter for her new book, The Road to Becoming. Now, I knew I wanted this book. I've read things she's written for years and knew it was going to be good. But alas, I was poor and couldn't. So, I have searched for a good deal on this book high and low since the day it came out. Finally, when I was in Kansas City I found it on sale for FIVE DOLLARS. WHAT?! This book only came out in 2015 people- it was a TOTAL God thing that I found this book for a price I could afford. So, I picked it up and made plans to read it. Little did I know that this book was going to be exactly the words that God needed me to hear a short month and a half later. 

I've struggled with being real with people with where I am at exactly... I am in a season of change, hope, and growth. It's a season of immense preparation. I've been told that MANY times recently. But heres the thing? I am EXTREMELY impatient. Like ridiculously impatient. If things do not go my way instantly, I tend to try and bail. Not my best quality. I heard a quote once that we've transitioned from the polaroid film generation to the instagram generation. My generation wants things NOW without having to do anything in order to get there. Just instant results, now. Please. And thats where I've been at. My soul knows I am in a season of rest, to heal and restore from Shelterwood and to heal and restore from my past. I am in a season where I need to focus on my mental, physical, emotional health and counseling, and not worry about getting a great job and a new car. However the physical side of me? My brain is like FORGET THIS. Let's blow our money and go to Disney World and get a real job, car, and apartment like our friends! You're fine heart, just shut up! Well, after spending 6 months of trying to get my soul to shut up, I'd finally had enough. And thats when I picked up this book. I loved a quote from the book that said "My road to becoming started when I finally told the whispers to shut up. My road to becoming started when I wasn't afraid of my own voice anymore. And that was a good moment, because as it turned out, I was the kind of girl destined to use my voice."

 Jenny talks about the depression she went into, going from a fast paced CRAZY life as a musician to a slow pace, staying at home with her daughter. She talks about how she felt like she lost control of her life, and no longer had a roadmap on how to carry on. She had no idea what was coming next, and had NO clue what to do and was desperately grasping at straws for even a tiny bit of control. She says "Looking back now, I realize that aimlessly walking through Target was the only way I felt any modicum of control over my life. I could no longer decipher a life road map, but I sure as heck could get myself from the home-goods aisles to shoes to makeup. And I clung to what little control I had left while my heart wrapped itself around a foreign concept: sometimes the next step feels like a million miles away. Sometimes you just get lost, and you are truly, painfully, unavoidably at a complete standstill with nowhere to go." Oh how I get this and can relate to this on an unreal level. After almost every counseling session I find myself at Meijer. Don't ask me why. I never knew why till I read this book. I go to Meijer because it's familiar. It's a store that I know well and love. And while my brain can't seem to wrap itself around the stuff I just tried to deal with in counseling, it can sure as heck walk me through the grocery aisles, and to the craft aisles, and to everything my heart enjoys until the tears have dried, and I remember that this too shall pass. Meijer is my way of having some control in my life when I have seemingly no control over anything else. 

I got to the end of this book, and was in tears. Jenny overcame SO MUCH. Like so much it is rediculous. Addison Road's equipment and vehicle were stolen twice, and then totaled in a crash. Them, the RV they rented holding ALL of their belongings literally blew up. Her daughter had to have emergency surgery as an infant, and so many other things. And I sat here stunned thinking "Holy crap. And she's still praising Jesus! AMEN!" Midway though the book someone asked Jenny this: "If God doesn't step in and divinely change where I find myself on this piece of broken earth, do I still trust Him? Can I still live my story well?" She paused and had to think about it, but eventually was able to come around and say yes. 

I thought about that as I sat reading... I thought "Can I still live my story well if _____ (needing full time work, constant battle with anxiety/depression, singlehood, financial situation, etc) doesn't happen? Will I still be able to trust Him? She talks about how sometimes the answers to prayers we so desperately want oftentimes are not what we need because we are on the road to becoming. 

We are on the road to becoming what God needs us to be in order to walk through the next phase of the life. The road isn't forever, but there are seasons where we are going to be under construction for longer than we thought and LOTS of road closed signs, and needing to take detours that we didn't plan and we don't want. But what are we going to do with that? Are we going to sit and pout, or are we going to trust that God has got this and will get us through? I forget this a LOT. Like almost every day I have to remind myself that even though I do not like this journey that I am on at all, it's still part of his plan and he will get me through. I just need his strength and not my own. Because my own is not enough. 

I am tired of creating my own road map, slapping "in the name of Jesus" on it and calling it God's will for me. I am tired of expecting things to go one way, and having them turn out completely wrong when in my heart I knew that I needed to be doing something different from the get go. I remember when I was thinking about leaving Shelterwood, and I kept going to my supervisor Kari and telling her that I didn't know where God was leading me, I could see him leading me down both paths. She kept encouraging me to be still, be quiet, and wait upon the Lord and he would show me. It was SO RIDICULOUSLY hard. Day after day after day for about 2 months going back and forth, trying to make the decision. And one day, God just gave me peace in my heart and told me it was time to go. I cried like a baby. I didn't want to go, but I knew in my heart that was what I was supposed to do. I had NO roadmap. No idea what I was coming home to, only a part time job, and my house. I was scared out of my mind because for the first time I didn't have a plan, and I was floundering. I NEED a plan. I need structure. I need the same spot at church every week. I need my alarm clock to go off at the same time every morning with the same ringtone. I need my socks to be in the top drawer. I need predictability for my own stability. Without it, I begin to crumble and fear that I am going to completely fall apart. Until I read this book. 

Stability is not bad, routine is not bad. But relying on it as my saving grace? Thats a problem. Having a complete meltdown because things could not be EXACTLY how I said they needed to be? Thats a problem. Thats not realistic. It's a problem thats gotten significantly worse since I got home from Missouri. My food touches, and I feel like WWIII has just started inside my soul. (Only a small bit of exaggeration there.... it's really that much of a problem.) If I lose control of anything, I completely shut down and panic. And I've realized after reading this book, that maybe this is what God is trying to teach me.... I don't have to have control over everything for it to be okay. My meal can still taste good even if my food accidentally touches. I can still enjoy church even if I panic after talking to people. I can still have a good life even if that past year hasn't gone how I planned. I can still have a good, God honoring life even if my past didn't play out how I wanted it to. I can still have a good life without a roadmap warning me about what is coming up next. 

So here is my random thought of the day for you: Take a deep breath, and realize that while you may not have a roadmap for this part of the journey, it's okay. Because you have someone in the driver's seat who knows the roadmap wayyyyy better than you ever will. And he will keep you safe. The journey will end well, if not on earth than in heaven. I didn't plan on being 24 and still living with my parents. I didn't plan to still be single. I didn't plan on still being nannying instead of having a real job. I didn't plan on still driving a car from 1999. I didn't plan really any part of where I am. But God did. And I am choosing to trust Him. He's whispering in my ear "Marissa, it's time to be well." 

Take a minute and listen to this song.... This wasn't the one I intended on including, but I found it as I looked up the other one on Youtube and I feel that this fits this blogpost perfectly. It's time to be well. It's time to stop lamenting in the past, to confront the pain and let it go. It's time to stop letting Satan demand control and kick him out of the passenger seat constantly fighting for control. It's time to recognize that even when I have a hard time seeing it myself right now, God is calling me to be well!