Wrapping up 2020

 

While some cannot wait to bid adieu to this bizarre and isolating year, I must admit it wasn't entirely horrible.  The lockdown provided me a season of rest I have not experienced since the year I gave birth to my third child. Okay, I understand that statement doesn't make a lot of sense. Let me clarify. It was not restful in the sense that I got a lot of sleep, but in the sense that my life my life was unrushed and simple. It was the year that my husband took nine months paternity leave to help with our older girls while I concentrated needs of my infant son. 

I find myself in a similar season now, although my circumstances have changed remarkably. I now homeschool three children,  live on acreage, work part time,  have more square footage to clean, a hobby farm AND a "fixer upper", but I feel at rest.

I find myself wondering, why I feel rested when my life is actually more complicated that it ever has been before. Is it a mindset? Is it the pace and beauty of country life? Is it my maturing faith in God and his word? Is it that I am getting a full night of rest nearly every night and don't have to rush out the door to get my children to the bus five mornings a week? Is it the fact that I have all my children in my nest and know how they are doing and what they need at all times? Is it that I am finally cultivating the sort of home atmosphere that I have envisioned ever since I decided to have children? Is it that my husband and I have have a strong, confident love that has taken seventeen years of dying to ourselves? Is it that my work outside the home is satisfying and a continual reminder of how much I need Jesus? Is it that I finally have a "forever home" to slowly decorate as time and finances allow? Is it that I am not overcommitted and stretched to the breaking point by obligations outside my home? I really don't think it is anything specific, but rather a combination of all of the above.  Life is not easy friends, it is a grind any way you slice it. However, I think there are things that we can do to ease our burdens and invite peace into our day to day toil. I live in a household of sinners and there are plenty of tears and disagreements, but there is also an abundance of love and forgiveness and togetherness. 

I have no idea was 2021 holds but I am fairly confident that life will continue to get more complicated, that sorrow will be inevitable and that trials will abound. I am not searching for happiness, but rather contentment. My hope for the future lies in something so much greater than myself. He is the author and the finisher of my faith. The alpha and the omega over my circumstances and the one that weaves all the ragged and beautiful threads of my life into a beauty tapestry.