The chaos a day can bring, or the peace His love can bring

People ask me on a daily basis how I survive through the day with 5 kids. Heck, there were days when I only had 3 and was asked the same thing, and I've come to realize with each new blessing that has been added to our family, that it's not the number of children that make life stressful, it's simply life. We're fooling ourselves to think that a mom with 1 child has it any easier than a mom with 18 children. Children are children, and life happens whether you have 1 or multiple. Now, that's not to say that having multiple children doesn't create a dynamic in a home that a family with less could never understand, that's completely true! Each of our lives is different. Each of our days unfolds differently. 

And shouldn't they? 

Wouldn't it be a pretty boring world if every single person lived the same monotonous life, day in and day out? If there were no surprises, bumps, cracks, gaping holes in our lives, where would all of the growth come from? 

My days are filled with these cracks, and those gaping holes, and it's within those crevices that I find the strength to push through the day. Not because I have 5 children, but simply because I have children. Yes, my life is crazy, CRAZY, and I'm sure there are a ton of people who wouldn't trade my life for anything--and that's ok; Because I wouldn't trade my life for anything. I love this life, even within those dark, dreary crevices. 

I find out more and more about who I am within those crevices; those cracks and holes of my life hold amazing opportunities to learn from Him. 

I look back on the past few years of my adult life, well I suppose my entire adult life, and I can honestly say this is the first time I can truly, without question say that I am happy. I am happy, and things are not perfect in my life. 

I am happy within the long and broken crack of my life that we are currently in, and I love it there. I love the strength that I have to find within Him because I have exhausted everything and can give no further. I love that feeling of knowing that my future, it's set. Nothing that happened today can change that future He has for me. No mistake I make today, or hole that I may fall in can keep His plan from becoming my reality. He has promised this life to me and when I walk in that promise, I can grow wings and soar like an eagle. 

I love depending on Him, finally, for everything, and not myself. 

It's difficult, to wake up and give it over to Him. I found myself for the first few years of my life as a Christian thinking I had to set special time aside for Him, had to rise at they wee hours of the morning and do all of these things to follow Him properly. 

Misery came from those feelings, not wings! I wanted the wings, I wanted to fly high with Him.

As I ponder that question, how do you survive your day, I find myself shouting, because I have my best friend by my side. Each and every moment, I have Jesus by my side. All of a sudden, the barrier and fakeness I had put up around me has crumbled down around me and in place of it came a true and passionate relationship. One where I make no excuses to Him, put on no fronts or shows. I come to Him each moment just they way that I am, and I ALWAYS feel adequate. If I am truly in His presence, I am at peace in my day even if I am failing a million times. And I mean FAILING and I'm ok to admit that. 

I'm comfortable admitting when someone asks how I get through my day, that I don't get through my day. Honestly, if it were up to ME, I'd probably run away multiple times a day to a deserted island that served copious amounts of Merlot. BUT, praise God from whom all blessings flow, it's not me who gets me through the day, it's Him. Because if I ran away to that island, I'd miss the most amazing life ever. MY LIFE. 

And so would you my sweet friend. I know how you're feeling today. The kids are already fighting, the laundry needs to be started, breakfast may still need to be served, YOU my sister may even still be in your Jammie's, and that's ok. 

It's ok because those things will get done, your day will end the way it was meant to, with you tucking your sweet blessings into bed tonight and all of the cares, the pain and heartache you felt today, it will pass away with a peace that surpasses all of your understanding.....THAT PEACE IS HIS PEACE. 

I live in that peace, as much as I possibly can. And hope you do too sweet friend. That peace is so much sweeter than the dark place this world wants to keep us captive in--a dark place where we think we're doing nothing right.

Don't stay there! 

Rest in the peace that you were chosen to love those littles of yours because of who you are to them and to Him, and that is amazing! 

Don't miss out on the little things of today, the messes and the mistakes, they help you grow I promise, and they help you live in that peace! If I didn't have that peace, I'd have missed these wonderful moments this morning

She was being the silliest little flower, making the cutest little faces at the camera. I was cold, maybe not in the best of moods yet, and this little girl helped remind me of His peace, and we had the best time snapping these pictures trying to get a decent one of us, not blinded by the flash