The gifts in grief.

Well I am still alive and kicking even though there have been days I didn't want to get out of bed. There have been some very hard days and some ok days, but grief is like that. The surprising thing I am finding is that through dealing with such emptiness and pain inside I have been able to embrace and enjoy more wholeheartedly the things that bring me joy, like my family, my friends, and even my home. It has given me reason to pause and ponder on what is important, what I am called to do in my life and what legacy I want to leave behind. I have taken stock and been overwhelmed at what a blessing my beautiful little family is, and that too often I see them as a burden. I have also realised that some things need to change in running our home right now, because even before my grandma died I was feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, and a lot of that was due to me attemtping to be superwoman without meaning to.

I remembered something my grandma said to me after I told her that i'd put my study on hold for a while when I found out I was having another baby after Bethany. She said, "you already have a job with your children". At the time I thought it was just something someone from her generation would say, they didn't have many other options really (I remember grandma talking to me about her learning home keeping skills in school cause it was assumed that was the future for the girls). But what she said was pure wisdom. God has been leading me gently on this journey of embracing and loving motherhood over the past couple of years, but something big has shifted in these past weeks. I have watched people at funerals who had regrets about time not spent with family or the way they treated them, and I have gone though my grandma's photos seeing once again that her greatest love and legacy after her passion for Jesus was her family. It challenged me.

I struggled to adjust back to home schooling this year because I was tyring to fit it around 'my' life and the things I wanted to do, but it's not working and I have grasped that in order to sucessfully pull off home based learning, then the simple fact is we need more time at home. So yesterday I sat down and worked out a weekly schedule. One that allows time for all the schoolwork we need to do to get done, one that allows for time to get my housework done (the house has been a big struggle point for me lately), one that allows for social time, but also one that is realistic and to do it I have had to make decisions to cut a couple of things out. And the funny thing is it didn't make me feel like I was going to miss out on anything, it made me feel more peaceful. To be the mum I wanna be I need to be able to stop rushing from thing to thing and actually invest the time I want to into my family and my home.

I also need a lot more one on one time with God and i've been doing that lately too, it's how I have survived, and I need that not just when I'm a grieving mess, but all the time. My passions haven't changed, I still very much care about poverty and desire to make a difference with my life, but from my base as a mum and we will do it as a family. We are even saving up for a family trip to Africa in the future.

So from grieving I have discovered some gifts... the gift of my family and how much I love them, the gift of enjoying and appreciating the simple things in life, and the gift of remembering my purpose and calling. My grandma would be proud :-)