Stretched

My heart is heavy and my tears ever threaten to fall.  I am learning and growing and being stretched in ways I've only ever imagined.  I've wondered and worried about this place in life, back when my days were spent in the trenches of sleep schedules, potty training, play doh and Veggie Tales.  I am grieving what is gone and scrambling to grasp the reality of where we are.

Bittersweet is the title of this stage in my growth as a mama. mommy. Mom.

I am Home Base.

"Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts." -Oliver Wendell Holmes

My people are boomerangs.  I am a rubber band.

"They might not need me but they might/I'll let my head be just in sight/A smile as small as mine may be
precisely their necessity"- Emily Dickenson

Currently, only one of the seven who hold my heart is home.

My earthly provider is away at work far from home.  Loving from a great distance.

My fisherman-child is on the cusp of turning 16, already a working man.  Maturing.  Walking through realities in life.  Learning.  Changing.  Stretched.

My second born almost-14-year-old (center) is away this week at camp with his youth group.  Experiencing Jesus in a new way. 

My girl is growing up too fast.  Anna spent the night with her girl-cousins at Grandma's house last night.  Her happy heart has experienced unfamiliar and unsettling life-stuff recently.  I have ached for her.  

Jesus, Ever Faithful, walks with us just as He promises.

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."  Elizabeth Stone

Two sisters are a world away.  I struggle, challenged to refuse to protect my own vulnerability and open up to heart throbs.  

Anything could happen. 

 None of this is in my control. 

  I am hopeful that one day soon, I will once again be Mom. Mommy. And Mama.