I showered at nap time today. Not E’s morning nap time, which may have seemed reasonable, but the 2 o’clock-ish, post-lunch nap time enjoyed by both children. In other words, I wore pajamas until the afternoon. Maybe this isn’t a big deal for some, but it’s kind of a challenging thing for me. I’m not one to need my coffee first thing before I’m ready to face the world (although it’s nice), but I do require a shower to set my day on the right path. Today was lost on me for so many reasons, and this morning’s course did not help matters much.

On the first of this month, I began writing a post to commemorate the new year…goals and hopes and a few themes I want to focus on in 2014. We were on our way to Christmas celebration number four, it was snowing like mad, and the kids has finally succumbed to sleep in the car. I was feeling all on top of things and enjoying charting out a bit for the months ahead, and then I somehow deleted over half of my post. By the time I collected my thoughts again and recovered the direction I wanted to take, we had arrived at our destination. I didn’t even dare attempt to write any further into that evening. It was 11pm or later before we all settled into rooms and unpacked enough to get the littles to bed.

It would have been good then for me to note the way the year was starting out, and to mentally prep myself a tad for the next week and a half to come. No one can really prepare you though, for a sick baby on a long car ride home in a blizzard, a storm that persists for three more days, or a bug that has your wee one down for the count for ten treacherous days in a row. The only thing for them to do would perhaps be to say, “This next little while is going to try you, and then it will try you again. Prepare for long days inside. Prepare to be crazily behind on sleep. Prepare to be puked on, over and over, until you think it’s not possible to be any more exhausted of it, and then smile and prepare some more. Oh, and hire someone to try to keep up with the laundry. In the middle of all of this, just know that your mama heart will break probably a thousand times for your babe, your two year old will naturally get squirrelly and climb walls, and at least one more of you will fall victim to the great and powerful virus of 2014 in some way or another. But have no fear. The God of the Universe will undergird you as you trip and stumble into the new year. I promise, He will.”

It’s true. The God of the Universe does not fail us, even when life feels a bit relentless, and when everything about days upon days feels tiresome and feudal and harsh. (And I’m not trying to be dramatic–there’s always more below the tip of the iceberg, you know. And I’m not trying to pretend others don’t have it far worse, either, just in case the disclaimer is necessary 🙂 But it does take some steadfast faith to trust that He has us, especially when it feels like life is coming at us from all angles…and that’s what I’m angling for.

When I had some semblance of a new year’s post in the works, I was all enthralled with the sense I was getting–that this year would be about putting a stake in the ground. That this year I’d commit to words like rooted, planted, and firm. I still like these words for 2014. I like them a lot. I think they just might be taking shape in a way I hadn’t expected, which is to say that God is already helping me to exercise the practice of them in the daily. For this, I am grateful. I’m also relieved, despite my lack of shower before noon and the laundry piles still taunting from various dark corners around the house, that today our tiniest seems to have come out from under her recent, disheartening state. As such, I think I’ll declare today the second, first day of the year for our little family. January 14, 2014, here’s to you. And here’s to all of the ways you’ll help us to become more firmly established in Christ in the upcoming year.

rooted. planted. unwavering.
mm