Finding Him In The Mess of Motherhood + Marriage

I used to spend a lot of time reading my Bible. Not in any arrogant lady-ta-I'm-better-than you way; simply in a I Love Reading His Word sort of way. I read it in the mornings and sometimes on lunch breaks, when I worked at the bank. I read it in between emails and ministry dates when I worked for the church. I read it after dinner and before bed and in the middle of the night. Sometimes it was out of duty and chore, but mainly and mostly out of love and hunger and thirst.

I'm a journaler, too. I journal. I have a sweet leather journal with creamy white pages, edges frayed and all, filled with words and prayers and processes from my brain and heart. I have notes and memories scrawled into those pages, tears staining areas where words failed, and passages of scripture processed by pen. 

It was a way I found Him, unfailingly, He would meet me in the still and the quiet.

While we were engaged and learning the beginnings of one another, while we were newlyweds and enjoying the bliss of the honeymoon months and years, while we were aching and longing to become mommy and daddy, as we waded through fertility treatments and autoimmune diseases, loss and sorrow, grief unfolded, and then adoption and pregnancy after loss. In the stages and seasons, in the chapters of this story before 2016, I found Him steadily and consistently in His pages and in my journal, hours on end spent together in stillness.

But now. Now I have two babies; one is freshly one and the other is just 7 months. I'm a wife to a grad school student who also works part time and shares the night shift of babies with me. I have writing deadlines and a photography business. I'm working on a project resembling a book to be. The hours on end in stillness and silence with Him are at a halt and I am learning to be okay with that.

Some mamas get up an hour before their littles, but I can't. I am up feeding faces all night long, changing diapers, swapping babies with my husband, barely surviving til morning. There is no way I am able to wake up unless a baby is screaming at me to do so. Im one of those MOMBIES they talk about and write blogs about and drink wine for.

I'm learning to find Him in the mess that is motherhood and marriage. The mess is beautiful much of the time, but it is still a mess. It is still chaotic and hard and challenging. It is still messy. A beautiful, imperfect mess. Because we are here, earth, instead of there, Heaven. But He is still there right smack dab in the middle of it.

The other night I spent some time in the pages of my Bible and I scrawled some words into my journal. Once a daily devourer of His word, now a daily devourer of cheese and chocolate. But really, on most days, I read the same truths over and over and over again because they're plastered on my walls all over my house as a steady reminder. 

What was once word-studies and long hours of sitting in silence is now a constant cry for grace amidst diaper changes and feeding mouths. It is now finding Him in the long, drawn out, seemingly-never-ending sleepless nights, that will end before I know it, where I'm begging Him for patience and gratitude. I am finding Him in all the cracks of our disagreements about what our kids may or may not choke on, in setting apart time for counseling because its good for us, and in the generosity of so many beloved people who help us continually.

I mess up a lot. I can be rude. I can be unthoughtful. I don't shower as much as I should. I'm a flawed human being. I continually rediscover how unlike Him I am, how impatient I become when tired is tugging, how selfish I can be in our marriage and catching myself thinking that my time is more valuable than his. Now is a time of less scripture studying and more of finding Him in the grace of undeserved gifts, in the mess that is marriage and motherhood. In the humans I live with, I care for, and I love with all that I am. They are precious. They are worth. They are His.

He is in the perpetual pouring of grace, the freedom of forgiveness, the discovering of gifts in the small moments. The small moments of diaper changes, wiping mouths and hands, sweeping up Cheerios (or not), tickling babies, washing a million loads of laundry a day. It's not glamorous or shiny, it's not perfect, it's not brag-worthy...but He is there.

I'm so humbled to live this story and walk this journey and find Him in all the moments. Especially in the hard, very human, sanctifying ones. Because that is where His grace heals and saves and blesses most: in the hard and in the human moments of life.

"...the riches of Gods grace which He lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding.." Ephesians 1:7-8

Where are you finding Him?

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