Knock Knock...

"Who's there?"

"Life..."

"Oh, you're still there?"

Life doesn't seem to let up around here. Full calendars, empty tanks, mounds of worry still plaguing our every seconds. How do you let it go?

The life we thought was going to start taking a turn for some relief has only seemed to make our lungs even tighter as time moves on. The air seems to be getting thinner. The cloud we felt so strongly was coming has yet to show itself. The much needed downpour, heck at this point I'd take a drizzle, has yet to come in the form we thought it would.

Yet, a drizzle has come... just not in the way we hoped for. In fact 2 part time jobs (in addition to one full time job) now hold up part of the calendar and the inner turmoil, spoken and unspoken, that not only we feel but our children too is taking a toil on the family we used to be.

There are countless ways that through all of the "this isn't going to cover what is needed" moments since all of this began, almost 2 years ago, God has provided in overwhelming ways. More so since February when the first job change came to our household. The job change that still brings tears to the eyes of little boys who don't understand why Daddy can't be with construction right now. The job that hasn't brought the commission we prayed it would to help take off the edge of worry that has built up over this time span.

I need to sit and put pen to paper though for all of the Ebenezer stone moments that God has had show up to help us make it each month. A part time job for me that I never saw the opportunity coming. One that still blows me away and worries me at the same time. Homeschooling will still take place but it'll be way different that at same time. My heart is still processing how it feels about that.

And then he provided a second job for my husband. One that sounded great until the hours were laid down. Until you tuck your children into bed at night and there is either a "I'm fine" walls built back up or tears streaming down their faces saying, "I don't want Daddy to go." The thought for them is hard to go to sleep and know Daddy isn't going to be home sleeping in the next room as they do.

I am fully aware of how much of this is the same story all around the world, day in and day out. Hats off to those who do this for countless hours. I'm incredibly grateful for a way to help, but I feel so consumed with sadness over it needing to be done for financial and insurance reasons that I feel it is sucking the life out of all of us. We can't seem to enjoy anything or plan anything because life is still jam packed with "we can't afford to do this" or "we have work so we can't go do that"...

"Kids are resilient... they will understand... they will get over it..." and so the sayings continue to go. I lived so many parts of that growing up and I wanted so desperately for my children to not have to to the extent that I did. I feel walls of bitterness and resentment being built towards us and the continued situation and towards God. As much as that kills me in the same human light I'm not sure I can blame them.

I don't understand what is going on either. I don't have a single answer or direction to steer them. I have fears of how are we going to provide for the school year activities to come. The dates ahead have big price tags on them. God has shown up in ways we never calculated already and I know He is faithful and will do so again but my lungs long for a glimpse of up ahead. Just to know they can breathe. Head knowledge and heart knowledge are in a battle to join each other on the same page once again.

Crawling into a hole and feeling sorry for ourselves would be lovely but of course we can't do that. There have been great moments that we need to hold on to, but when life as you knew it, the family dynamic that used to seem so peaceful, doesn't feel that way it's hard to look at the positive. The "I don't want to feel so I put on a mask moments" are suffocating to walk through. Not only for the one putting on the mask but others around who feel the backlash of those others "pretending" and "going through the motions."

God has a plan.
That's what we say.
And He does ultimately.

I just can't for sure, that for us, say if it'll ever be what we caught a glimpse of a couple years ago again. A moment in time we thought our struggle was turning. A moment we thought we would finally be able to breathe and provide without the tears of numbers on the paper. When the kids were younger it was one thing but watching them understand as a they grow is something entirely different.

This isn't how we pictured life to be.
It could be far worse.
It could be far more upside down.

So much of the life we have had hasn't changed at all. Just the heartache of the situation as clouded our view. There are moments I sit back and think of where we've come from and how much it's grown. That's hard to explain to the kids of course. They either weren't born then or can't comprehend the differences.

I guess the long and the short of this all is that life is hard. Parenting is hard. Marriage is hard. Things don't just always go okay. We've been provided for. Not in ways we thought we would be, which is good and hard. Growing moments in our children's lives are taking places. Moments I never thought they would experience and ones that have me on my knees for constantly. Ones I pray for relief for for them. I sit and ask myself "will they ever not be angry or set up roadblocks in their own lives?" As I walk so much of this road that we are on my eyes have been opened to how much of all of this goes on around us. How many times are we not even aware of it because we are so wrapped up "being okay", planning vacations without thinking, and placing all your orders for groceries or needs without much worry or thought.

I pray for relief from this storm. I pray my husband isn't so exhausted anymore. That confidence washes over him once again. I pray that we can stand on the mountain top with smiles and lungs breathing fully and that we feel a renewed vigor. Souls restored. Our souls have been chipped in ways I didn't anticipate. Restoration of them would be amazing.  I pray that should we ever get to reach the mountain top this side of eternity that we don't lose sight of those sitting in the situations we are sitting in right now. That we throw ourselves back into the trenches to walk alongside them and help carry their mats in any way we can.

I want us to be whole again. I pray for the parts of us that have been chipped away and changed, that while in many ways changed forever, that they are made new once again. Made new with intensity and realness. Deeper roots. Stronger than before. More real and no more motions.

Should relief never come our way... I pray for the same above and that our souls are transformed just the same.

It's not the road we thought we'd be walking. It's hard to comprehend. It's hard to parent understanding when they have questions, spoken and unspoken, that we can't help give answers to. And let's be honest, the "churchy" answers aren't always wanted because we have all walked that with rolled eyes and a mumble under our breath of "yea yea yea I know..." It doesn't help soften the blows.

But despite all of that God is faithful.
He knows the reasons.

We aren't just walking aimlessly with no purpose, no matter how Satan wants us to feel, and we need to continue to walk in this battle. Somedays fully armed and somedays with depleted resources... either way, we always are walking with at least something.

We just need to remember that.