Thank God

I have learned a thing or two in my short two months of marriage. One of our top 5 struggles has been learning to love and live in the here and now.   We dated most of our lives.  When we got engaged, it killed everyone that we had a year long engagement.  Now that we're married, we get asked on the daily what our plans are for adding small humans to our lives.   Let me say this: we have a plan, and we think it's a great plan. There are lots of things that have to happen before small humans are a thing. There are a lot of things we want to do before small humans are a thing. Plus, God's will is greater and more amazing than our plans will ever be, so if our plan isn't His, then it's not going to work anyway.    I struggled for a long time with contentment.  I was never happy with the here and now, I was always looking forward to what was coming.  I obsessed over huge houses and forgot how blessed we were to have our 631 square foot apartment.  I obsessed over filling rooms with expensive furniture and overlooked how blessed we were to have our one bedroom, living and dining room, and even our deck fully furnished for free by family.  I obsessed over filling rooms with cribs and small humans and forgot that I had a fiance (that's right, not even a husband yet) that I needed to learn to love and grow with and pour into.    God put me in my place, to say the least.   A few weeks before our wedding, Jackson and I had a HUGE knock down blow out fight about my lack of satisfaction with the little things.  I was crippled by fear that we were going to get too content and never buy a house or have a baby... that the 631 square feet would be all we would ever have.   My sweet husband found reassuring and uplifting words to, in the nicest way possible, remind me how selfish and greedy I was being.    A switch was flipped, and that was it.   I finally understood how much I was breaking his heart to make him feel like everything we could do wasn't enough for me.  I understood how much I was overlooking the blessings we had.  We had a home to call our own, no matter how small it was. It was furnished with furniture from his sweet grandmother, my loving father bought us a beautiful dining room set, and his amazing brother gave us a 60" smart TV. We had enough money to put food on our table and to pay our bills. We had dishes and cookware and even a knife block!   We're more blessed than we deserve.   Everyday that I get home, before I turn my key in the lock, I take a second to look at the numbers hanging beside our door: 227.  I take a second to appreciate the fact that we have a home.  I take a second to thank God for His blessings.  

  All of that was said to say this: houses, dogs, babies... they will all come in God's time.  Next time you see a newlywed, don't ask them what their plans for a baby are, because odds are, they are struggling with the "what next" complex.  (We're married, what's next?)    It is a daily thought for me that we will never get this time back, that we need to enjoy it and soak it all in.  When we're up all night with a crying baby, when there's food all over because our toddlers are as unruly as we were as kids, when we're dealing with difficult teenagers, we'll reminisce about these days that we've been so ready to speed through.  We're going to think about the day we got the keys to our first home; all we had was a small TV - enough for Comcast to connect our cable.  We layed on the floor and watched Despicable Me.   

    My new goal is this: Enjoy every second of every day.  Sure not every second is going to be beautiful all of the time, but they're always blessings whether they're blatantly obvious or in disguise.  I have a husband who loves me, a home, a car, a job, and I woke up today.   

    Thank God.