This one is for strictly selfish reasons...

I am eating Pillsbury cookie dough straight out of the package and that is the first indicator.
I have never been one of those women that loses their appetite when their head gets too full of curly-messy thoughts. Quite the contrary. I am your typical "comfort food junkie when comfort is needed" (though comfort food for me is cookie dough and milk, not collards and mac and cheese!)

Inside the living room of our Atlanta condo the sun is shining brilliantly outside and I only know this because it is beginning to peer over the closed blinds that are doing as they should and shutting the light out. It's a little after 11am on a Sunday and there is really no reason for dark in the condo and more so, the lack of light in my heart. I fear being so candid but it is all I can do right now to try to seek some peace, sans finish the cookie dough off (and as we have all learned - that doesnt fully help in the long run.)

This is one of those icky and rare times that I just can't find what I am looking for because I don't even really know what it smells like. I am 6 months new to marriage and 6 months away from the "Betsy" I had always been told I was. Though that sounds like a morbid attitude.....it is quite the opposite..... a beautiful and freeing thing but it can be scary and can leave much room for confusion and exhaustion. And then, maybe it is just the "late-twenties" creeping in. In my twenties I have seemed to have thought that I have learned something new and insightful about myself and my life purpose only to have it broken down the very next month by a new experience. Exhausting, for sure!

The truth this morning is that I have been looking at blogs of friends a few years my elder. They write of triumphs and challenges of their 2.4 children and the struggles of being a mom. I read their stories and I sense a ping of jealousy in my heart. Not because their children are beautiful and blonde headed and their blogs seem so light and cheery but because I just desire that kind of peace. The kind of peace most mothers find upon giving birth to their first child I suppose. The kind that assures you that you were certainly made for a purpose and you can finally see it looking into a little child's eyes that sort of remind you of your own. I am not professing any new urge to take on mommy-hood anytime very soon. I mean, I feel like I know less about marriage alone than I did 6 months ago (and I know that is the beauty of the mystery of marriage) so kids are not our near- near-future. So no, I am not revealing this underlying huge desire to be a mom right now but more so the intense desire that keeps me up at night and steals my head 90% of the time to just figure out what in the world I am supposed to do. I used to think I knew this answer and that is what is so disturbing! Where did my sense of purpose and passion vacation to and when, oh when, does it want to come back and take residence in my heart again?

Marriage is truly the most intimate relationship I will experience on earth apart from my relationship with My Savior and trust me, I enjoy being a wife. I enjoy being a wife the way I enjoy being a daughter and a friend and a sister but at the end of the day - none of those roles embody my full identity. I know there is something more. I know at the deepest part of me that my identity rests in Christ and what He has already paid for me. His life. No one can ever do anything more to prove me any more valuable. He did the ultimate thing. More so, He has given me a more complete life here on earth while I meddle through the ups and downs just trying to find my place. I do know this truth and if I didn't I would have given up a long time ago. But it is in the day to day...the routine of everyday life ....the mundane that I just can't seem to find my sweet spot.

I just got a new job and I am so excited about the things that I will get to do...a little writing, consulting, meeting with different people and help others find their place in a career. I tell you that because this "thing" isnt about a career and it isnt about a marital status and it isnt about financial security and it isnt really about being excellent at any one particular thing. It is more about me accepting the exact place I am and knowing with everything in me that God has me in that place and no other place for a reason. And with that confidence comes the light in my heart that I first mentioned. It's the light that causes me to weep when I hear others stories of toil and triumph or the same light that causes me to slow down, say no to things that take up my time and waste my heart and the same light that causes me to pick up the phone and just call to listen to someone I love who might need to talk. But for some reason lately I have been so focused on finding this said peace in a new place that I can't sit right where I am and recognize that He has me here and nowhere else right now. He doesnt have me being a mom yet. He doesnt have Brad and I in a place of extreme financial security that would allow us to give the way we desire yet - for a reason. He doesnt have us moving cities to chase an adventure the way our hearts desire. He doesnt have us ill with some debilitating sickness. He has us healthy, married, in Atlanta, among couples, family, friends and even strangers all looking for the same answers. He has us within 3 hours of all of our family. He has me unemployed and without an obligation at all right now and that, too, is for a reason. He doesnt have either of us working extensive hours or worse yet, having to work more than one job just to maintain a lifestyle. Once again, He has us....more so, he has me right here, in the dark with the cookie dough, alone, on a sunny- Sunday morning to sit and let my fingertips release some of what has held my heart captive and in the dark. And though I did not reveal any miraculous answer in the course of this babbling nor did any "6-perfect steps" to peace come to me. Better, for some reason I can smell that thing that I don't even know what I am looking for. I can feel it as it begins to warm up my heart. Even if the light shines inside for a few quick minutes it is still assurance enough that I am right where I am only by God's grace and He is keeping me here even if it is somewhat dark at times - only for His glory. Why is it just so hard to know this one truth that truly has the power to free me from any strong hold? And more so, why can't the power of cookie dough on a couch in the dark everyonce in a while remind me of this one and only truth? Ha ha. I could be really good at eating cookie dough and finding answers!

Ultimately, I am here for God's glory whether it is through a simple conversation with my sister over lunch or a passer-by conversation with the receptionist at the doctors office...whether it is through the minute acts of grace that I show Brad throughout a tiresome work week or a simple hand on his shoulder to remind him that I am right here right now to show God's glory in my life whether or not I know how.....
And that does bring light to my heart today. Yesterday I had a long but overdo conversation with my dearest doctor friend. Talk about a light.....she literally ALWAYS has the words or lack of words when I need them. She read to me from her journal she kept while she was in Tanzania last year for several weeks. One of the last days she wrote as she was on the long trek home she wrote to remind herself of the "light" and joy she felt just being in God's will and in His presence. But she wrote that she knew there would be a time soon enough when she wouldn't recognize HIs hand right around her and wouldn't recognize the light that she knows is there because of Christ. As she read to me to encourage me I literally felt like I was in the airport with her a year ago and she was reminding me to remain steadfast and to savor the rich moments God gives me because soon enough the darkness of the enemy and the world would begin to rob me of the joy I have found and I would then begin to doubt that I have any purpose at all. Oh, sweet friend, thank you. Thank you for knowing what to say to allow my heart to again search for that light and peace that is always there but just sometimes being blocked by the incumbering blinds in the living room.

Off to walk with Amos and praise God for reminding me that He has put me right here. Right where I am.