Offices & Hopes

I moved out of my office last week.

It was well past time. My desk sat neglected for fourteen months and our growing church staff is already elbow to elbow in a space that was tight to begin with.

This was the closest thing to a surreal moment that I've had in a long time. I'm not sure if moms of little ones have surreal moments because life feels the exact same way as when you catch yourself having conversations about tile grout.

Try being surreal about tile grout. Exactly.

Anyway, I was having an almost-surreal moment because I never expected to clean out my office because stay at home moms don't often need one, and not have the experience send me into a spiral of hot tears and sadness.

That may sound very dramatic, but I've always been pretty driven to have a career outside the home, so when I cleared out my office and my world didn't end and my self-worth didn't plummet, no one was more surprised then me.

It was, actually, one of those, "Hey! Look who's becoming emotionally stable and getting a healthy sense of identity!" moments. Because reconciling my desire to accomplish things outside the home with my role as a mother has been um, difficult.

It's a messy process.

The first step was seeing other stay at home moms who accomplish so much outside the home and realizing they have time to [write a book/get their masters/start a business] because they spend their precious free time not on facebook. And sometimes, their laundry baskets overflow and they don't sleep much and their families eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at least once a day.

The second (and much, much harder) step is one I have only just begun to take, and that is laying my desires at the feet of Jesus and being willing to give them up. It's a scary thing to lay at God's feet: my deepest hopes. I know God is good, but that doesn't mean He won't tell me no.

And yet, a friend said just yesterday that the grace to do the impossible things exists where God wants us. I want to be where He wants me because life is full of impossible things, and I'd rather not try and attempt them without Him.

Because there's a difference between my deepest hopes and my Only Hope, even though I too often confuse the two.