Loving Normal

This past week was so blessedly normal.  I remember those first few weeks we were in Vienna, trying to scramble for any sense of the word...sleep deprived and totally out of our element, stubbornly trying to carve out something we could cling to as familiar.  Six months later, I believe we might have finally arrived.  The girls are in a happily manageable amount of activities.  Taking care of the daily stuff around the apartment has become something of a routine.  Thanks to my overactive focus on chilling out when I was feeling like death, I've developed some incredibly chill daily habits...that are all helping me really live in the moment with my kids and focus on growing as a person.  This form of normal is an incredible gift.

That's not to say things are boring.  Ha. Never. But on the contrary, when the daily stresses in the life of a stay-at-home Mama are muted, it is possible to reach out of that often-times survival mode of living and actually focus on something bigger.  This week, The Big Guy has been pressing the concept of giving into my heart.  He does this a lot, but I felt He was clearing the way specifically for this idea.  It's something I've been turning over and over in my mind; what it means to give and how those doing the giving are actually receiving something much more precious in return.

This is all really an integral part of my overall goal of living simply and loving deeply.  Here in Vienna, God has revealed a lot about loving.  There are new people here to love; people who are openly needy and those who couldn't be socially further from the beggars in the street.  And even though we're thousands of miles away, our community in the Tri-Cities, my family and friends scattered all over the states (and beyond) are still deeply etched in my heart.  I'm asking every day for a revelation and slowly discovering new ways to love people from afar--ways to create a sense of community in which I'm often not even physically present. Deep down there somewhere, I know I'm supposed to give something to all of these people; they should be the recipients of love--some tangible, visible act of love from me (read: Him).

Imagine how overwhelming this is.  Good thing I've been meditating.   And I can rely on someone way more qualified than I am to pick up the slack.  In the grand scheme of things, this week has really been small potatoes.  But, I've got some grand dreams that I know God could work out if they turn out to be His plans too. 

In the mean time, I'm really just thankful.  I'm thankful to have some kind of challenging conviction--even if it seems vague and unattainable.  I'm thankful that at the core of my life I have an amazing little band of people who love each other ferociously...often to the point of inflicting physical pain. (Bailey, I'm talking to you.) We are so blessed to have been given this time when our main priorities are spending time together.  Some day, that will change--babies grow up.  But, I know we'll have Vienna to cling to for the rest of our lives.

That's why I'm blogging, my babies.  Your mama wants this gift of normalcy to extend to you too. Even though your sponge-like brains are hardly capable of carrying these memories into your adulthood, I don't want you to just know where we went and what we did.  I want you to know the feeling of it--the intense love and happiness.  And most of all, I want you to know your mama wasn't just content to sit back and say it was all enough. (Because God knows, it could be.)  Instead, I'm working at making myself better.  No matter what horrendous challenges or blissful joy are in my future, I hope I won't stop trying to be a better person until the day I die--when I show up in heaven, breath heaving, flopping sweat to tell the Big Guy: "Coach, I gave 'em all I got."