Birthing Projects

Well, here I am late in the evening on my due date without more than a baby hiccup and once again I am reminded how much I hate “due dates”.  What evil wrought about that dumb little circle thingy that puts THE date as when baby should arrive?  Once again, I’m on the side of “you’re still here?” and once again, I tell folks that it’s all right, I’m “always late”.  And I tell my children, when they greet me disappointed in the morning (“not yet, huh, Mom?”), is “Well…we’re one day closer!”  So I continue, albeit slowly, baking, doing laundry, homeschooling.  I’m grateful for children who rush to perform other household chores when I am wilting. I’m grateful to be home.  I’m grateful for friends who stop by unannounced with chocolate and flowers too (thank you!).

I’ve been working and waiting on another birth as well, a large project that I wrote about here.  I have the vision, the tools, the people and the plan.  What I also have is some good, Godly advice to slow down.  I appreciate it when a friend takes the time to humbly ask me hard questions.  What I’ve been working through is this:  how do I know the difference between God’s will and what God allows?  

Now, I know God doesn’t allow what is not His will to allow to occur (follow me?).  But if He blesses me with all of the scaffolding of this project, how do I know it’s in my best interest to build it?  Maybe it’s just a test?  When the Israelites got their wish for a king and God told them who it would be (in essence, the one HE picked), was it really His will that they have that king?  If my project is a roaring success, what cost will it have extracted to get there?

I need to stay congruent with my true self.  For example, this wonderful project I am working on will put me behind a computer more, and my dear friends, as some of you already know, there is much I dislike about that.  I’d rather be behind a real papered book, or braiding my girls’ hair, or digging in the dirt, or talking to my goats.  Slowing down sounds like the right thing to do on many levels.

One thing that has blessed me in this process has been getting small peeks into other women’s lives.  Sometimes I see how much they accomplish (seemingly) and I struggle with how come I can’t do all that?  But usually the answer comes softly:  they just plain have different priorities, or they send children off to school or to daycare, or they spend hours (hours!) on Skype meetings, or they don’t have a farm-ette to maintain, or (shamefully) they are simply not honest.  In other words, their lives are lived differently than mine and all I’m looking at are the parts I want.  Would I want to change my life, my living?  I can honestly say mostly “no” even when it means the other things I desire to do may have to wait.

So both birthing projects continue, in their own timing.  The baby will come when the Lord’s voice calls.  And this wonderful Journal will publish when His timing is right, too. If you’d like to be a part of the Journal, and you desire the sweet slowness of patience, please know you are invited to contribute.  As for me, I am going to continue to wait upon the Lord, trusting Him to lead me in all things.  It is a good place to sit, patiently waiting to see what hatches.