In the Silence

My apologies for being so quiet around here.

The noise and the volume out there about so many things just feels deafening lately. Unnecessary, heated, angry, battling noise.

I haven't had a lot to add. Every time I have started a post, I haven't finished it. Not even kidding, I think I have 20-30 drafts in there from recent months.

Pictures just not quite all there, can't finish my thoughts, don't have time or don't want to add to the noise so I stop my thoughts with myself instead of hitting that somewhat scary "Publish" button.

One of my favorite quotes is:

Make time for the quiet moments

as God whispers and the world is loud.
--unknown

Indeed. I want more of that. Quiet stillness. Listening and really hearing what God's telling me. 

In light of wanting more quiet, it's been since *September* since I officially updated my blog. Yikes! Longest I've ever gone!

So, it's high time I gave a bit of an update:

We've been really busy. July found me working 3 full days a week in the office and usually once a week or every other week we drive the 45 minutes to our chiropractor/alternative doc's office. So our weeks were pretty full, and often our weekends too. With a very busy boy, it's meant for little down-time.

2015 ended on a pretty low note for us. Some things I can't/won't discuss here about our private lives that just made life messy, hard to swallow, feelings raging, and sucking the energy out of us. Not even sure that sentence works, but it's all the feelings I'm feeling right now.

Just, meh.

But there's been a lot of good stuff too, and by God's grace we keep moving along. We are abundantly blessed by God's mercy and his love over our lives, even when we can't always see or feel it. We know he's there, loving us unconditionally in unfathomable ways.

Whenever I think about Christ's sacrifice lately, I'm truly just blown away. Having a now 2.5 year old son (WHA?!?!?!!!!), I'm bewildered at God's gift to us in his only son.

His. son.

Wow. So incredible. Such sacrifice.

I saw something the other day on Facebook. Yet another one of those "If you hit 'like', you'll receive an immediate blessing from God" type of things.

Oh, friends. 

Do not buy into such nonsense. It's just not true. We could never do anything ourselves to fully bring blessings and mercies into our lives. Only Christ did that. We can't earn our way to heaven or earn God's favor by anything we possess or attempt.

Seeing all of those things across social media is so sad.

I found another memory today from Facebook several years ago about me taking a social media break from Facebook, Twitter, and blogging for a week. At that time I was SO wrapped up in it all that I literally had withdrawal issues that week. Now, Instagram would definitely be a hard one, but otherwise these days, I wouldn't have as much trouble with it. There's been a lot of changes in social media even in the past 5 years. It's amazing to see how far we've come and also how quickly certain fads change.

Even though I haven't posted here lately, I do still read other blogs, but comment less often. My world is much more wrapped around my son and our very full, busy lives. I do miss the connecting, but I'm also grateful for being more connected within my own little world.

In just a few weeks, I will start working in the office 4 days a week, still full-time with benefits, but reduced hours. Elijah will adjust to 4 days a week at daycare, a hard thing to wrap my head around, but a necessity. It'll be a big change, but it's something we have to do, so we'll figure it out. We know God has a plan in all of this and we just pray that Elijah gets used to it and adjusts well. (And me too, because to be honest, I've had a really hard time with it and have been quite weepy about it!)

On the plus side, it means now when I'm home, I can be fully engaged at home instead of working during any down time. Which also means more time for blogging! ;) Maybe....

So in the silence here lately, there's been a lot behind-the-scenes. A lot of struggle to put the words together, to find a way through the fog and the noise to a place of peace and joy.

I'm still here. Things are pretty good. Thanks for still being around, in the silence. Appreciate each and every one of you!