It's nearly been a year since I've written here- a year.
If you follow my blog, you know this is out of character for me.
Where have I been, you ask? Navigating one of the hardest years of my life, my family's life.
As I sat across from my husband at the dinner table last week, discussing the last year, we had to slouch back and laugh at how many hard moments we had, how many times we said "it's just a season!" and found ourselves continuing to trudge through murky and confusing moments. 2018 was not short on bullets, let me tell ya!
We lost our foster daughter from our home at the beginning of the year to her past demons that we fought so hard against. The night we lost her, my husband got into a car wreck.
So, we took a break.
During our break, my husband got into a second car wreck which resulted in a serious brain bleed that he's currently still recovering from. There were days in the beginning I didn't think I'd ever get the old Jarrod back. The sense of humor was gone. Balance, memory, physical ability-gone.
So we took a breath.
A deep one.
During this deep breath, a battle begun as parents.
2018 dreams were pushed to the back burner, as I tried to navigate my first year as a full time employee doing the job I always wanted while grieving a loss, helping my husband recover, and sharing restless nights over the hard parenting decisions that haunt us all.
I think we too often get in the habit of wanting to smear "positive vibes, positive life" all over our hurt that we never allow ourselves to feel it, never let others see that it's okay to not be okay.
Friend, it is okay to mourn. It is okay to admit that you didn't have a hard week, or a hard month, but a hard year all around. When did bravery switch from going into battle to pretending wars no longer exist? You will have battles. You will go to war for your kids. You will have tragedies, accidents, confusion, and your faith may be whittled down to what seems like the smallest seed.
It. is. okay. to. not. be. okay.
Why? Because even still, you will be okay. You will make it.
I leaned back in my chair after chuckling over all of our hard moments and my husband grabbed my hand.
"We are blessed and highly favored, babe." (Leave it to Jarrod to be wise, always)
Despite the losses, the sleepless nights, the times we questioned our purpose as foster parents, heck-as regular parents, if I was cut out for my job, if he'd ever recover, if this season would turn into a forever winter-
As I've spent time in devotional time, sometimes completely exhausted just thinking about 2019, He renews me. A small whisper makes its way to me each and every day for 2019-
Restoration.
Restoration.
Restoration.
If you're in the same boat as the Davis family and you've had a tough year, know that no house being completely restored can stay how it was. You have to start with the demolition-the most important step. Get back down to the foundation. Get to the beams and the fixtures, a blank canvas. Look at its rawness, its realness, and sometimes-its ugliness.
Allow yourself to be torn down, to lay bare, and be restored-rebuilt from the ground up.
Allow your faith to be whittled down to the size of a mustard seed-isn't that all you really need?
