It’s time to take a heart inventory – it has been a friggin long ass winter and I know somewhere in the last while, I’ve shut down my intentionality and have been coasting on auto pilot just trying to get through this season.  I know on a deep level I’ve been feeling somewhat spent, tired, irritable, short…running on low motivation and trudging through these cold days lethargic and uninspired.  Sure, on a surface level,  I’ve still been working out, eating well, loving and spending time with friends and family here and there…but deep down I know there’s a lot that I’m purposely leaving untouched and cold.

I feel like I am trying to navigate myself through too much unfamiliarity and these big unknowns feel like mountains I don’t feel equipped yet to climb.

We aren’t going to have children – so now what? What does that mean for our lives? What does that mean for our marriage?  Will we be happy? Will we be fulfilled? Will it feel like we live lives that are contributing and meaningful?  What will we pour into instead? What are we being called for?  Will we stay in love with one another without that experience together?  Will we always find enough reasons to stay together without that major glue that seems to tide couples through some turbulent times?  What does it look like to have a meaningful, successful marriage without kids?  Is there more that motivates monogamy and forever committed partnership?

Can I be okay mothering my mother and fathering my father?  Will I find a happy medium in caring for their needs and letting go of my incessant attachment to wanting to just stay in the familiar daughter role I’ve known for the past ever?  Can I manage and mitigate through their resistance to feeling vulnerable and defenceless, and still preserve their dignity while I watch them being stripped of freedoms they’ll never get back?  Can I be strong enough to care for their needs and not feel overwhelmed by these responsibilities?   What does loving them and caring for them look like, without personally owning the totality of everything they are, everything they are becoming and everything they need?  Can they feel loved while I am so busy doing?  Can I find more to give them outside of doing stuff for them?  Between appointments, medications, shopping, cleaning, cooking, driving, being their go-to…can I find space to check in, to laugh, to love, to spend quality time without feeling stretched too thin?

I found out this week that a friend of mine has thyroid cancer.  Her palpable fear of that unknown is crazy and a reminder that these days and this life is not promised, even though we live in a taken for grantedness way as if we will always have so many more days ahead of us to get shit right.  God, when will I get it right?

Why can’t I find home in Church?  After leaving our small group last summer – why does it feel like we are still wandering?  Why does currently participating in a big Church with friends we love, in a huge building, with tons of different services, amazing spiritual music and strong messaging just not hit home for me?  I know it’s me, it’s not all of that.  Somewhere along the way I guess I’ve stopped being Church – Church stopped being inside of me and because of that I know that I won’t find home in a Church outside of me…so then what?  What does that mean? What am I looking for?  What am I feeling resistant to?  What am I struggling with?  Where will I find it?  Better yet, how and when will I find it?

In actually looking, it feels like a season of more questions than answers.  I bet I could google some inspirational quotes and life slogans that I could tape up on my bathroom mirror in the hopes of nudging me out of this heart and head space…but it definitely feels like it’ll take much more than that. What specifically?  I have no idea.  The irony of a response to my question being another question, doesn’t escape me.  Sigh.

I guess it’s just time to learn how to climb mountains. <3