A Place For Me

Wow, how the past four months have flown by. And yeah, what everyone told be beforehand was true: the first two weeks are killer. Exhausting. Tiresome. It's all a big huge blur. I'm sure anyone who talked to me and/ or saw me during the first two weeks of Camille's life would tell you that I looked like death warmed over. I was living on adrenaline. 

Not that I'm not tired now, but at four months old this girl has her own personality and we are in such a routine now. I'm also pretty sure she's figured out that she's here to stay (no going back inside that warm, safe womb) and that her mom and dad are pretty much her world for now.

I'm trying more to focus on me now. What's next for me? I'm home with little miss every day, but I know God still has a plan for my life. Right now our only routine is attending MOPS Bible study every-other Wednesday for a couple of hours. Additionally, I joined a group of ladies who meet for a weekly home Bible study on Tuesdays. Camille just tags along. Childcare is provided at the home study, but she's so small just stays with me. Plus, who doesn't LOVE a baby, right?! 

...

I'm struggling right now with how I should lead and where to get involved. The entire time we've been back in Texas I've been pregnant and now, a new mother... 

I'm feeling like I'm wasting the talents I have and don't know where to get plugged in. I'll be honest, I hate the worship program at our church. I tried to get involved in the choir... and quickly gave up on that. (See previous post about my aversion to doing things half-ass.) As I mentioned in my most recent post, I've tried to just wait it out... maybe we'll move. Maybe our church will find a new pastor soon. Maybe someone will ask me my option/ advice/ to help... But, I know God doesn't call us to wait, he calls us to action. I know that. 

I invited six ladies my age, some married- some not, some mothers- some not, to my house last night for fellowship and Bible study. One showed up. I'm not taking this personally, really I'm not. I hardly know these people, much less anything about their faith, background or personal story. I'm just trying to build community. To be real. But it seems most people want to keep religion/ church/ God/ the youth ministers wife at a distance. 

So maybe a home study isn't what I'm supposed to lead, but I know that people here, at this church (just like any) need somebody. Need support. Need another person their age to say, "I care about you. God cares about you." 

So for now I pray. Pray for the broken families and broken people in our church fellowship. Pray for the many, many who drop their children off each Sunday/ Wednesday and go home. I know they think church isn't for them. So, I want to show them that while church may not be their thing, God might be. I want them to know I'm a real person, with flaws, a past, sin in my heart and I care. 

I don't know... I'm just ready for community myself. Which is why the MOPS... and the home study... (all of these faces and women are new to me... they don't attend my church and it's been refreshing just to talk to other women my age!!)

Chris and I are singing this song Sunday morning. A cappella. I'm good with the song... I just wonder "who's going to hold my baby?" Just kidding. Sort of... She's with me each morning during church. Sometimes we make it the entire way through the service. Sometimes we don't.

I want so badly to shake the foundation of our little, country church. It's boring, y'all. It's old. There's no one like me at this church because people like me don't go to this church!! I know it'll all work out, one way or another, but we are on staff here. They provide our housing, I can't just up and go to a church down the road (and there are ALOT of them).

So... Pray. That's what I'm all about these days.  

I'll leave you with this lovely photo from 2009. Chris and I wearing his shirt: 

We came across this picture in our iPhoto Library last week.  He still gives me grief about making him get rid of this shirt. Really?!

Additionally, why, oh WHY did I think I was "not small enough" way back then? Size 4/6 isn't small enough? Really?! Cause I'd give anything to fit comfortably into my size 8's these days. I was tiny. I wish I could have seen it then... BAH!!! 

Ephesians 3:14-21

¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father^[a] 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. ¹⁶ I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, ¹⁷ and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, ¹⁹ and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—²¹ to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.