not enough

i'm struggling to get stuck in today. my mind has been reeling all day long. i feel like i'm flailing and i don't fully know why. i had to come outside to try to focus. i couldn't even stay in my home office because too many distractions called to me there. too many things sit close at hand trying to pull me outside of what i want to do and into other worlds instead.

the wheels in my mind turn and churn, but instead of pulling me out they drive me down deeper. i sit here grateful for so much, but questions still push their way to the surface.

last night our middle daughter fell off of the cargo net on our swing-set and busted her mouth open in two places. shockingly her teeth are fine, but blood poured out of her mouth - and i do mean poured - and i was terrified of what we would find underneath. 

i am beyond grateful that as of now she'll likely heal up without any need for a doctor or a dentist, but holding her in so much fear and pain hurt down deep to the primal mama bear level. later i walked outside and looked at the splatters of blood all over the leaves and choked back tears. 

it probably didn't help that this incident came on the heels of our oldest's birthday. 

does any parent ever look at their newly-minted 10 year old and not wonder where the time went?

a decade is a long time.

right now i'm sitting and wondering if the remaining years will speed up or slow down. if there's any way to turn on slow-mo for my life and my kids and make sure there is enough time to teach them all of the things they need to know. i say this while recognizing that "enough time" doesn't exist. because eden is gone and no matter how much i want to smooth the road for them, that doesn't serve them on this side of heaven. 

some lessons are harder than others. 

parenting lessons squeeze out the sponge of my heart because they don't just affect me. it's not just me screwing up my own life. it's me realizing that i'm the reason my kids may one day need a therapist. because i step in it more than i get it right. 

i don't know what i'm doing. 

some days i take solace in the fact that no one else knows what they're doing either. and, more so, that we don't have to have it all figured out. we don't have to be enough. we weren't designed that way. 

but i carry it more days than i don't. i carry that "not-enough-ness" with me. it weighs me down hunching my shoulders and turning me inside out. 

why do i hold onto it when it's not mine to carry?

and

why do i let something that might happen in the future steal today's joy?

the fact that my son will {likely} be a sophomore in college 10 years from now makes my heart drop into my feet. how will i prepare him for life? will i teach him enough? will the world make him cynical and jaded and unkind like it does to so many others? will his heart survive the onslaught that's coming? 

i have to let go and trust that God has him in the palm of his hand. He is sovereign, i am not. and i have so many questions about that. so many questions about why some things happen and other things that should happen, don't. 

so.many.questions.

but. just like job, i didn't place the stars in the sky or name each and every one. i didn't set the world in motion. i don't even know the names of all of the animals. 

i don't know.

so i have to trust. 

we all put our faith and our trust in something.

i need to stop defaulting to myself instead of the God who did place the stars in the sky, and who knows the name of each one.

i think i'll be chewing on this for a while...

xoxo