Lately I've been feeling like a young girl going through puberty all over again, except the 'bodily changes' are different than those i experienced as an early teenager. But the emotions seems the same. Those emotions of trying to figure out who you are and what you want to be like as well as trying to figure out how to be a teenager and all that being a teenager entails. I look at that time and I think about how difficult it really is to grow up. One day you're playing house with barbie dolls and the next day it's not 'cool' to do that anymore. So you try to figure out new ways to show your creativity in life. Some teenagers excell at finding their unique gifts, other teenagers struggle and make the wrong choices.
I think that women in there 20's are very simular to that of a young teenage girl. We either learn and excell quickly at figuring out who we are and our role in our families (if we have them.) Or it's a painfully long journey.
I feel like i'm on a painfully long journey
I was talking to my husband last night and I just asked him "When will I have something, some part, of these things called being a wife, mother, homemaker...figured out?"
It's like one day I went to bed single the next I woke up a wife and then the next after that I woke up a mother. I never really had the single thing under my belt although I think that I understood it more than others but I had just started to be content when God thrusted me into a big change. Then I'm just a wife for only a year and 1/2 before I became a mother. And let's just say 1 year 1/2 really isn't that much time. Now I'm a mother of 1 with another on the way and a wife and I have desires to serve more and do more for my church but have no idea how to balance any of it. I look at myself and how imperfect and unbalanced I seem to be and I say to God "You want me to be a Pastor's wife someday. Well you better start working on that one because I don't even know where to start?"
Like I said, puberty, all over again.
However, what's different now compared to my early puberty years is that I have a desire to learn. I may not know where to start or at times I think i've already started so I'm not entirely sure of where to go from here but I am willing to learn. I want to learn, I want to grow, I don't want to keep feeling like a young girl in puberty without her mother there guiding her through the changes.
Since I can't really turn to my own mom, and since well, even our own mom's can only teach us so much before we have to go and learn from other mom's I'm asking my friends for any suggestions. Not quick fix all kind of things but...things that helped you as you were going through your own stages of adjusting from being just a wife, to being a wife and a mother. Things that helped you to figure out bits and pieces of yourself while trying to point your family in the right direction...Did you read books? What did you read and pray about from the Word? did you have any mentors? What ways did you learn to be you?
I know it's a lot...but if you have any suggestions for this stage i'm going through I would feel greatly encouraged.
3 comments:
Oh Sarah...
I felt your heartbeat in that post. I think most all women go through this stage, some exit it gracefully and in a quick time...others seem to never get out. I'm actually in the midst of finding out who I am post-baby, myself. Trying to figure out what I like to do, why I think the way I do, how do I love a hubby and a baby and most important...how do I do all this in service to God?! My only suggestions are these:
1) Get in the word daily! Even if its a proverb a day. Read, journal and pray. God DOES bless the mother/wife that seeks Him!
2) Get a hobby. Obviously, with babies we won't have tons of time. But I'm finding that even if I take 10 minutes a day to figure out what I like... I feel refreshed, whole and like a person.
I remember Sandra Felton's "messie" books being really helpful.
I recall reading one of the Puritan writers saying that young mothers have a kind of pass with God. He knows they are in the throes of caring for so many that He just takes up the slack for them. Remember that your relationship with Him is just that...a relationship with good times and dull.
But as for who you are...just keep trying things. It was thirty before I found mosaics. Before then, I tried to sew, sold on ebay, read books, scrapbooked, joined the public library book club, did projects around the house, learned to cook new things....You are lucky to have the internet to google anything you want to try. Try anything that sounds the least bit interesting to you. You may just stumble upon something that really makes you feel alive inside. Keep writing on your blog, or writing a private journal. Banish guilt. Forswear it. It does no good whatsoever. It just makes you feel impatient, when God is trying to bring things to you in His timing, knowing how much you can handle. Just say yes to things when they come. Don't be afraid.
thanks ladies :)
Post a Comment