Back in January, when people naturally evaluate things to change for the upcoming year, I thought to myself, "I really, really want to commit to writing more." And not because I have an audience demanding it (hardly), but because I think it's so valuable for me. I never vocalized this thought, and I'm really glad I didn't. Because I have been 0% successful.
There have been many, many times when I've had stuff rolling around in my head and heart, and I knew that writing would help. But when nap time comes around, it's a lot easier to use those 2 hours for folding laundry uninterrupted, working out uninterrupted, showering uninterrupted, or reading a magazine uninterrupted. Notice a theme?
And now I'm at this point where I think I've forgotten how to write a post that actually pulls all of my thoughts together instead of random tidbits that can't seem to intersect. Because if there's one post I can nail, it's a monthly update post about my babies.
But in these first nearly 4 months of 2016, there has been a lot of wrestling for the Tomberlins, this one especially. Adam and I decided we would watch less Netflix, read more together, and spend time in the quiet instead of always assuming that the hours after the boys go to bed would be spent "unwinding" from the day by doing mindless things. I'm all about balance here, peeps. We still watch The Office at least once a week! And it is March Madness.
All that to say, there's been extra time to sit and discuss the struggle. We read You and Me Forever by Francis and Lisa Chan. I've been reading through The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. (We're about to start The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.) And we've talked ourselves in circles time and time again about these issues that keep popping up for us.
Adam and I have been discussing for over a year off and on, but definitely ON lately, about what it looks like to be faithful with the Gospel. What does it look like to "associate with the lowly (Romans 12:16)" and "pour yourself out for the hungry (Isaiah 58:10), and be a "doer of the word (James 1:22)" right here, right now in this stage of life? Are we making disciples right now? Is my life proclaiming the Kingdom?
It's been tough and heavy and frustrating to talk through this. We started our house hunt in June/July of 2015. When we hit January with mounting discouragement and confusion about the process, we really started reevaluating a lot. We started wondering if maybe we needed to be strategic about where we positioned ourselves. If Jesus cares so much about the poor, could we potentially move into a very low-income neighborhood? Should we put Clarkston back on the table? We sought out wise counsel to help us work through the tensions we'd been experiencing as we felt very convicted reading through the Chans' book.
Conversation after conversation only built up more frustration for me. I feel strongly about "the least of these," and the message I kept getting from ladies ahead of me was this: the season you're in- raising young children- is just that, a season. I still didn't feel like that's a good enough answer, so I found myself feeling more and more isolated in this tension I was feeling. Motherhood can be isolating in itself, the last thing I wanted was an extra measure of it.
It didn't look like Adam was going to be eager to do the whole low income neighborhood thing, but he was definitely open to it. We drove to the poorest part of Roswell to see the government funded housing, and we just prayed on the street, asking God for some direction. We felt lost. We had all of this tension but we had no sense of what to do with it.
And so it brought me to a place of surrender that looked a lot like this- God, I feel so stuck and confused, and I can't hear you right now!! I can't discern what this next step of life should look like. I want my life to be used for Your glory, even if it doesn't look like moving into poverty like I envision it should. So, I give up (layman's terms for 'surrender').
And then a house came on the market in the neighborhood we loved on our very first day of looking at houses back in July. So now we prepare to move to a nice, mostly well-off neighborhood into a house that I really am very excited to make our own. But I don't know how long it will be before I face the same tensions Adam and I have been wrestling through for months. We are determined to steward this house well and be intentional with our neighbors. And I am trusting that as I keep my hands and heart open before the Lord, He is more than capable of speaking to us and using us right where we are. And I can't help but believe that everything that's been brewing is for a purpose. God is working something out in us, even if I can't see the whole picture yet.
But this felt like something I needed to write down to remember. So I can look back one day and see how God was using this time to refine us and make us look to Him.
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