Year of Home

I’m a stay-at-home mom. My hubby and I have four kiddos under seven. While most people assume our household is chaotic, in all honesty, our chaos has tamed compared to what it was just a year ago when my youngest was a baby.

We decided four biological babies are our number, so for the first time in my mom history I am not expecting (or have a newborn) at the time my last baby turned 18 months.

This has made my wings flutter a little. Flap with independence and freedom. Obviously not from motherhood, but from the concentrated focus of babyhood.

However, allowing myself to stretch in autonomy opened my eyes to the many yeses I could finally commit to, leaving my babies and hubby at home.

As you can probably guess, my wings started moving and my goal list in 2018 blew up with new ideas and reaching out and meeting people and serving. I was running. Some weeks, running half the week or more to things that had nothing to do with my kids. And I LOVED it. LOVED IT!!!!!

If you could see me as I write this, you’d see me shaking my head and rolling my eyes.

It’s at this moment, as my wings were flapping and my gaze was reaching further and further into the future that I got a gracious punch in the gut.

My husband switched his job. This changed my schedule of freedom and the jingle in our pockets to an almost starting over mode.

He needed a new job. He was at total burnout with no hope of renewal, so it was time. But the truth is, I needed a change too. And in my case, a wake up call.

My heartbeat is to help people. I love to love. I love to serve. I love to share LIFE and JESUS with anyone that is willing to listen.

But you know what? As I did more and more of that, my family was getting the leftovers of those times. I’d give my shiny best to so many others and I’d come home with just chintzy scraps of sanity.

Something had to change.

Something HAS to change.

So that’s where I’m at. That is my adventure of 2019.

It’s time to refocus. It’s time to be intentional. It’s time to build my home to be more homey. More homey in conversations. In fun and relationships. In special one-on-one moments. In cleanliness. In organization. It’s time I make the homefront of my young family my biggest passion and mission in life.

I’ll admit, it feels a lot less glamorous than Year of Unapologetic in 2018. It even stings a little to let go of some of my opportunities outside of my home, but this must be done.

My role as mother and wife are my callings right now. I may not have anything spectacular to show to you or the world or anyone else (that might remotely care), but I’ll make a gargantuan difference in five very important souls.

And the fruit of putting them first? Well, that probably won’t be revealed right away either (or it might? maybe in small doses!?!?), but the truth is I KNOW it will produce fruit eventually. In my marriage, in my relationship with each of my children, and definitely in me.

So here I go! Year of Home 2019. Like my last Year of Unapologetic, I bet it will start one way and birth something totally unexpected.

I can’t wait!