Life is Hard, But God is Good

I have struggled with writing this post. I don't want to be a "Debbie Downer," but at the same time, the pictures I post to Facebook, only tell the happy side of the story.

I am not depressed. I was when we first moved, but God has helped me to move beyond that. However, life is hard.

The good is so good, and the fun is so fun, that it is easy to hide behind. "Post happy pictures to Facebook... nobody wants to hear the downside." The enemy has been whispering to me. Is it my pride? Probably. I want everyone to think that following God is fun & exciting. It IS! But there is also hard, and to not share the hard makes me dishonest. So here it is.

I miss you all. I miss praying with you on Wednesday nights. I miss being able to drop off and pick up things that I borrow. I miss being able to drop in and let our kids play. I miss being close to my mama & daddy. I miss being able to worship on Sunday mornings with people who have know me most of my life. I miss knowing where things are in town, and the grocery store, and my bank, and my doctor's office, and on and on it goes.

Chad & I are both struggling with the new Lowe's! The layout is completely different that our Jackson one! We say it is upside down & backwards. It is impossible to find anything.

Chad is SO, SO busy. His site team is supposed to be 6 guys. Right now they have 4. One of those 4 has been off for the past 2 weeks with pneumonia, he will be off for one more week, at least. Chad summed up last week by saying, "This week more stuff broke than got fixed." Yesterday he said, "Nothing is going well." I know he is doing a great job, but he is struggling. Things have not been well maintained for a while, and he is not starting on level ground, he is trying to bring things up to where they should be, before he can improve things. Most nights Chad is on-call. Last night he got home late, and then got called out about 12:30 because a fire alarm was going off. He got to sleep about 3 a.m. He is struggling to stay positive.

I am home with the 6 kids for the summer, and trying to find balance. It seems like the division between the originals & the new kids has grown in the move. It seems Faith, Grace, & Hope are often doing one thing and David, Joshua, and Joy are doing another. It concerns us. We don't want division in our family.

Trying to negotiate disagreements is hard. Hope is quick to come talk to me about concerns, Joy is not. Because Hope is coming to talk to me, I am afraid it appears to Joy that I am favoring Hope, but in truth, most of the time I don't know Joy is upset until one of the other girls comes to tell me, and normally that is quite a bit after the event has occurred. I am trying to encourage Joy to talk to me, but I am unsure what else to do.

I feel like I am parenting alone allot. I know it is not by choice that Chad is leaving things to me, but I still struggle. I don't want to be resentful, but at times I am. Even when he does get time with us, it is often interrupted with calls or cut short, because something needs to be done. With being so short staffed often he has no one to delegate too!

I truly believe this is a season. Summer Camp is only through August, then things will be different. He will find more employees, and then things will be different. I will learn where things are and not be so homesick and things will be different.

One thing I find a huge blessing is that I KNOW we are where God wants us to be, and HE WILL see us through. He has not called us here to abandon us. It may be hard, but He is faithful.

And even in the hard He gives us joy. Times to go to the lake, and on water slides, and laugh as a family. It gives us glimpses of the good, that will come.

I don't write this post to complain. Yesterday after talking to a friend she said to me, "I didn't know it was hard! I now know how to pray." So I am writing this post for that reason, that you might pray for us. Thank you for your love & prayers. We need them so much.

Life is Hard, but God is Good.