The past few weeks have been so...odd. I feel odd at least. Like there is something terribly wrong with me. It feels like everyone I know is having kids. I get the incessant question of "So next comes kids, right?" or "So when are you two having babies?" I feel this enormous pressure that I need to become a mom because that is the end all be all of being a wife. Don't get me wrong, I want kids, very much. I just don't feel that is what God has for me and Bradney right now. I don't feel ready but and no matter how much I try to have peace in that I feel like society has deemed me an old maid. As if the longer I wait the less of a woman I become. I grew up with the pressure from the culture I was in to get married young and have as many children as possible and my life would be fulfilled. Its as if when I chose to go to college I suddenly was no longer deemed a good Christian girl. I became selfish or there was something inherently wrong with me because I got an education and became too old. I feel, almost, as if I missed the point of being a woman. I want kids. I want to be a stay at home mom. I desire all those things but I desire to be educated so I could help others in need. I know I don't need an education for that and I in no way want to condemn any women who got married young and had children young. I think that is a beautiful thing to be a mom. I just don't think it should be expected of every homeschool girl. Sometimes God gives us desires, good desires, but ones that don't meet the expectations of the world around us. I feel like I failed at being a good godly woman because I haven't fulfilled my life by becoming a mother. I know this to be untrue but I nevertheless beat myself up for feeling as if it is at times. I struggle with trusting God in this due to the concrete reminders on facebook, through friends, strangers it just seems to be in the for front of my mind lately....a constant work in progress is what I am.
It feels as though friends who are having kids move to this sort of acceptable tier in Christian Society and all of a sudden in a few hours time we are a world away from each other. Not meaning to and desperately trying to hold on, it feels as though we can no longer relate and all of a sudden they become close to other pregnant women or women with new borns. I suppose that is just how life is, and as it should be...It just seems...odd to me. It's kind of like when one gets married I guess. I felt like the same person when I got married relatively speaking but all my single friends reminded(still do sometimes) that I am married and I don't get the whole being single thing...I do though...I was there til I was 25 and I know it is a difficult struggle daily at times. At the moment I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to life.
I feel so busy with school, newly married, and with family, yet I miss friendships. I try to hold on but lack of time on my part and often theirs as well...I just feel like it is a losing battle. People change, move on, make new friends...it is what life is about. It doesn't make it easy though. I keep holding onto Jeremiah 29:11-13 though: For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 12'Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
It is a comfort when I feel like I am wading through the fog with absolutely no direction as to where to go next. That is when faith is most required. I have to search for my Christ, with all I am that is the only way to feel any sort of peace and comfort....
Bradney and I started attending a new church that we love and are beginning to get involved. I love it. The people are awesome. The preaching is awesome. The worship is awesome. I am so blessed and renewed on Sundays yet sometimes its difficult when the little reminders of being newbies creep in. I know this stuff takes time and I am excited to get to know new people but I don't want to loose old friends either...Yet another work in progress I suppose.
Life is never easy I know. Most people in the world face so many more struggles than I could ever imagine. I feel stupid in some ways for struggling over things this minute. It's just stuff that has been on my mind lately.
