So Where Do I Go From Here?

{reflections on Allume, MomCon, and 31 Days}

It was the most jam-packed, kid-juggling, carry-on hauling, coffee-chugging month of the year. Seriously, December’s going to have nothing on October. At least we’ll all be in the same state the whole month.

In the 31 days of October, I wrote 31 posts about embracing the idea of Living Local. Confession: eight of those days were spent pretty far from my local.

I went with my amazing leadership team for my local MOPS group to MomCon 2013 in Kansas City from October 17-20. Then I turned right around and repacked my suitcase and headed up I-85 to spend four days in a hotel with women I only know online. From October 24-27 I attended the Allume Conference.

But just prior to my leaving for two back-to-back weekends without my family, my husband flew to Philadelphia to spend a week at a national conference for CDFI companies. (Don’t know what that is? Read this post.)

And while all this was going on, we found ourselves heavily involved in the production of The Masquerade, a walk-through drama, that took place at our church last week and involved very late nights and a lot of bacon. (We were going for realism in the morning scene.)

I don’t tell you all this to make myself sound like superwoman because I most definitely am not. I tell you this because I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons in the last month about my honest capacity as a

….wife.

….mother.

….writer.

….servant.

My resounding takeaway from all that I’ve experienced sitting at the feet of amazing Christian women and sitting on my own bathroom floor streaming tears?

I have to create more space in my life.

I need space to listen.

I need space to create.

I need space to enjoy.

When I am running from one good thing to the next I’m getting filled, but I’m maxing out my capacity to use that good to encourage others.

And that’s what I most want to do. I want to encourage moms to believe what they do matters. I want to encourage women to believe they are enough because Jesus believed them to be so. I want to encourage girls to evade the trap of comparison that will rob life of its joy.

I want to be right here at this time and in this space for a purpose that is greater than me. I want to love my neighbor despite the dirty laundry and social divide.

I believe these two things are what God is calling me to beyond my first call as wife and mother. So over the next several weeks, I’ll be wrapping a few projects and turning my focus toward this.

It’s something I tried to do over the summer when I wrote about my search for margin, but it wasn’t time. I still had commitments that I wanted to honor and that God is blessing.

But, now, I’m turning a corner.

I might be pretty quiet in this space from time to time while I finish some other work I’ve started, but it’s a rest that is long overdue.

If you’d like to leave me a comment and tell me what’s filled you beyond capacity, I’d love to know I’m not the only one learning to stand strong and say “no.”

For a list of influencers who’ve impacted my life in the past month click here.