Yes, Jesus Loves Me

I am sitting in the cafe alone. It's been a quiet day and I've enjoyed the peace. I think I am really starting to enjoy mornings.

Behind me is a small group of mothers with their young children. A minute ago they started singing "Yes, Jesus Loves Me." It seemed like everything got quiet but the voices of the mother's teaching their babies that old, simple song.

I closed my eyes and listened to them for a minute. "Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so..."

It made me want to cry. Why can't I feel like things are that simple? Life gets complicated as we get older but I'm just so sick of feeling so stressed out and like everything is a big deal.

I'm thinking I need to get up earlier in the mornings more often. I need more of those quiet moments alone that seem to help me re-align.

Of course, now the mothers are singing some loud clapp-y song and I'm feeling so glad we decided to put of having babies for a while longer haha...

Life...

Has been....different than I expected. You know that saying "when it rains, it pours"? Of course you do. And it's so true.

I feel like we've been swimming upstream to get to where we need to be. Like we are trying to catch up in a race, and everyone else got a headstart.

It's so frustrating and I lie awake at night and worry. I am a worrier, I know it. And then I berate myself because I know that worrying is not of God. And it's like this endless cycle of feeling bad and stressed out.

I KNOW that this is not forever. I know I wont FEEL like this forever and I know that life wont BE like this forever. So I'm holding on to that. And I'm trying not to think about the job I'm going to have to get or the bills we are going to have to pay or the new cars that we both need. I'm trying not to think about all the things that keep coming up and coming up and coming up, but that's exactly the nature of those things isn't it? They keep coming up and they wont let me forget about them.

And I find myself trying to organize every tiny detail of my life, because that's how I cope. Somehow my brain tells me that if I organize, then I can control. And we all know, that's not true. And really, the frantic list making and scheduling, besides helping me remember everything I would most likely forget, only proves to make me worry and stress more. But I can't stop, because like I said, I would forget everything I need to remember.

I'm just so sick of being stressed out. I want it to end. But this is life.

Back

Well, I'm back. In a lot of ways.

I haven't wanted to write. These last few months have been...different...and I didn't want to write about it, couldn't write about it, shouldn't have been writing about it.

So, we've moved back to Alabama. It's been a really fast/abrupt/amazing decision and it's really good to be home. It's also really weird to be home. It's not like moving back was the easy option, but it was necessary and it was the best option, for sure.

But you know what? I think I thought I was coming back to my old life. And I didn't come back to my old life. I came back to a new life in my old town. So I'm still adjusting. And it hasn't even been a week yet so I think I'm allowed to cut myself some slack.

So I thought it was time to pick up the ol' blog, dust it off, and start anew. This move feels like a fresh start to me. I know I said last year that fall always feels like the beginning of a new year to me. So that, combined with the move, makes this whole time just seem like a whole new start for me. I'm excited/scared/stressed/relieved/hopeful about the whole thing. We definitely had to make some sacrafices but I know that we are in a good place and, more importantly, in a God place.

So hopefully I'll be around the blog more. I'm still trying to get settled and get things figured out but this is like my version of "Hey, I'm back."

Ta