pausing to craft our art...and invest in *today*

I ask my groom for reasons.

He's given them to me through the years and they've made sense at the time.

Now, though, those years have balled up together.  All of those reasons tangle up and become one big messy wad of negative-speak.

I don't feel good enough.

I look around and compare my life with others.  I think it's because I'm not good enough at being a mom of one to be a mom of more than this blessed one.

Those reasons no longer make sense for today's living.  And, combined they don't make a bit of sense - ever.  Some things just don't belong combined with others.

I've had this longing for another child in our family, for years.  And to pair with the longing, I've believed God has said it will happen.  Some. Day.

For now, I am required to wait.  And waiting is hard.  Especially when you really believe that something will happen.

Glancing out the window with longing for tomorrow, impatience creeps up the driveway, uninvited - and steals today's blessings of joy and the truth of today's purpose.

Truth says that today is important for tomorrow.  Impatience forgets this truth.

I know in my heart that today isn't the time to try for another child.  Our life has been busy and this past year we've been on a different pace.  A necessary pace for our story.

Life has moved fast.  

We've done a lot of things in the past few years.  Good things.  Meaningful things.  We've lived a purposeful story.

But right now when life seems to say "do this," we're pressing pause on any more change.  I'm not sure what that means, or for how long.  But I know that there is purpose in today.

Today - just as it is - has deep, meaningful purpose in its slower pace. 

Looking around at so many families who seem to have two children in the span of three years - and three within five - it can be easy to feel out of the loop.

When people question out loud whether we'll have another - seeming to look at the age of our child to base their thinking - it becomes harder to have hope.

Sometimes people don't realize it's not up to us anyway.  Life doesn't just happen when we want it to happen.  We can't create life.  And sometimes God has a different plan.

I know this, and I know it isn't time {yet}.  And still, I ask when.  Still, I wriggle like little-Miss-Antsy-Pants - impatient to wait until my Father says it's time.

Recently, when I ask the man why not now, the answer became more clearer.  A different perspective than before.

He wants to invest in us.  Our marriage.  Our togetherness.

Before we go forward...we need more of each other.

We're still young, as so many people say.  And God willing, it's true.  

We are taking time to pause on the future and live for today.  We are deliberately choosing to focus on each other, as we partner in the hard-raising of our blessed one.  

It is hard to raise children - no matter their age (or ours).  It won't get any easier.  And adding another won't make it any easier or free up any time for each other.

We have this time now.  Today.  And we're choosing to enjoy it.  Seize it.

We're pausing on today.

These days could be *in-between-days*.  We don't know for certain.  We don't know whether we'll start over in raising a child from the first cries.  We do know what we have today.  

Today we're stealing moments from child rearing to craft our marriage.

Our marriage is an art.  It's more than disciplining a child, making sure he uses his manners, treats people kindly, and washes in between the wrinkly places.  Our life together is more than this or that.

We're investing in us today.