Today we begin an intensive 5 days a week, 3 1/2 hours a day language class. This will continue for 4 weeks. Four long, headache causing weeks. Fear and trembling have set in. And also the feeling that I am going to throw up.

It is the same feeling I had when I walked into Advanced or AP Biology in high school. Sylvia Blaylock while one of my favorite teachers had a dark side called “crazy matching test”. I do not have the time this morning to describe the test to you, but suffice it to say that 95% of the class sat at their desk trembling while they broke out in cold sweats trying to keep a grip on their pencils. If you were ever going to cheat off the smart kid’s paper, it would be during one of these tests. Goodness, just thinking about it is making me nervous.

I got the same feeling when as I approached the office my oral comprehensive exams were being held in for my Master’s degree. I’m pretty sure I was tearing up and pushing the throw up back down as I walked in that door and saw the four professors who would drill me on everything I had learned in three years and then decide my fate. I could hardly breathe as the drilling began and then every answer just left my head. It was like I had not studied at all every single day for the previous six months. I walked out of that room, saw my friend Charles who had come for emotional support and started bawling. And I mean ugly bawling. This one day keeps me from pursuing another Master’s degree. Doctorate….forget about it.

So this is how I feel when I think about language school. The first day we started language school in Naples we went into a little room to take a written test determine our language level. That was easy for me…level zero. I knew this because I had trouble figuring out which blank at the top of the page was for first name and last name. I’m pretty sure I had to ask Paul or at least look on his paper. Yes, I probably cheated, but who can’t figure out which blank their first and last names go in?? That is all that was filled out on my test. I mean, they could have just saved that paper. Then, Paul and I were taken to a little room with the ever kind Daniela, who proceeded to speak to me in Italian like I knew what she was saying. I’m pretty sure I started tearing up in this situation as well. I left feeling utterly defeated with a huge pit in my stomach.

I left class probably 90% of the time feeling like I would never get it and on the verge of tears, which sometimes waited until I got home to spill out and sometimes just barely made it to the school door. It was just so hard for me. I felt like I was failing because EVERYONE told me because I was musical I would pick up the language easily. LIE. Big ole fat LIE. But because I thought I should be learning it easily when I didn’t it created a sense of failing.

Are you beginning to get a sense of why I am dreading this just a touch? I mean, I’m writing this at 6:00am and I already have nervous knots building…class starts at 9:00.

“Do I have to go to school?” No. “Then why put yourself through this, MacKenzie?” Good question. It’s a multi-response answer.

1. One of my three goals for the year is to improve my language skills. At some point I’ll write down measurable and attainable goals. One way I can do this is to go back to school for a bit. Afterall, it’s the environment I learn best in after all. I really did like school, honest.
2. If I am ever going to somewhat “fit in”, be able to communicate effectively to every.single.person.I.meet then I have to improve in language. I can never build sincere and honest friendship, teach, or speak into any situation without improved language.
3. I truly believe that it’s a good thing for my kids to see me struggle with language, tackle it, go to school, improve and at some point conquer language as they do the same thing.
4. It will remind me of what my kids are in five days a week, helping me be more gracious and understanding towards them.

I think those a good enough reasons to suck it up and go to school. To put myself through the headaches and all the feelings that come with this part because I know on the flip side of it, although I will have consumed too many tylenols to count, drank many soothing cups of hot tea, and had lots of “American” days (those living in countries not their own might be the only ones who get this) my language will be better. I will be able to better talk to teachers, other moms, and my church family. I will feel more at home in a city that I am a stranger in because I will fit in more. This makes the nervous knots loosen up. It makes me excited, happy and ready to start.

So I’m going to read my Bible for the few minutes I have this morning before I have to start rushing around to get the kids and myself and Paul out the door. Then, I am going to bust my way up into that school and face it head on, pushing down the throw up all the way.

Oh, and one last thing…I also have to take a placement test today. If nothing else, at least I will be able to write my first and last names in the correct blanks this time.

Heroes are everywhere these days. They storm the box offices every other month defeating villains and saving the world. They come alive in books as they fight goblins, slay dragons, and rescue princesses.They are in our cities and communities, saving people’s lives, teaching our children, fighting injustices and going to war.

Who are your heroes?

My heroes come in the form of two little bodies that I brought into this world with the help of powerful drugs and good doctors. The last year has brought countless transitions to our family and Gingernut and Lil’ Paul have faced them head-on, with questions and sometimes sadness but also with courage.
When we told them we were moving to Italy they asked “Why?”. Our answer was and is because Italians don’t know the grace and love of Jesus and someone has to tell them.They caught that vision and began communicating it to others during the process of us moving. It was incredible to hear them explain to people the “why”. The “why” is something we talk about even now on the hard days when they miss their friends and family in America.

Gingernut and Lil’ Paul left the only house they ever lived in for any significant amount of time. They said goodbye to their cat. They said goodbye to their friends and then several months later to their family.They let go of many of their “things”, toys, books, games. They left everything that was familiar to them for the unfamiliar.

They did all this with questions and some sadness but with little hearts that tried very hard to understand that our love for God trumps all other loves and when He says “Go”, you go.

Gingernut and Lil’ Paul live in a context in which they don’t completely fit in and when we go back to the States for a visit they won’t fit in their either. But that’s a whole ‘nother post.

They cannot communicate well at this point, which means school, playing, making friends, and just every day things are difficult. They now go to school and try so hard to do their best with very, very limited language, and while in six months or a year they will be functioning in Italian far better than I, in this moment, life is a struggle because of the lack of language. However, they try. They try their absolute best to speak and learn and understand. They do it with perseverance and strength and a
courage I do not possess. They do it with little or no complaint (with the exception of Lil’ Paul crying ALL THE WAY TO SCHOOL that he doesn’t want to go. Any advice with this problem would be appreciated.) They make friends easier than I do with
less language than I possess. I am amazed on a daily basis at their abilities and extravertedness. They just get out their and do it. I admire them so much for it.

They have hard days. Days where they miss their friends or ask to call a grandparent or cousin. It might be days before a phone call actually happens because of the time difference. Days when they miss their old cat, Remus. Days when they want to go back to our other house (meaning our house in Winston-Salem). But they keep going. They fight even though they don’t know they are doing it.

In the midst of all the hard things they are learning much about the God our family said “yes” to. They are growing in their knowledge and love for and of Him. They are learning to ask Jesus for help in big and small things…from learning Italian to being kind to each other to making us well when we are sick. They are learning to let Jesus fight for them, to let him be the hero of their story.

“Faith doesn’t take away the hurt.” – Sharon Rice, mentor, friend, prayer warrior, and lover of Hot Tamales

No, it doesn’t. But there are times I think it should. One of those times happened a couple of weeks ago when a friend and colleague of ours was killed in a car accident outside Atlanta. She, her husband, and three young daughters were getting on a plane two days later to return to their home in Rome.

I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure out if I wanted to write about it and if so, what I wanted to write. I knew Kyra and her husband, Reid. They arrived in Rome during our last year in Naples, and I was looking forward to reconnecting with them as we settled into life in Italy again. However, I don’t want to give the impression that we were best friends. I don’t know Kyra’s favorite color or flavor of gelato. However, I knew her and continue to know her husband. So I hurt. I hurt for Reid. I hurt for her daughters. I hurt for her parents and sisters. I hurt for our mutual friends in Italy and America who knew her better than I did. I hurt for those whose hearts are broken. And though I knew her briefly, there is still a great sense of loss and broken-heartedness in me as well.

There were so many unanswered questions being asked in the days that followed the seemingly untimely death of Kyra. Questions that will continue to be asked for months to come. However, most of them are questions that will never be answered. I find it futile to even ask the question “Why?” Why did it happen? Why were Reid and the girls spared and not Kyra? Why did God not STOP IT? Questions that will never be answered no matter how many times they are asked except with “for God’s glory.”

But how can that be? How can something so tragic bring glory to God? A pastor said at Kyra’s funeral that we see the finite and the end. However, God sees the infinite and the beginning of a life in eternity with Him. But that still doesn’t answer the question for me. There a lot of things I don’t know, but here are some things I do know. I know God’s ways and thoughts are greater than mine. Isaiah writes, “ ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’ ” I know that God is good. The psalmist in the 31 Psalm writes, “How great is Your goodness that You have stored up for those who fear You and accomplished in the sight of everyone for those who take refuge in You.” I know that He is close in times of suffering. David writes in the 23rd Psalm, “Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me.” 

My prayer is that in Kyra’s death people will come to know Christ for who He is and if only one person does this then her death has significance in light of eternity. That seems like a ludicrous statement. But Kyra knew when she died she would walk with Jesus on streets of gold, praising God with a heart full of love. And if her death means even one more person will know this unspeakable joy, then yes, it was worth it. And that does bring God glory. 

I want to return to the first statement made by my friend Sharon. She’s the one who   reminded me that we often think that because we have faith in the all-powerful God of all creation that the pain we feel when something tragic happens will be taken away. Faith is not a pill that takes away all the bad things that happen in the world. Faith is what gets us through all the bad things that happen in the world. Faith gives us hope. It gives us something and someone to cling to. It is why we can have joy during the midst of suffering, which is at times easier said than done. But faith in what?? I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people say, “You just gotta have faith.” or “You just have to believe.” This always reminds of something Oprah would say. George Michael even wrote a song about it.  But what does it mean? Faith in who? Belief in what? Faith in other people or myself will ALWAYS turn out badly. People fail and disappoint because we are sinful creatures. However, for those who choose to put that faith and belief in the One who made them, died for them, saved them, redeemed them and loves them, they will never be put to shame. Paul writes in the book of Romans “Through him (Jesus Christ) we have also obtained access by faith in to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

I have faith in a God who knows suffering, which He has had His fair share of. We see it in the very beginning when the creation He loved so greatly chose a piece of fruit over him, and in doing so decided they knew better than Him. Separation from His beloved creation, caused by that creation. He rescued His people from the horrors of slavery to take them to a land of bounty and rest only to have them disobey at every turn and choose other gods made of wood and stone over Him. Again, separation from his beloved creation caused by that same creation. He left the glory of heaven to take on flesh to walk among the creation that has continually rejected Him, which meant He no longer was in the presence of God the Father or God the Holy Spirit. Physical separation from the Trinity. He was whipped, punched, spit on, despised, beaten to a bloody pulp, mocked, and nailed to a cross. Physical suffering to the extreme caused by the very ones he came to save. As he died bearing the sins of the world on his shoulders he cried out to the Father and for the first time there was silence. Spiritual separation from the Trinity. This last suffering might be the greatest and one that we can never ever comprehend.

Sometimes in life, faith is a choice. Well it’s always a choice really. Everyday we choose to follow, serve, love, praise, believe in someone or something. And in not choosing we are still choosing. Faith in Jesus in not always easy and it doesn’t always make sense.

Oswald Chambers said, “Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture out with courage on the words of Jesus Christ, while the realities of your commonsense life continue to shout, ‘It’s all a lie’? When you are on the mountaintop, it’s easy to say, ‘Oh yes, I believe God can do it,’ but you have to come down from the mountain to the demon-possessed valley and face the realities that scoff at your Mount-of-Transfiguration belief.”

It is in our suffering, in the valley, that those things are put to the test. Will we follow, serve, love, praise and believe when it is hard? When there are no answers to questions? When life seems to have dealt us an unfair hand? When we are beaten and bruised? We make a choice EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. The circumstances of the day matter not. We choose God or we don’t.

So, although I have questions that will never be answered and hurt, I choose to believe. I choose to praise. I choose to follow. I choose to put my faith in the One who knew after 31 short years on this earth, Kyra would be called home, having left behind a life lived for Him.

Every morning after the dog takes me for a walk and I plow my way through a workout, I drag myself up the stairs, glass of water in hand, grab my bible and journal and sit at a table on the terrace outside our bedroom. And every morning a little after 6:30 a little old man across the way comes out onto his balcony and throws bread onto the roof of the building beside his for the pigeons and sea gulls. The birds have been trained and are waiting to pounce on the bread. The poor pigeons either swoop in there first or don’t get anything because when those gulls come swarming in all bread is off limits.

Today the man only threw out one piece of bread. I could smell a fight brewing. And brew it did. The pigeons were out of the fight quicker than a feather weight cage fighter up against a heavy weight. It was brutal…wings spread everywhere, loud squawking…terrible, just terrible.

The seagulls were going at it. One had it, then another. Finally I think it’s off when “the boss” of all seagulls comes in and takes the bread. The others seem to back off. But wait…what’s this? A lone gull comes flying through the morning light, swoops majestically down and takes the bread right out the “the boss’ ” beak. He, wisely, flew away from the other birds (the pigeons have been standing around gawking at the fight waiting for the crumbs to fall. Typical) and, I imagine, ate his bread in peace. The other breads were left staring after him. Literally. “The Boss” even had his wings spread out as if to say, “Wait…wh – – wh- – what was that and where’s the…WHAT??” The just stared and stared and stared.

I realized we are a lot like those birds left gawking after the one who got away with the bread. We fight. We steal. We step on others. We are selfish. We are full of self-righteousness. We do so many things that are hurtful and mean and spiteful. We do them because we are sinners. We don’t always see it though, much like those birds didn’t see themselves as selfish stealers and hoarders of bread. However, when someone else comes along and fights us, steals from us, steps on us, doesn’t think of us, is self-righteous, hurts us, is mean to us, or behaves spitefully we see it clear as day and most of the time we point it out. We may not point it out to the person though. Nope. Instead we choose to tell others about it. We might even take a poke at them on social media.

We gawk at people who hurt us in some way. We gawk at people who make mistakes, telling ourselves and others, “I can’t believe he/she would do something like that. I would never.”

Ashamedly, this happens as often in the Church as outside it. It happens in my heart. Does it happen in yours? I am human and I fail. However, how would it change me if instead of looking at the flaws and mistakes in others I only looked at my own, asking the Holy Spirit to point them out, lead me to repentance, and allow Him to change those things in me through the process of sanctification? What if I spent more time talking with Jesus than talking about others to others? What if my relationship with God was so intimate and real that instead of pointing out others’ flaws I loved them as He does helping them to draw nearer to the One who can refine them in the refiner’s fire?

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” Luke 6:42

We are dog sitting this summer for some friends. It’s been nice having a dog, especially with the knowledge that he’ll go back home in a little over a month. I guess in that way he’s like grandchildren. You get to have fun but give them back at a predetermined point in time.

Toby, the one year old golden retriever who is living with us, has supplied us with endless entertainment when he’s not sprawled out on any cool surface he can find. I can’t blame him. It’s super hot and we ain’t got no air conditioning except in the bedrooms. If I could, I’d sprawl out on the bathroom floor (it’s tile) or on the slender piece of marble by the front door as well. But that could be frowned upon.

We are accumulating many Toby stories, most of which consists of pee, poop, or as is the case a few days ago, vomit. I warn you, while I think the following story is somewhat humorous, it is also gross. It won’t hurt my feelings if you stop reading to finish your breakfast first. In fact, I recommend it. In lieu of all the more serious posts of late I thought something more lighthearted was in order.

It all began Monday. It was mid-morning and the heat was beginning to invade our house. We were all in the dining room, Paul and I discussing the days affairs and the kids sitting still trying not to sweat.
That’s when I heard it…a sound unlike any other sound…the sound of a dog vomiting. And then I saw it. I stood in disbelief and total disgust, wondering how I could get Paul to clean it up with no help from me. Then I remembered his gagging reflex to the sight and smell of vomit. No…he would not do it alone, but I didn’t want to either so I threw out a compromise.

“We’re going into this together,” I said. He agreed but then took a step around Toby and saw what I had been staring at for a good 3 minutes at this point. It wasn’t a little pile of vomit that Toby has left for us. It was ALL OF HIS BREAKFAST, EVERY LAST KIBBLE AND BIT. Paul’s face changed to reflect his grossed-outness, but he’d already agreed to help. It was a verbal pact as far as I was concerned and there was no undoing it.

Now this is where the real problem comes in…I had ZERO papertowels. Zip, nil, nada, niente, none. All we had were about eight napkins and I knew that was not going to get the entire job done. But we divided up the napkins and started at it anyway, praying that those few napkins would multiply into many like the loaves and fish Jesus prayed over on a mountain thousands of years ago. The garbage can was moved to closer proximity and the toxic clean up began. We took turns diving in, breath held, arm outstretched. As one went away gagging, the other stepped in. I’ve cleaned up a fair amount of vomit from my kids, as well as wiped up some seriously gross poop, and I held my own through all of it, but this…this about got me. I just couldn’t handle it.

The kids, being thoroughly amused at this point, decided to settle in for the show and pulled up their chairs to watch their parents gag on the smell,sight, and feel of dog vomit.

We are about 4 or 5 napkins into this cleanup at this point when Paul gets the idea to tear up an old box and use it as a rake of sorts, one part being the “rake” and the other part being the “thing the vomit is raked into”. I give him props. It worked really well. And I didn’t have to do it. Here’s the man who gags at the tiniest poop cleaning up the nastiest and smelliest vomit the world has ever seen without complaint but, yes, with much gagging. I was off in the corner waiting for him to finish and trying not to lose MY breakfast. I knew once the “raking” was done it would be my turn to go in and finish up.

And finish we did. In style I might add. I know this because our children gave us a round of applause afterwards.

That’s right…we are now expert dog vomit cleaner-uppers according to generous laughter and applause of our children.

Where has this spiral left me? That’s a great question. After as much counseling as I could cram into three months and some anti-depressants, I think I am much better. My goal when I started counseling was to feel “normal”, like myself, and I think I have gotten there. I have tools to cope with the anger and stress and sadness that I didn’t have before. I can better recognize the signs that say “BEWARE – CLIFF AHEAD BACK UP”. Because that’s what it always felt like…as if everyday I was at the edge of a cliff and I would fall off. But I was lifted up, given things to help me see the cliff ahead, and can now back up when I near the edge.

It doesn’t always happen that way though. Honestly, there are some hard days. Days when I get it completely wrong, days when I feel like crawling into a hole, days when I beat myself up for something I did or said.

But overall, things are much better and “normalcy” has ensued.

There is something that I wanted to mention that I forgot in previous posts. It concerns medication. Yes, I took a low-dose anti-depressant for a while. Maybe I should still be on it, who knows, considering I weened myself off without the permission of a licensed counselor or physician. This is not recommended, but I like to be in control of things. It’s something that is a work in progress.

I had a hard time at first taking the medicine. It seemed to me that taking the medicine meant I was weak. What it really meant was that I was so depressed I could not get out of the darkness on my own with a flashlight, Indiana Jones style torch, lantern, and flood light. The medicine helped me want to do the things I normally did but during this time just couldn’t make myself do on a good day.

I write all this because at one point in my life I judged those who took medicine for depression. I truly thought it meant they were weak and, shamefully, that I was a stronger person than they because when would I ever need to take medicine because I was sad? (Please hear the irony and sarcasm in that sentence) One thing I have learned during all of this is to not judge others concerning experiences I have never had…it’s good not to judge people in general though, isn’t it? I think that’s written somewhere….I never thought I would find myself severely depressed, but there I was depressed, on medication, and not seeing an end to it. The counseling along with the medication helped me see an end to my “crazy”.

As I wrap it up, I’d like to say thank you to Paul. He has been a rock. He has listened and done what he could to help me. I greatly appreciate his patience and love and forgiveness. Because he caught the brunt of it all.

So thanks for going down this road with me. My hope is that is was helpful, insightful, or meaningful in some way.

About a month after we left North Carolina I knew something was wrong with me. I didn’t feel “normal”. I would become really angry at nothing one minute and the next I would want to cry but I couldn’t tell you why. I felt alone when I was surrounded by people. I lost interest in things I was normally interested in…exercising, writing, reading my Bible. Then I began eating any and everything.

It wasn’t that I wanted to be angry or sad all the time. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to read my Bible or exercise or eat everything in sight. I knew that exercising was a good thing. I knew that spending time with Jesus would bring me peace. And I don’t think this is something you can understand if you have not lived it but I just could.not.make.myself.do.anything. It was this crazy juxtaposition within me, knowing that I should do or not do something but not having the will to do it. I was imprisoned in my own mind and body.

I was telling a friend of mine about all this one day and she suggested that I might be depressed. I was already thinking it but when someone who has dealt with depression tells you you are depressed you take it a little more seriously. So I reached out to someone for help, and to be honest, no help came. I felt like I was drowning and had called to someone on shore for help. He went to get a life preserver to throw to me and never came back with it. And I began to sink.

But then I thought of a close friend who is a counselor in Mississippi. I reached out again and when we finally settled in Mississippi I began meeting with a colleague of his every week. It was the hardest part of my week but also the part that I looked forward to the most.

I still didn’t tell anybody what was going on though. At first I just told them I had meetings every week. But then one day my sister asked if I was ok. Here it was…the blatant question that until this point nobody I was living with had asked me. Should I lie or be honest with her? I chose to be honest. I confided in her the deep dark secret I’d been carrying….And she understood. She was compassionate. She didn’t say cliche things, only asked how she could help. What meant the most was that she recognized something was wrong and she asked me about it. She didn’t ignore signs that I wasn’t myself.

So while it was crucial to my healing that I recognized I needed help, it meant a great deal to me that someone else recognized I wasn’t my normal self and asked me about it lovingly without reproach or consternation or judgement. I implore you to ask people you love questions when you sense something is wrong. Be nosy. If they don’t want to talk about it they won’t. But maybe, just maybe, they want someone to ask.

There is an epidemic in America…well, the world really. It affects 1 in 10 Americas and only 80% of those with symptoms receive help*. An estimated 121 million people around the world are dealing with it*. It is everywhere, and odds are you know more than one person who has had it or who is going through it currently.

The numbers aren’t what gets to me though…it is the stigma that goes along with it. We don’t know our friends and family are dealing with it because we, as a society, have made it shameful to admit we have it.

Depression has become an ugly word.

We tend to look down on people who admit to us they have or are dealing with depression. Sure, we may cry with them, hold their hand, or try to understand, but at the same time we think to ourselves, “I am so glad I will never have to deal with this. I am too strong to let myself get so down about life.”

We try to be consoling and encouraging by offering advice on something we know absolutely zero about. We say things like, “Well, if God brought you to it, He’ll get you through it,” or “You just need to pick yourself up by your bootstraps,” or “I heard if you change your diet and start exercising it will help.” I can’t imagine any of our cliche advice has helped anybody…with anything.

Society has made those with depression feel as though they must keep it hidden, that they must put on a good “face”, pretending everything is a-okay. You know that moment when someone admits something kinda awkward to you and you don’t know what to say or do or how to act? We’ve made it so that admitting to depression creates that kind of moment, and heaven forbid we feel awkward for a moment in order that someone else may begin to have a safe place and not feel awkward for a lifetime.

Yes, there is a stigma that goes with depression. I know because I have contributed in my own little world to putting it there. I have said cliche things. I have been judgmental while friends confided in me.

I did all those things until my own downward spiral started….

*Statistics taken from http://www.healthline.com

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.” The Apostle Paul to the church in Philippi.

These four sentences seem to be surrounding me the last two and a half months. They are every where it seems.

Being back in Italy has been like coming home. We knew the culture from having lived in Naples so the only real shock coming back has been how many things I can find here now that five or six years ago were almost, if not completely, non-existant. We remember enough language to function and carry on conversation. We have learned our way around the city fairly well. Nothing about the actual move back, other than missing family and friends, has been difficult.

But there are other things that have made the transition to Salerno difficult. And I must admit, that I was allowing those things to bring me down. My focus shifted to my circumstances, to the temporal, to things.

I lost sight of what was most important. I cried out to God, asking Him to change my circumstances over and over, thinking that it would also change my attitude, my mental state, my emotions.

I thought that if after nine months of not having our own home we could just be settled then I would be a better mom and a better wife. That the kids would settle down. That a home would make me content.

If we could get a routine down after being so long without any kind of consistency that would make me content.

If we could all not be sick. We just haven’t been able to get any momentum because someone is always sick…for over two months. If we could all be well, at the same time, I would be content.

At some point in the last nine months, I lowered my eyes from the heavenly to the earthly. I put more emphasis on things of this earth than things of heaven.

I suffered for it. My kids suffered for it. My husband suffered for it.

When Paul speaks of being content in every situation, I think he means every situation. It’s not only about whether you have need or want in the form of money. My family has needed some consistency after almost a year of bouncing around from house to house and country to country. We all need to be well because all of the sickness is absolutely draining us. Kids need routine – all kids, not just mine – and that’s not a bad thing. What is bad is that I began to think it would bring me peace and contentment if those things happened.

Then Paul’s words began appearing and people began speaking into the situation and I realized that I had been idolizing a home, a routine, health. Those things would never bring contentedness, never make me a better mom and wife.

A home will always have things to fix or paint or redo, and I’ll always be picking up and cleaning it.

I have two little kids…somebody is probably always going to be sick. It’s life.

I can get a routine but it will change.

The only consistency in my life comes from the one person I was failing to turn to, to lean on, to rest in.

I can do all things through him because he is my source of strength, peace, and comfort. I am realizing that my attitude, mental state and emotions will not change based on my circumstances but rather on the One who can bring me through those circumstances.

He is where I find content despite transition, despite sickness, despite inconsistency.

So I choose to look up and find contentment from above.