Spring, my Journey...

Spring has sprung!!!! It's not (unlike many people) my favorite season. Oh no, THAT is reserved for my beloved Autumn. However, even in me, Spring brings a certain excitement, a certain newness, and a desire for all things new, clean, and orderly. 

I have found myself pondering over which blooms shall appear in and around our home. I've spent too much time planning, organizing, and creating cleaning plans, routines, and enjoying the newness of it all. Now, will I stick to these routines? I believe so. See, I've learned to hear the voice of the Spirit, instead of wondering around aimlessly trying to figure it out alone. 

Spring. It's the season of new life. I have prayed, throughout my life, that I would be a wife, mother, and homemaker who is respected for her love and devotion to her family and home. Yet, I have failed faltered in all of those areas for many years. I manage to keep one area going well, and fall down on my prayer life, or time devoted to another. I truly struggle balancing my inner Mary and Martha. I have the desire to have the heart of Mary, but the home of Martha. Yikes. 

I am grateful for Spring. Since it's the season of new life, I began to pray about what this really means for me. See, I'm not a big "New Years" resolution kind of girl. I've tried (even this year) to start new stuff during the shift from one year to the next, thinking of it as a fresh start. It's not for me. However, it seems, prayer, plus planning, has helped me to realize, THIS is my season.

He created order AND beauty in the buds that turn to full trees; the sprouts of green, that become tulips, irises, hostas and more. He also, created order AND beauty in me. 

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? - Matthew 6:28-30

Since He lovingly created me...and assures me, in Matthew that I shouldn't worry about what I will wear, I have to venture to think that He ALSO knew, as He "knit me together," He knew what I was to become. He knew the vast job I'd be doing, and He equipped me FULLY for this job. 

To consider myself "failing" at this job, is simply an insult to Him. No one considers a flower a failure when it wilts, at the end of its season, or the tree a failure when it drops its leaves in the Autumn, or the grass as it become brown with the cold of Winter. Why? Because they aren't. They were perfectly created to change with the seasons, as He divinely ordered it. 

What I've come to realize, is I went through a season of change, and have been trying to live as if I were a tree in Winter, attempting to maintain it's leaves. My new season isn't just the same as it was 2, 3, or even 4 years ago. I've added children to my day - ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, and teaching, on top of the regular "homemaker" duties. My husbands work schedule is different, my oldest started college and works, my 12 yr old is mowing with his father on the side this year, and my 5 yr old is trying to assert his independence..not necessarily the right way. My days don't all look the same anymore. It's time to adjust to my new season...to bloom where I am planted. 

So, I am on board with a new season. My Spring has sprung. I'm trusting His guiding, and He has provided me with some pretty awesome guides to get started. I found a calendar, a deep cleaning list, and an amazing book by Sarah Mae, called 31 Days to Clean -- Having a Martha House the Mary Way.  

I don't know what will work and what will need changing, but my heart has changed, along with my season, and the Holy Spirit is my guide. From here, I'm just excited to watch what "blooms." I'm curious if any of you have found yourself in the same kind of ruts, where life has changed, but you haven't. How did you dig out of the trenches and adjust to the newness of it all?