When the threads of life start to connect

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For as long as I can remember I have always been a planner. Maybe it was to offset the intense worry and fear inside.  If I planned for a variety of scenarios,  the anxiety inside me would subside for the time being and I felt a sense of control in the world around me.  Every day, project, vacation, weekend, relationship, shopping trip, school choice, career choice went something like this.  Set a goal.  Make a plan.  Reach the goal. Repeat.   I was choosing the threads of my life and weaving it myself.  Most of life went my way. But then….it didn’t.

In 2009, the life I had planned was beyond my control.  Plan the work, work the plan was failing. And no matter how many goals I set individually or Hubs and I set together, they never seemed to come to fruition.  Our careers were not going down the paths we imagined.  We both lost our jobs in the economic downturn.  Thankfully, I acquired a new teaching position at a charter school, but that came with a much lower paycheck.  Our finances were nowhere near what we imagined at 29 years old. Hubs got a new job just in time, but not on the career path he dreamed and work was unfulfilling. Blended family issues never seemed to end.  Surprise! You are having a baby!  One more human to take care of on a limited income.  Surprise!  Cars are breaking down and you have no money to get a new one.  Surprise!  You thought you were moving out of state to start fresh as one big blended family, but instead you are going to fight to keep your little family together here in Michigan. Surprise! You need a new roof. Surprise!  You need a furnace.  Surprise!  Your marriage is starting to crumble under the surprises of life.  Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Our hopes, dreams and plans were farther from our reach than they had ever been. Our feet were failing and our faith was dwindling.  I just couldn’t understand how all of the threads of my life, our lives, were supposed to connect together when they all just seemed frayed and knotting up in a ball of disaster instead of the beautiful tapestry I had planned.

One example of what I consider a frayed thread  is my deep longing to stay home instead of work outside of the home.  Hubs is totally on board once we can afford to live on one income.  But that is not our current reality.  We have done all we can in the natural to move toward that goal. The next thing would be to sell everything we own and move into a box, but even then I am still not sure it would happen. Every summer I get the blues realizing I am going back to work.  Not because I dislike my job.  I love teaching.  But I love my family more and I want to be home.  At some point every year, I meet the children and families that I know are the threads in my tapestry.  These are the people that I would be missing and that God has placed in my life for specific reasons that I would never know if I was at home.  These are the threads that make sense, answer the “whys” and connect to other threads to build strength in my character and faith in my soul.   Being a work-out-of-the-home mom is sharpening me, my marriage and my parenting and I am certain it is preparing me for the adventure that awaits when I finally come home full time.

Today, March 13, 2016, I enjoyed how spring was trying to break through in Michigan.  Maybe it’s the sunshine, but hope is starting to fill our home again.  In this last week, I have deepened connections with people I have in my life because of the work I do outside of my home.  I received a note in the mail from a parent of a student from 4 years ago telling me how I touched her life and inspire her to be better.  None of which would have happened if I had come home when I thought I wanted and needed to.  I am finally starting to see how the threads of my life are weaving together to create the first third of the tapestry of my life.  I can see how the struggles of the past have paved the road to our future.  I can see how some of  the “whys” I so longed to have immediate answers to are working out in time.

I would be lying if I said I don’t have anymore “whys” or “hows” floating around in my brain.  But the truth is that I have a deeper faith and know in my knower that the threads that are still hanging and frayed are going to connect when the time is right and that God is still weaving a beautiful tapestry from my life.   Life is good.  High five for home.