Basic Math.

In January when the world was busy making New Year's resolutions, I was exhausted and wondering what in the HECK I could ADD to my life that would make much sense.  I am grateful to live a fantastically full life and while I always want to have the heart of Mary to say YES to the God like she did when she was told she would be the virgin mother of the Messiah: "I am the Lord's servant, may it be to me as you have said." (Luke 1:38), I am also cautious to bite off more than I can chew.

And if we're being honest, simply having two kids and being married to a pastor was already more than I could chew.

Precious Karis has always been a talker, but around that time, she entered the non-stop talking and asking questions phase.  And y'all, the things she says are THE BEST, so this is a gift, but it'll also take it out of ya if you want to pursue your kids' heart and be intentional with your words.  I'm sure this blog will be full of Karis musings and wisdom.

And then there was sweet Haddie.  Sweet, sweet, LOUD Haddie.  My friend Casey just told me yesterday that they called her little sister "The Noise" when she was growing up and I'm totally stealing it for Haddie's new nickname.  She is hysterical and all over the place and makes me belly laugh even at a year old, but she does it all LOUDLY.  She also likes to frequently wake up for an hour in the middle of the night and SCREAM.  She's not sad.  Or in pain.  She just yells.  Like she knows we're all asleep and she wants to hang out and so she's gonna yell to get our attention until we get up and play with her.  After those nights, ain't nobody excited for New Year's resolutions or "Yay! What fun things can we do today?" It's more like, how much coffee can I consume and let's watch Frozen six times.

So that night in January, exhausted from the months of mothering these two little girls and supporting my husband as a new pastor at a new church, but under the pressure of other people's awe-inspiring resolutions, I wrote out a list of things I wanted to ADD to my life and a correlating column of things that I needed to SUBTRACT in order to do that.  Basic math, people.

On the SUBTRACT LIST:
--Less wasted time on facebook & instagram.
--No more plopping on the sofa as soon as the girls get in bed and watching a whole hour of TV I don't even like because I'm too lazy to find something I actually want to watch on Netflix.
--Find a new home for our dogs.  I love 'em but they are WORK.

On the ADD LIST:
--Some sort of intentional exercise.
--Consistent morning prayer before the girls wake up.
--Blogging.

So I started praying that God would help me eliminate the things on the Subtract List so that I could add all my fun things on my Add List.  And if I'm being honest, I wasn't quite sure that it would happen.  Especially finding the dogs a home.  We had been half-heartedly trying since Karis was born with no luck.

After a little while, I realized that thanks to two of my best friends giving up social media for Lent and the conviction I felt there, that social media started being less consuming.  And one day the Lord gave me the miraculous umph I needed to push myself past bedtime and to crash in the bed instead of watching meaningless TV.  But there were still the dogs.

The morning of Haddie's birthday, Naomi came to our house to meet Sam and Libby.  I got connected with her through Stephanie, who I knew through Young Life while she was at Elon.  We thought she was going to meet the dogs and see if she liked one and best case scenario, she would take one of them.

SHE TOOK BOTH. OF. THEM. 

That night, after Haddie's party and going to a beautiful wedding, Brett and I laid in bed in awe of the fact that we finally had a dog free house.  And then I realized that He had done it.  God had taken care of my Subtract List for me.

Which was AWESOME.  Except now it meant I had to start with my Add List.  It's been a month since then (happy one month anniversary, Kaitlin and Clay!) and I've failed to start any of the three things.  I'm the best, and I mean THE BEST, at making excuses.  But today, I heard the Lord say "Quit. Whatever you're doing that's keeping you away--quit it."

So I did.  I grabbed my computer and wrote this blog.  Because with God's grace and His provision, I'm gonna do this again.  And if you want to come along, you are cordially invited!

"I AM THE LORD'S SERVANT. MAY IT BE TO ME AS YOU HAVE SAID!"