Where to start? Well, I've needed to close down my last blog--Eight Hearts--since we became nine hearts--way back in April. But then, I never could find the time. Never could because of my job as a daycare owner and director. It was an eighteen hour a day job that really required six days a week to do well. For almost two years I kept that up. No more. We sold the center. Tomorrow makes three weeks of freedom. Freedom is sweet. It wasn't an easy decision. I poured blood, sweat, and many, many tears into getting that business up and going. But two years in and we weren't seeing a profit. We were just barely making the bills with some pretty big ticket items looming on the horizon. Expenditures that would have required us to go farther in debt--something we had promised ourselves at the onset we would not do. So, we sold it. It was for a season and that season came to a close.
When the children started back to school last month, we knew we were in the final days of our ownership of the center. As K filled out one of the "Getting to Know You" packets from his teacher, I glanced over his shoulder and noticed that he was filling out 'Mother's Contact Information' with "daycare director" and the phone number at the center. I told him that instead he should just leave that blank, seeing as how I would only be there for a few more days, and then I would be a full-time mom. He said, "I don't want to put stay-at-home mom. That sounds lame."
I know he didn't.
I told him that he would not think it was lame when he sat down to a home cooked meal. Or when he opened his underwear drawer and found clean pairs of BVDs for a change. Or when I was able to help him make posters for his Student Council campaign, it wouldn't seem to lame. When I got though reaming him out, the master took a turn. He came to see the error of his thinking, but we have given him a hard time for that careless comment.
It has become a regular joke around the house. When I'm waiting for the kids at the bus stop they greet me with a, "Hello, Lame Stay-At-Home Mom!" And when I made gingersnap bars for after supper last week, it was, "You're the best cook ever! Thanks, Lame Stay-At-Home Mom!"
And the more I've heard it and thought about it, the more I embrace the title. Not that I'm 'lame' in the sense that K meant it--I know that the work I do in this home is significant and has great value. Indeed, if I had a nickel for every time someone told me, "I don't know how you do it..." the master and I would have no money problems. They tell me I am, "a better woman" than them, or that I am "supermom." I know that I'm not. Many days I feel blind, deaf, dumb, anxious, and yes, lame. This is a journey I am on, and there is plenty of joy and sorrow, tears and triumph along the way.
A new blog for a new season. A blog to remember this season for however long it may last. But oh, so looking forward to the season that is to come:
Say to those with anxious heart, "Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; The recompense of God will come, But He will save you." Then the eyes of the blind will be opened And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness And streams in the Arabah. The scorched land will become a pool And the thirsty ground springs of water; In the haunt of jackals, its resting place, Grass becomes reeds and rushes.
A highway will be there, a roadway, And it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, But it will be for him who walks that way, And fools will not wander on it. No lion will be there, Nor will any vicious beast go up on it; These will not be found there. But the redeemed will walk there, And the ransomed of the LORD will return And come with joyful shouting to Zion, With everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy, And sorrow and sighing will flee away. Isaiah 35:5-10
