Finding Joy in the Life I Love but Never Thought I Wanted

Finding Joy in the Life I Love but Never Thought I Wanted

In my mid-20’s, I had a plan for my life. I was going to change the world. I was going to live in the city, stay engaged with the culture, and embrace the diversity and all the city had to offer. At the time, I believed that suburbs were for people who were happy with the status quo, wanted a house that matched their neighbors, and a comfortable job. Basically, I thought the 'burbs were boring. I guess you could say I was a bit snobby about where I lived. I lived in Cambridge (right outside of Boston), Durham (which I loved but was more of a stopping point along the way), and San Francisco (which I believed would be my final stop).

Back then, I had a very different life than I have now. When I lived in San Francisco I was married to my ex-husband, lived in a small apartment in the heart of the city, ran fast, attended a hip church, and had a great group of friends. Running in beautiful areas, fun brunches, and drinks out were the norm. Lunch after church was actually a thing. My goals were different as was my life. Now when I tell people about this life, I feel as if I'm telling stories from someone else’s life.

Fast forward to the present. I live in the suburbs, am remarried and have two beautiful daughters whom I love more than I ever thought possible. The suburb life that I never wanted is all I want now. I regularly tell my husband I hope we get to stay here at least until our kids graduate high school. My life is considered quite boring by most people’s standards. And yet I love living here, being a Mom, and being married to Carl. Days can get tough and lonely with a toddler and a baby. Yet this life is so beautiful to me.

However, sometimes it’s easy to look at my life as a suburb mom and start to think, what’s my purpose? How can I live out God’s calling in my everyday, ordinary life? Where’s my joy in these every days? What did I accomplish today? The obvious answer is that my purpose is to raise my beautiful girls. I’ve tried to look beyond this simple answer and think about the true meaning of my life as a stay at home mom. I also want to look at the big picture of raising my children, instead of constantly getting caught up in the day-to-day temper tantrums and diapers.

What I’ve come to discover is that sometimes living out the ordinary days can be much harder than living out an exciting calling, but is no less important in the eyes in God. Changing diapers, playing with my kids and staying calm during temper tantrums (which I don’t always do) is caring for God’s children and helping to shape them. I heard this concept about caring for God’s children in a Bible study. This concept helped shape the way I look at my daily life. Sometimes finding joy in the everyday can be hard, yet, when I stop to reflect on what I have to be joyful about and thankful for, my list is so long. God has given me a healthy family, people to share life with, the ability to stay home, and a faith in Him to have hope in so much more than what I see in front of me.

I’ve also learned that I can’t do life alone. Recently I looked back at a Facebook picture album from the year I got divorced. I now can clearly see that people were the theme of the album. People who stood by my side when life wasn’t fun. For the first time in my adult life, I truly needed people, and survived on their prayers. While my life now is pretty stable, I still need people. I rely on other moms to come over and provide adult interaction, my Mom’s group at church which provides a little break and encouragement in my week, my two running partners who let me have some girl time and get fresh air, and most importantly, my husband and partner in parenting. Whatever stage of life I’m in, I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do life without other people.

In closing, I leave you with this thought. I truly believe going through all the phases of my life are part of God's plan. My current life is an absolutely beautiful part of His plan. When I stop to think about my life, the life God planned for me has had more twists and turns that I could have ever written for myself. It’s an adventure for sure. We can choose how we respond to God’s grace and plan for our lives. At the end of the day I chose a spirit of joy. This does not mean I’m happy all the time. Happiness is a feeling based on circumstances, whereas joy is a truth we can rely on because we know the truths about God’s character. In a sermon about joy, Tim Keller said the following, “A child of God will receive a joy of such intensity that no sorrow in the end can overwhelm it.” Joy isn’t based on my feelings, exciting activities, or how well my kids are behaving. Joy is a characteristic of God that we too can share. In this, and all stages of life, I need my faith in Jesus, my people, and my joy.

Note to tired moms: At one point while writing this blog, I had an usually tough night with my baby. It's hard to find joy when you are up all night. If you are sleep deprived, try to get some rest and then think about joy.

It’s okay not to be okay

My life has changed so much in the last year and a half, sometimes I have it all together, occasionally I fall to pieces and sometimes I am somewhere in the middle. I am now dated a wonderful man who regularly melts my heart, respects me, and cares for me in amazing ways. 

I started over, and know that loving again means I could get hurt again. This is scary. However, I’ll take the risk because life is too short not to love someone who melts your heart.

I’ve had folks request that I keep people updated on my blog as move through my journey. As I thought about this request, I realized I lead a pretty ordinary life. I work, run, hang out with friends, and all of the normal tasks most working professionals do. After an eventful year, I crave the ordinary. Eventful sounds exhausting. Ordinary sounds amazing.

I hope to start racing fast again soon, and plan to blog about my running and my life as I did before, expect this time my blog will probably have more depth.  As I re-read my past blogs, pre-divorce, I realized I had insightful thoughts on situations. However, my blogs post separation/ divorce seems to have a new depth of understanding about life. This understanding grew from losing everything in my life, as I knew it. Many times we have bad scenarios in our heads, but rarely do all the things we fear happen in one year. Sometimes they do though.

One final message I’d like to express in this blog entry: it’s okay not to be okay. We all want to come across as people who have it all together. Careers, relationships, athletic endeavors, and family can all be areas where we hope to have astounding results. I want success, and when I have set backs, it can be easy to cover my failures with smiles or trite comments. So much can be covered up with a smile, and an amazing outfit, but I’ll be the first to say I am not strong everyday. Sometimes I still fall to pieces, sometimes I get overcome with anxiety, and sometimes I am just a mess. And when the pieces unravel, I need someone to step in and help, and that’s okay.

I often feel loads of insecurity, inadequacy, and self-annoyance when I fall on my face, and have to inconvenience someone to help me. So, I end by saying no matter what life throws at you, we all have valleys and mountains, and we must stand and say “It’s okay not to be okay.” Eventually it will be okay. Someday. I can’t tell you when. And in the meantime cling to those that love you and want to see you succeed.  Those people will hug you, make you laugh, and pour you a glass of wine. I’m not sure what my life will hold, but I can only hope it holds moments with friends and family who make my life richer by knowing them.

Preview: Next blog entry about the move to Texas

Searching for my identity

Divorce is terrible and vicious, but it’s not the end of the world. This is something a friend told me when I left my marriage. My life changed permanently on 7/30/12 when I found out that events happened, which lead to the demise of my marriage. This unexpected and life changing experience forced me to grow emotionally and built up my resilience to a level I didn’t know existed within me. If someone had told me a year ago what I would go through, I would have said I couldn’t make it through this, but as the events unfolded my support system created a wall of strength for me and I toughened up. I like to joke that “the tough Sarah” is here to stay. Sometimes she wanes a bit, but she’s not going anywhere.

As the months have passed and I’ve become stronger on a number of fronts, I’ve often searched for my identity. So many of the adjectives I previously used to describe myself no longer  describe me. In our world dictated by social media, we often think in terms of short phrases to portray who we are as a person. The 140 character limit on Twitter soars past our news feed and into our inner being.  Some of these short phrases that once applied to me, such as “#wife,” are gone for the foreseeable future, while others, such as “#runner,” I hope will return this summer. When I can run fast again, I hope to do so simply out of the sheer joy I feel when I lace up my spikes and run fast around a track. Terms such as “Christian,” never left me, they just got a little beat up, but underneath the mush, they stuck. With these changes, I’ve added new terms such as #slowswimmer.

 

From a young age, I have seen my primary identity as a child of God, saved by grace. But what happens when you know God on a cognitive level, but feel distant from Him and feel numb half of the time anyway? The

distance between your head and heart seem so far. How can your heart come in contact with your intellect? Yet this is supposed to be my identity? How does that work out? Injustices happen that don’t seem fair.

Then, what happens when secondary parts of your identity—such as your relationship status or running—are taken away? At one point I was conversing with God and laughing to myself thinking, okay, you’ve taken everything away, why not just take the rest too. The book of Job came to mind.

Pair this identity crisis with many other changes and you start to wonder, “Who am I? What am I doing? What is my purpose?”

When these questions popped into my head, I nursed the numbness with my quest for meaning.

As my search continued, I learned some things about life, people, and the world. I am learning to live without always knowing what tomorrow may bring.  I am not changing the world each day. I want to change the world by doing things like fighting poverty and helping the mentally ill; however, I am not taking on such lofty projects at the moment.  But, I’ve made great strides in my healing. I am ready to move on with many different aspects of my life.

So much of the shame that penetrated my identity when I filed for divorce is removed. I know someone wronged me and violated me, and I feel a sense of injustice about this deep shame that was brought to my name. But I am trying not to let it define me as I seek to regain back my sense of dignity. My new identity is forming and I’m hoping shame won’t be part of it. My Christian faith remains, although still very fragile at many points. My faith sits on a beam I’m hoping never tips over.  The other day I tweeted, “If my relationship with God was dependent on my emotions, I'd be in trouble.”

I now am more sensitive to personal injustices and injustices in the world. They just seem so wrong, and I want to stand up and fight them all. Seeing people wronged and pushed down breaks my heart and crushes my soul. I personalize many of these injustices as I think back on my own story. Much of my innocence was lost during this process.

Instead of changing the world everyday, I am trying to appreciate each day, and the small joys it brings.  A few of the small joys that bring constant smiles to my face include time with friends, noon swims (although rare, they are so joyful and leave me smiling all day), walks, good wine, runs with friends, friends making me coffee, and good books. Hopefully in between the busyness and these small joys, I will still be able to impact the world positively in small ways. The ways may be smaller, but touching a few individual lives may just have to do for now as I search for my purpose. Maybe this God I also feel so distant from so many days shows up in these small joys he allows me to have each day?

After what I have been through in the last year: a messy divorce, being wronged in more ways than I thought possible, my stuff in storage for part of the year, staying with friends, and many other things that pushed my uncertainty to the max, I am grateful for the chance to work at a startup, a stable living situation that—although not permanent—provides a healthy environment for now, a church that loves me and the messiness that comes with me, and friends/ family that are so amazing.

Yep, life goes on. But it doesn’t just go on; it can be happy and filled with small joys. I may always be a work in progress, but that’s the comfort of a relationship with Jesus, high and lows come and go, and the sanctification process marches on. Cheers, sweet friends, and thank you.