Type A Personality

Boy, was I in for it. First born child, people-pleaser, perfectionist, you name the stereotype, I fit it. Ever busy working hard, serving God, and generally being a good person, I was busy. And then I had a baby. Specifically, a jaundiced baby with acid reflux who refused to nurse or sleep. But he didn't refuse to cry. Nope, he excelled at that! And amidst all of this crying and Zantac, I lost myself. In retrospect it's easy to see that I had postpartum depression, but at the time I refused to acknowledge that I was in trouble. After all, I was the girl who could do it all. And really, how hard could taking care of a baby be? Before he was born I had it all planned out. My life wouldn't change that much.

You're probably laughing your head off right now. My life wouldn't change that much! Ha! I was so naive. Nothing was the same about my life. Even my body was unrecognizable. Pre-baby, I would make lists, check things off that I accomplished, and feel good about myself. Now it seemed that nothing got checked off. My life as I knew it was gone, and I was having an awful time adjusting.

Looking back, I see now that God was using that time to pull down some pretty hefty walls I had built between Him and me. Busyness was one, approval from others was another. At the time I just felt miserable and thought I was pretty useless, but now I know that those were critical times in my relationship with God. It was during those times that I had to learn to be alone. It was in the loneliness of new mommy-hood that I really started to find Him. Isn't that a kicker? God had to give me kids to slow me down enough so I would hear him.

Maybe you noticed the motto I put on the blog. It's living life to the fullness God intended. It was after Ethan was born that I realized my life could be full in ways I never imagined.

Ephesians 3:17-19
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

And so, as I learn more about the ways God can fill me up, I pray the same for you. Don't settle. In your heart somewhere there is an area longing for something. Maybe it's a God-hole, just aching for him to fill it with some of his special, magical lovin'.