Hard Things

I very recently started babysitting a newborn (3 months) full time. She is lovely and cute and we love her already (second full week on job). It has been a hard adjustment to make though balancing taking care of her, my own babies and all their schedules, doing vinyl! and tending to all the small details of a family of six AND providing food and paying the bills. Adding this large responsibility, though necessary for survival, has felt like the nail in my coffin. With adding one more large responsibility it has made me feel like I can't do all this. A few months before this job started I was babysitting two days a week which meant when I had the baby I focused solely on taking care of him & Bentley during the days and reserved (mentally) that the other three days would go solely to focusing on vinyl printing! But with this situation being full time (four days a week) it makes it so hard for me MENTALLY to wrap my mind around doing BOTH every day. It takes all my energy and focus to take care of the baby & B and to get our routine down but to think about adding in the need to do vinyl each day is beyond me! I know in the past few years especially I've been pushed to new limits and have had to learn to work with them. This situation now feels so extreme. This has brought me to my knees daily in tears usually pleading for help because there is no way I can do all this. In the last two weeks I have watched my vinyl business go down the drain. I can't keep up. I don't have the energy or mental capacity to do both! But I have to do both because both incomes are necessary. I am grateful for very patient customers, some who have waited over a month now just for a proof or an invoice. 

I am starting to feel better about the situation though. At first it felt like I was going backward in life. I went from being provided for, to doing it on my own, to then adding more and more responsibility. It is not getting easier like I thought it would but rather harder & harder. The good news is that I am closer to Christ now than I ever was before and that is worth the price it takes. I am completely dependent on His help in every way. I work hard and plan out as much as I can and try to work through challenges but I know He is my strength. He goes before me and has a plan! I had a miracle happen this week that taught me anew that HE has a plan for me. He knows the details of my life and my children's lives. 

I posted last week about five steps forward and four back and treasuring the ONE step forward left. My forward step of progress is that even though I am adding more and more to my days I am STILL in the home with my own babies. That is my progress forward. That is the prize. That is what it's all about. And I'm doing everything in my power to provide for this family. That's the step forward… especially through adversity. 

I'm working on not expecting life to get easier. I thought after my divorce from B's dad that it would get easier down the road. It was that expectation that created an unnecessary stumbling block. "Expectations are the root of all misery." ;) I have to balance my hope of better things to come with accepting what is. 

Truly, I know, all things are possible through Christ & I have so much to be thankful for. <3