Silence

A lot has happened since I blogged here last.

Change happens often among the silent moments.  Morning sickness left with first trimester.  Praise the Lord!

I settled further into work at Meredith Manor and the joys and challenges that it brought.  I love helping people learn to work with their horses and learn to identify what makes their horses tick.

Yet, it was in the silent moments where I was disquieted in my spirit.  I was surrounded by inspirational, strong women who were pursuing their passion and talent.  Yet there is and was a gap between the reality and my dream of working side by side these inspirational women.

The gap grew larger in time with the little love growing in my womb.  His movements and kicks brought to a deeper authenticity the space between who I was and who I was becoming.  The questions begging for entrance in the quiet moments.  "What would be my legacy?  What is my passion, my mission, my purpose?  Which life is mine?"

These strong, passionate and talented women were living their lives.  Would I have the daring, the strength to live mine and not a poor substitute, by pursuing less than my passion and mission?  Would I be willing to stand quietly apart, in an age of liberated women, and choose to go back, to "choose" what so many had fought to leave behind.

In this choice there is a death of sorts.  It is not a death to my dreams, hopes and longings(to these, this choice gives birth to life), rather it is a death to needing to be understood.  How long and how often I have placated and vacillated between standing apart and fitting in.  Yet, one cannot have it both ways.  Standing apart and choosing to do differently means not fitting in.

Authenticity.

To be real, genuine.

I am on maternity leave.  I am not going back to work after.  I am going to stay home with my little love.  It is not an end to work outside the home, but it is an end of sorts.

There are plenty of avenues to living out my passion and talents and creativity.  By God's grace I will find the ones He has made me to fill, while at the same time fulfilling the mission and passions He has placed in my heart to be first and foremost a wife and a mother.

Of Water

 "Don't push the river, it flows by itself" ~Book title by Barry Stevens
I have not read the book. But I love the image that this idea creates.


How often do we expend useless copious amounts of energy working to move things that will move themselves if given the proper amount of time?  


This is one of the things I love about water.  It flows and fits among the crevices.  It fits into the confines of space.  


The large items in our life must be placed carefully because if they are not they get crowded out.  Not so for the water.  The water has the uncanny way of finding its way into the open spots.  Yet, the water will reshape and reform everything else.


The large boulder sends the water moving around, over and under.  It redirects the water, yet overtime the boulder is the one changed.  The water leaves the boulder's presence no different.  The boulder, finds itself altered.


The river flows by itself.  It needs no further incentive then the casual interplay of gravity upon its existence.


Pregnancy and labor are forces that are in many ways like water.  


For more reading on the topic read the article that started this connection tumbling around in my mind. Giving birth is a creative act, and like all creative acts it cannot be forced to conform to society's unnatural time constraints. ~Laura Shanley