Let me start this post, by stating emphatically that I love my life, like love it. I love my husband. I love my kids. I love my God. I even love the towering piles of laundry that never seem to completely vanish and the dust that seems to settle on every surface of my house after only one day.

I love the curves that my hips have formed from carrying not one, not two, but three children in my belly. I love knowing that I might never look the same, that the stretch marks on my body exist to prove my love for those children. I even love the way my fatigue from a newborn has made blogging seem less important, less notable, because well, it is.

But still.

Sometimes these days, only sometimes, I dream of being away. Somewhere, anywhere, that is free. Free from incessant, often piercing toddler tantrums. Free from middle-of-the-night baby cries that pull me from a deep sleep only to leave me laying awake in a warm bed, remembering what real sleep once felt like.

I dream of being free.

Free from insurmountable amounts of housework, that not even a pioneer woman could deplete. Free from the wildly surging hormones that rush through my body, desperate to make me cry and laugh at the same exact time. Free from the pressure I place upon myself to write, to be creative, to do it again and again.

Yet, I know, that deep down, leaving these things behind wouldn’t actually make me free. And it’s not so much that I want to leave them, as much as I want to be alone.

That sounds bad, doesn’t it?

Alone.

But, look at that word, sitting there…floating there, all by itself on the page. It looks (it sounds) heavenly to me. I wish I could wrap myself around that small, seemingly trivial word, never to be seen or heard from again. Well, that is until I once again feel rested and restored, whatever that means.

Instead, I often drift from day to day as a ghost of my former self. I once felt unstoppable. Energetic. Energized. Sexy (is that okay for a Christian woman to share?). Someone worth knowing.

Now, it seems I question everything. I second guess myself. I second guess God. I re-play events in my mind, certain that if given the chance I would have done things differently that time around.

But those times don’t come–those second chances, do they? They are only a part of my foggy-minded daydreaming. Reality is much sharper and crisper. It stings of regret for the things I didn’t do, but also somehow simultaneously it tastes of the sweet, resplendent promise in Jesus.

He is such a God of second chances. He is the God of Next Time Around. He is a believer in me, even when I am too exhausted, crazed, emotional, reckless, and scared to believe in myself.

And He knows I need to be alone. Alone. To sit and dwell in stillness, that locking a bathroom door and yelling “Give me 5 minutes! Pleeeeezee!” is not quite the same. And I’ll get there.

I really will get there. He’ll get me there…

Laundry will be folded. Dishes washed. Children washed. Feet washed, in His splendid grace.

I’ll get there. I may be tired and longing when I do, but still..

But still.

This has been my days, these days. What about you? How have you been these days?