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Happy Go Stuckey

Tethering Grace & Togetherness

Little Sacrifices and Big Blessings

September 9, 2013 by HappyGoStuckey Leave a Comment

(This post is not an announcement of any kind. I’m reflecting on motherhood. Don’t worry mom- I wouldn’t tell you like this!) 

 

One moment you realize you don’t feel so good. Then you realize you haven’t felt “so good” in several days. Hmm.. come to think of it, you’ve been a little extra tired lately. Strange. Coffee doesn’t taste all that great either. Actually, nothing does.

A short while later– a drugstore purchase, a quick trip to the bathroom and then a few minutes of waiting and then… GASP.

Pregnant the test says, Buckle Up for the Wildest Ride of Your Life, it should have said. You’ll never be the same again and you won’t want to be, it could have said. I guess “Pregnant” takes up less room.

From that moment on, you become intimately acquainted with both the unbelievable blessing and the regular sacrifice of being a parent. From the early days of constant nausea to the later days of packing 18 lbs. of gear just for a quick trip to the store, you realize that what that sweet person said was true, “You’ll never realize how selfish you are until you become a parent!” 

Some of the sacrifices are big, and obvious… like the way you are no longer able to finish anything. Finish a meal. Finish getting ready. Finish a conversation. Finish a chapter. Finish a thought. You die to your former way of living always just as a couple, in order that you might live a new life as a family. The newness brings CHANGE. It brings discomfort. It brings sacrifice. But it brings SO MUCH BLESSING.

Some days in the midst of a time when things have been particular crazy, or when it feels like He and I haven’t had enough “us” time– I have found myself almost a bit “nostalgic” for earlier days. An older photo of us will catch my eye and I’ll stop and remember what it was like to be “Lance and Cindy” for a minute or two.                                                                                                                                                       (Now before you get all upset and think I’m ungrateful for my amazing kiddos– hold on, I didn’t say I was proud of it!  just keeping it real!)

Thankfully, almost immediately, God shakes me of this mental mourning days past as I look around at all that surrounds us. Baby Dolls in strollers. Goldfish. Princess Sippy Cups. Dress-up Shoes. Well-Loved Board Books. Hairbows. More Hairbows. Little girls rolling around on the floor together, one minute hugging– the next minute pulling hair. Little evidences of these cherished gifts we have been given.

More importantly, the SOUNDS that surround us wake me from this irreverent hyper-nostalgia. The giggles. The chatter. The sounds of Little People being walked across the playroom floor. Tiny feet running from across the room, just to hug. The singing. Yes, even the squabbling. 

I know that to some it seems crazy. I’ve seen their looks as we slowly move through Target, stopping again to pick up the last thing that Abby has chucked over the side of the cart. But they have no idea– that I really would never go back. I would never trade what I have for the life I used to. The daily gifts of being mother to these precious lives infinitely outweigh what little freedoms or sometimes even elements of pride I “give up.”

The word SACRIFICE means to die. The OED defines it as, To surrender or give up (something) for the attainment of some higher advantage or dearer object. And then also, the surrender of something valued or desired for the sake of something having a higher value.  My children. My family. Our opportunity to glorify God is that higher value. They are that “dearer object.” and there is NO sacrifice too great.

So on those days when you feel like you just. cannot. function. with. any. amount. of. generosity. When you feel poured out and empty and have nothing to give to anyone at all. When you feel like you just NEED A MINUTE ALONE. Take that minute (or two.) and ask for help. Ask for remembrance of what gifts these little “mess makers” truly are. Ask for strength. Ask for God to love them through you. Ask for HIS peace.

For on any given day, no matter how poured out we feel, He knows. He not only knows, He has felt way beyond our deepest feelings of exhaustion and sacrifice. And He is enough, friend. His grace is enough. In our exhaustion, we lean hard on Him and find REST in ABUNDANCE. 

 “And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

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Comments

  1. Courtney Sexton says

    September 9, 2013 at 6:08 pm

    beautiful, friend.

    Thank you.

    Reply

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I'm Cynthia and I'm so glad you're here. I am an introvert with an extrovert's love of gathering people together. I love good books and capturing moments. Whether you visit me here or on my own front porch, I'll be the one holding the Iced Coffee for us both.

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Some of the rhythms we took up in ‘20 we will co Some of the rhythms we took up in ‘20 we will continue to sigh into in ‘21.
Baking sourdough, watching it bubble and rise and fill our BlueHouse with the scent of a good, long, posture of patience— I absolutely need a second serving of this.
While we wait, and whatever it is that we wait for— may the space between be made sweeter by the knowledge that we never wait alone.
You can’t tell by their joy, but the day I snapp You can’t tell by their joy, but the day I snapped this photo was somewhat of a regular day.

What looks like a winter beach vacation was actually the tail-end of a masked lunch stop in the middle of a pandemic road trip.

This sparkling moment of sun-splashed fun was sandwiched between brutal conversations about regular life, especially the hard parts.

And this is how it is. 
These bits of life that we never see coming, they are enveloped between all that makes us tired, weary, sighing pilgrims in a world that was never really meant to be hospitable in the first place.

This photo reminds me to look again at our year, our season, our circumstances.

To look a second and third time.
To keep looking as long as it takes to see that the joy of our right now isn’t gone, it just might be hiding in the shadow of all that’s hard.

Brokenness is never vague. And we don’t have to search very long to see it both within ourselves and around us.
Sometimes the weight of that fact is crushing.
And then, sometimes it reminds us even more clearly of the light shining in darkness.

Joy is an act of defiance against despair and I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling rather defiant at the moment.✨✨✨✨

@hopewriters #hopewriterlife 
#feastingandforaging #hopelenses #getaftergrateful
Endurance can feel like standing still. Especially Endurance can feel like standing still. Especially if what we’re called to be about is the same as yesterday and last month. 
It’s difficult to meet each day with the same fervor and joy for what we are called to do, especially when at present, the progress seems small and immeasurable. 
But even then, perhaps especially so — our faithfulness matters.

When we cannot yet see the other side, the light at the end of this particularly long tunnel, we begin again.

Not because we will always wake with fresh energies and bright, sparkling hope for what comes next, friend. But because the God of Endurance (Romans 15:5) dwells within us.

“It is the grace of endurance granted to you by the God of endurance that provides you with everything you need to continue to be what he calls you to be and do what he calls you to do between this moment and the moment when you cross over to the other side. When difficulty exposes the weakness of your resolve and the limits of your strength, you do not have to panic, because He will endure even in this moments when you don’t feel able to do so yourself.” — Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies

#hopewriterlife
Stuckey, party of two. Always ready to run out for Stuckey, party of two. Always ready to run out for paper towels... especially if the store is in convenient proximity to a quick date for croissants and dirty chai for two. Love my forever coffee companion even more at the start of this new year. Wherever he’s going, I’m riding shotgun.
We have learned... The inestimable value of a goo We have learned...

The inestimable value of a good camp chair, for they have been used for everything from soccer benches and coffee dates to theatre seats and church pews.

What our neighborhood streets can offer in the way of an outing—from the colors of spring to the sparkle of Christmas.

To hold plans with the loosest hands possible.

To rejoice in things found. Time. Margin. ...and enough toilet paper to share with a neighbor.

To give grace and accept it for ourselves.

The hilarious joy of a group text complete with “have you seen this meme yet?” 

To pivot. And then pivot again.

To find more joy in candlelight closer to home, instead of the bright lights of traveled cities.

To perfect our pizza dough recipe and truly learn to prefer it over dinner out.

To work with yeast and flour again and again— until the message of waiting for something really good dusted our apron fronts and kitchen floors.

And in our house, we learned how to be unexpectedly unemployed. We learned how to honor that new found space with needed grief and desired hope. How to be grateful for true friends who prayed with us, held questions with us, and hoped with us. We were reminded of our true identity and that it will never rest in a job. 

In a year in which we’ve all lost quite a lot, you and I have been given so much as well. Some of what we’ve lost we have learned to be without. Some, we won’t go looking for again.

In 525,600 minutes and in all the things, found and lost and found again— there is far and away more to be grateful for.

And we choose joy.

✨Happy New Year, dear friends!✨
Not rushing too quickly into a new year over here. Not rushing too quickly into a new year over here. Though the one in our rear view window is one we wouldn’t choose to repeat, still it was one full of God’s nearness.

One day I’ll write it all down.
But for now I’ll just say,
we were not alone. 🕯
“Once in our world, a Stable had something in it “Once in our world, a Stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.”
C.S.Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

Joy to the World, friends.
Behold. The most apropos Christmas Eve 2020 desser Behold. The most apropos Christmas Eve 2020 dessert ever. Made from a wonky gingerbread cake that did not cooperate.
We shall not go quietly into 2021.
We will fight back with beauty and joy and candles... and fresh whipped cream made by an eleven year old with sparkly green eyes. 🎄❤️✨
Merry Christmas from the Fam! { 👉🏻 swipe for Merry Christmas from the Fam! { 👉🏻 swipe for Stuckeys in their natural habitat.) 🎄🕯❤️✨
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