Stay at Home Mom

I decided in the beginning of April that I would leave my career and become a stay at home mom.  That was a long time ago.  And because we didn't think it was wise to give an extended notice, I have had to be quiet about it.  Most of my friends that I see all the time knew.  But I couldn't be public about it the way that I wanted to be.  I put the idea of changing careers on a shelf to process later.  I would get to it later.  At the time I was just too busy to even think about it.

And now it's out there.  And I'm processing big time.  It seems like every 5 minutes I have a different emotion about it.  I feel like I'm all over the map.

So the first thing I need to do is confess.  I haven't ever liked the idea of being a stay at home mom.  There are stigmas with it.  There are some women who do it really well and thankfully I have a quite a few of them in my life.  But there are others that don't.  They lose themselves and become so focused on their kids that they can't talk about anything else.  I have been very vocal about this over the years.  It was one of the things that I told myself was great about having a job. 

And when God rocked my world and called me to be a stay at home mom, I was shocked.  Even writing that "stay at home mom" seems to make my insides curl.  But in obedience, I followed the Lord's prompting and took steps to quit my job. 

I also took steps to make sure that I wouldn't lose myself.  I tried to join a group full of a bunch of women that were either single or didn't have kids (with the exception of 1).  I was reaching for some way to hold on to this life that I used to have.  In His mercy, it did not work out.  I shed way too many tears about it and I kept thinking that it was about my feelings being hurt.  Now I can see that it was partly that, but it was also a type of mourning.  It was a realization that I'm just not in that place anymore. 

I have been talking with my friend Katie a lot recently.  She just had a baby with Down Syndrome.  She is having her own transitional phase as she adjusts to what her new normal looks like.  She said something to me the other day that just really helped me process my own transition.  She told me that if she tried not to talk about Down Syndrome and tried to pretend like her daughter would not change her that would be a lie. 

And that's how I am starting to feel.  I was trying to be obedient to the Lord but I was only doing it part way.  I was doing it in all the practical ways, but I wasn't doing it in the emotional and spiritual ways.  I was fighting it in my mind.  And what I need to do is let it change me.  Let God work in me and help me become the person He wants me to be. 

Katie also told me is that being a stay at home mom is not a step backwards.

Indeed.