This place....

Tonight the whole crew headed to Destiny House (where the teens hang out...YWAM).  I asked if I could just stay home...just spend some time by myself.

A few weeks ago, I got to attend a Women's Retreat...but it was more than that.  I got to spend some time with a really good friend, enjoy some AC, not cook all weekend.  It truly was refreshing for all aspects of me.  It was kind of neat just to be able to chat with her and think through some things as well.  My friend came to Belize about five months before us.  We spent our very first night in their home.  Our lives are different in many ways, yet so many things are the same too.

The last few years, my life has undergone some tremendous changes.  Since my return to Belize from the states in August, I feel that I am in a better place of contentment.  My last few months before the states...I was just really needing some refreshing and renewal in so many ways.  The weather is finally starting to cool a lot and so sleeping has become...DREAMY.  No other way to put it.  The whole household is enjoying being a "little cold" during the night now.  We are enjoying not being so uncontrollably sweaty all day long.  Of course, it still gets a little warm..maybe like 85...but that is not bad.

But back to tonight.  I am in this place of NEVER HAVING TIME ALONE.  I literally cannot really even go to my bedroom to be alone...it is Lee's office.  We have one living area...and my family is busy living life in it.   I really don't have time alone in the car...because I really don't drive anywhere far.  The furthest I have driven was home from the women's retreat...maybe a whole twenty minutes.  So, that is something really missing in my life right now.  I know it is just a season.  One day my house will be very quiet...and I will miss the craziness that is my family.  I will miss breaking up fights between my 5 year old and 16 year old...yeah, for real:)  I will miss the drama of someone being in a room that is not their own.  But tonight, I lit a candle, did my nails, watched a movie of my choosing, prepared the craft for children's church on Sunday, and now am able to sit and blog.  It is beautiful and refreshing.

Sometimes we tend to overthink things...but sometimes I feel it is hard for me to think at all...in this season of a busy household.  Erika rarely takes naps anymore, and honestly, when she heads to bed, I am usually right behind her.  But there was a time...before Erika...when I was not working or running errands, that I would have days at home alone...and would be sad...would want one more child.  There were days, when I used to send my kids to public school all those years, that I would think, I wish they could just be home with me.  I wish I was brave enough to homeschool.  There were days that I would lift up prayers to the Lord...and now, I am in this place of seeing.  Seeing that He has actually answered so many prayers of mine.  I never thought those prayers would be answered here, in a foreign land.  I never realized, in getting closer to my nuclear family, that it would mean being further from my extended family (oh, how I miss you guys:(.  Sometimes, I think...oh, my life is soooo much harder here in Belize...then other days...when I read the posts on Facebook...of everyone's crazy lives back in the states...that I think my life is so much easier, simpler, here.  I could not live this life...this life of homecooking, homeschooling, in the world that I was living in Katy. It just wouldn't have worked.  I was too stretched there in other ways.  So, yes, I am finding a contentment...that this is the season the Lord has put my family in.  Yes, my family.  I am seeing, and feeling that...He put us here for a reason.  He put us in a place of simplicity, learning to do without so many things we just took for granted in the states.  He put us in a place of dependency on a greater level on Him.  He put us in a place, where we would have a greater understanding of our own children.  Where our children would be in a sort of cocoon in our home for a season.  It is ironic...they are living in a far more dangerous nation, but yet, in some ways, they are more protected.

Okay.  See when I acutally get time to myself...my mind wanders.

But I am enjoying this place He has us in.