The house gets messier. Food disappears quicker. Bedtime routines get later and a little crazier. Friends are spending the night. Kids are coming and going and asking what we are doing today for the second and third time. Lord, help all the mama’s!
It’s summertime!
My heart feels shuffled around without routine and all the predictable signs of normal. It’s lovely and chaotic all at the same time! Summer can feel a bit like a love/hate relationship right?
I got up, as I usually do, before my family for some “me” time before I settled into working at my desk. I made my way to “my” favorite corner of the couch to turn on a light. My teenage son was sleeping right there on the couch – in my “me time” morning space! He was NOT supposed to be there!
Summertime is just different in every way.
Maybe it looks different for you too? More to the point, a change of season can just feel abnormal at first. Maybe you’re thankful for seasonal changes like I am, but you are still figuring out your plan to manage where your at, even in some small way.
It takes a little time, right? Grace yourself in the transition my sweet friend.
Isn’t that how we are though? Always trying to figure out our way around the new place we find ourselves in and just before we have found a comfortable routine, it all changes again.
In my morning devotional I read this: “For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20). Somehow hearing this settles me down as I sit and sip my morning coffee letting this resonate in my heart!
When the ground feels uncertain and shifty. When the season I’m in is topsy-turvy and hard and wonderful all at the same time. When my feelings get all weird. When I feel that maybe even my heart is deceived (“The heart is deceitful above all things” Jeremiah 17:9). God is greater.
God is greater than our hearts! God knows EVERYTHING and he has a heart of compassion for you and I.
He even knows how to order our steps for today, even for this very hour if we ask him. “From his throne he observes all who live on the earth. He made their hearts, so he understands everything they do” (Psalm 33:14-15). Maybe that’s all you need to hear today is that God, gets you and knows right where you are at. He understands you and I better than we understand ourselves and he knows our hearts even when we are a mess.
His voice of assurance is calm, thick, bigger, and stronger than the accusing voice of our conscience. “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1st John 4;4). Rest in this beautiful one! You can do this, whatever “this” is.
This season for our family is a definite HUGE blind walk of faith into familiar, yet unfamiliar territory, if that makes any sense. Meaning, we have been in this same spot before, but this time it feels different, yet it is so sticking confusing.
God is God and he often does not share all the details, up front, with his children. When our human reasoning kicks into high gear, well that’s when we get confused and our vision can get all cloudy and we can feel lost.
There is this, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all that you do, and he will show you the path to take” (Proverbs 3:5-6). Our own understanding definitely fits the bill of human reasoning. So I’m guilty once again. I recently heard Joyce Meyer say that, “reasoning causes confusion”.
Okay then, let me just take ten steps back and start trusting all over again! No doubt I struggle in this area and maybe you do to. As I think I am getting better (and believe me I have, compared to where I have come from), I realize I’m not done growing in this area and I probably never will be.
So I’m thankful today that God knows, that he is patient and that his grace and mercy are new each day as I balance life during the summer with my kids at home, work, and this new season of trust.
If you can relate in any way I’d love to hear from you! Give me a shout out in the comments below.
Maybe you desire someone to prayer for you, I’d love to do that too.
If you enjoyed this post here’s another one you may like too.
Happy Summer my friends!
In this together!
Joelle Povolni
