The Day I Tried To Quit

Today I wanted to quit. Little Man woke up with a yucky nose- we just can't catch a break. It's been 8 weeks since placement and we've not gone more than 10 days without some sort of sickness with him. He's miserable when he's sick, obviously and when babies are miserable so are the parents. He still wakes up in the night- we are exhausted.

People ask us all the time how long we will have him, but that's just not how foster care works. You aren't given children and told it will be "x number of days". You really have no idea, and even when you might start to, things change in the 11th hour and you just have to go with the flow. Nothing is concrete or absolute. It's all so day to day.

I had to pull out of the Avenue of the Giants Race completely. First I pulled out of the Half-Marathon, after my concussion and broken toe I knew I wouldn't be ready to train the way I wanted for it. I switched my registration to the 10k and then I decided I wouldn't be able to even do that. There is no margin for me to train. No margin for the things I had been doing. To say I was upset is an understatement. I couldn't even talk about it with Trevor because I was so teary. Sure I could walk the whole thing, but I'm stubborn and I want to do it the way I planned to do it- I don't like feeling like I didn't meet the goal I had so I'd rather not go half...bottomed.

The reality is, some days I cope with my new situation better than others. Some days I'm pretty okay with this new life and some days I struggle to make it to bedtime without a breakdown. It can just be so very isolating and there is nothing I can do to change it, nothing anyone else can do...it's just a reality.

So I told Trevor I quit. When he leaves us I'm done. I can't do this anymore. It's just too hard.

And then Kristen Welch from We Are That Family wrote a blog and published it the same day. The title of the blog?  For When We Are Too Tired To Keep Going - the section that made my eyes well up said "How many challenging marriages and hard parenting seasons and difficult jobs and acts of wild obedience have worn us out and begged us to walk away. Let’s face it, sometimes quitting is easier. But often, digging in and pushing past our weariness is where we meet a holy God that says, Come unto me and lay your burden down.
And then He fills our arms with Blessings and says this is why you must not stop."
Yeah, okay so that was timely.  And then, later that day Ann blogged, about their journey this past year and about their road to adoption. Yeah, I cried some more. 
"Sometimes — The story isn’t going how you planned, but that isn’t a reason to stop trusting that the story has a plan. Sometimes, turns out? You clearly not being enough  —- is what makes the enoughness of God most clearly seen."
Oh for the love...okay I get it already.
But a few hours later, on Instagram, Angie Smith shared about a rough day she was having, missing her Charlotte and feeling the prompting of the Holy Spirit when to where she was buried, and posted a video of her driving by it with the beautiful spring in bloom and the song that played? 
UGH. 
The song that is Little Man's, the one he fell asleep to in my arms that first night and the one that speaks over him...even though you are lacking in an earthly father right now- Jesus is the Good Good Father who provides all you will need. 
So, I won't quit. I will keep on, trusting that my not being enough is what shows Jesus most clearly to others, and trusting for Little Man and that our God is a Good Good Father, who provides all we need. 

(*Update since my "I tried to quit day"--  I emailed the race director and said I still wanted to do the 10k, even if it meant walking the whole time--stubbornness be darned)

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