Breathing through the Jumble

First things first, our gorgeous niece (and B's soon to be cousin) "V" was born this week!!! YAY! It sounds like a very a rough delivery but everyone is healing now and headed home soon.  We can't wait to meet her and hope that we get to soon!!!

As for us...

Life right now feels like a huge jumble.

Ababa is keeping things under control at home (cleaning, cooking, taking care of woosha), finishing some lingering projects around the house (YAY!), and doing everything he can to start the classes he needs this summer and in the fall so that he can apply for med school as soon as possible.

I am juggling a demanding work schedule, an elite MBA program, adoption-related stuff, research for childcare options when B comes home, a job-hunt to try and find a more family friendly work-place with a more flexible work schedule, and trying to figure out the details about maternity leave that I am entitled to at my job.

Just speaking for myself (Ababa can post another day:-) I am tired!  I feel like my life is always spinning and I am flitting from one thing to another with TV and internet time filling-in the chinks so that I literally have no time for anything, including my husband, myself, and God.

Ababa and I got stuck in a horribly blustery rainy NYC day yesterday.  We went down town to take some pics of a property I am researching for a class project.  We intended to get Ethiopian for dinner to celebrate our dossier being in Ethiopia, but the idea of going cross-town from where we were for my project was unfathomable so we ate chinese instead.  It was a wonderful to spend some together just the two of us and the food was yummy.  We were cold and wet from trudging through the rain so I drank tons of tea.  I realized too late that it probably had caffine.

Um, yeah! Caffine and me, we do not get along.

I didn't fall asleep until about 3:30 this morning.  Needless to say, I slept-in and stayed home from church.  Ababa ended up being asked to give our testimony about adoption today, even though I wasn't there and he didn't have his notes/outline. So, MAJOR PROPS TO ABABA.  He just spoke from the heart about his experience and how God has worked in him, to bring him from having never really thought about adoption to being SO EXCITED about adopting B. (I'd love to hear from people who were at church what else he said, b/c he can't remember:-)

Meanwhile, I took advantage of my time at home today to read Francis Chan's Crazy Love (which we had been reading in small group, but I fell off the wagon after chapter 1)...and then I took a long walk where I could just enjoy being outside and talking to God.

It was amazing, but reminded me of how insanely busy I've been, crowding God out of my life with all the hectic chaos.  I am still processing a whole bunch of thoughts from today (it felt like the first time in months that I could just think) but the bottom line is:

I need to take time to breathe through the jumble and God needs to be at the center of the busy-ness.  If He is not at the center it's just empty busy-ness, but if he is at the center, well that would be pretty amazing for my life and my heart, and for the impact my life could have.

What does that look like?

I have no idea!

How am I going to make that happen?

I have no idea!

What's the first step?

Spending more time with God and not crowding every second of my life.

Let's see how this goes:-)