Where do You Tie Your Purpose?

It has been one heck of a long time since I’ve written on my blog site. Two years to be exact. Why did I stop doing something I find joy in? Like many questions, there’s a simple answer, but I’ll do my best to complicate it and elaborate!

The last two years have solidified in me that I can do amazing things, that God has a magnificent plan, that life really sucks sometimes and that growing your relationship with God is the most important thing in life.

We hit the bottom in 2020 and continued to swirl around down there throughout most of 2021. In 2019, we went all in with our life savings and bought into a business and purchased a commercial building. It was the most exciting and terrifying time and we were ready for the challenge! I really felt like it was going to be our legacy for our children and community.

We all know that 2020 brought a giant pile of poo for all of us to experience together. But some of us got to endure stinkier poo than others. Here’s the cliff notes: business opened its’ new doors in February 2020; government shut our doors in March 2020; we were sued by our business partner in April 2020; stuck with a giant mortgage on a commercial building that was closed for nearly a year; fear of losing our home and being homeless; thoughts of suicide; sleepless nights; loss of friends; started homeschooling; at one point, we had a retainer on three different attorneys; lawsuit dropped by judge; sale of commercial building; no more attorney bills and I think that’s it.

Through all of that stinky poo, do you know what happened? My relationship with God was renewed in a way that I’ve never experienced! As a family, we became stronger because we grew our faith together. We were able to see (somehow) that all of the crap we were going through was for a purpose. It hurt like nothing else I had experienced before, but we knew, even if we lost our house, as long as we stayed together, nothing else mattered. We did our best to focus on our family and God. It didn’t always look pretty, but we never quit.

Now that we’ve come out the other end of the stinky poo cylinder, we can see oh so clearly! Had none of that happened, our kids would still be in public school and we would be busy, non-existent parents, trying to grow a business instead of a family. Our relationship with God probably would be where it was a few years ago: in the background. We would have been struggling to keep a business relationship going when it was dead before we even started.

Today, I’m doing what God has called me to do; I’m a mom and a wife and I serve my family and my community. I know, I know what some of you might be thinking when you read that. I know because I used to think the same thing: how pathetic, that’s all she does? How sexist!! She “serves” her family?

YES!! And thank God that He saw what I needed, what my kids needed and what my family needed! I would have never chosen this path for myself because I don’t think I was brave enough. I needed Him to take away the things that didn’t matter for me to see the things that did.

It’s not like I ignored my family before 2020, I just had too many priorities. When you have too many priorities, you basically have no priorities. I needed that tough time to show me what my purpose is right now; what my priority should be.

Now, if you’re reading this as a fulltime working mom, do yourself a favor and DO NOT read between the lines on this. I’m not saying it’s impossible to “have it all”. What I’m saying is for me, having it all came at the expense of my joy and peace.

Today, I actually do feel as though I have it all, just not the way society defines it. We’re doing amazing in our third year of homeschool, we continue to grow in our faith as a family and I have found meaningful volunteer opportunities within my community.

Nothing, absolutely nothing lasts forever; the good times or the bad times. We have to keep a close relationship to God to truly appreciate that in each season there is a purpose. Without a relationship with God it can be so difficult to see the amazing purpose!