So here I sit

There is so much on my mind. And yet at the same moment there is nothing. I sit here with just 3 children in my home. This makes my home so much more quieter.

I continue to struggle with feeling so alone. Yes I have my kids. But I often miss someone just to talk things through. That feeling of sharing the ups and downs with someone.

My kids keep my busy. My oldest 2 have moved out. One is married, one is renting a room from her friend and is busy with school, work and her boyfriend.

That leaves 6 kids at home. The older 2 at home both work. One works overnights making doughnuts and one works maintenance at the same grocery store. I work at that store as well in the bakery.  Both of the kids are  highly respected and loved for the work they do there. I  often hear what a great job they are doing and what wonderful people they are.

I feel like I have lost so much of who I was before I had kids. I used to write, I hardly ever do that anymore. Even when I try I am no longer sure of what to write about. I often think of things mostly while I am work, but by the time I am home I have long forgotten.

I am working on sharing my story of how my faith has been shaken but at the end of the day I still trust in God. For so many years I have held tight to some more conservative beliefs, at the core of me I still hold many of them. But I often wonder how they should be played out in my new role.

I see how the way these beliefs were played out before and how that left me in a very vulnerable shot. I also know that many of this left me in a place where my emotional needs were not met and was probably hurt more emotionally then I would ever like to admit.

I have learned that I am a passive person by nature and that often means I let people control me way more then I would like. I give in and just shut up. I don't fight for the things I believe in very much. At this time I don't even know what I believe in anything.

I want to hide myself away. At work I am the one that everyone can count on. I do my job. I am "fun" to work with. But too often I just want to cry and hide. I don't want to be there (then again who does). I want to go home. Yet at home the kids are fighting. My older ones have spent too much time being in charge that even when I am there they are trying to take control of the situation. I want them to relax and let me deal with the issue. I just end up fighting with the older ones that the situation with the younger ones doesn't get dealt with.

I was on vacation for 4 days and spent almost as much time away then if I had worked. I wondered if it was even worth taking the vacation.

I work and I work and yet I continue to struggle with money. Too often I grab pizza for the kids just so that they have food to eat that even they can make themselves. We recently moved and for my job I work in the evening  I am now 45 minutes to an hour away from work. This takes more time and gas money. Oh I am thankful for our new home. Thankful for the neighborhood we live in. But there are so many days I just don't want to do anything.

And so I will continue on.. I am looking for new work, for many different reasons. One of companies I work for will be closed at the end of February. I must find a new job. But do I look for just full time, or do I continue to work part time. I would love to go full time and have applied for a couple full time positions but I am so not sure.

Yes. I did...

My home is a home for the broken and the hurting. Teens come to my house to find love to find a place they can be who they are without some on judging them, without someone trying to make them be who they are. There is a young lady that now lives in my home. She isn't the perfect girl, she swears and she smokes. She has struggled with being suicidal.
I can't really afford another person in my home. I can't afford to feed another mouth, but I don't want her to go, why...
Because she needs to know love. My kids have taught me more about being Gods hands and feet and so I do what I can.
She is not the first young lady to live with me. There was another in the past that needed a place to go, so I open my doors. I open my heart. I try and show the love of not just a mother but the love of the Father. The love that God has for the hurting, the love that God has for the broken, if I don't who will.
How can we show the world God's love when we won't open our hearts.
I have had my kids bring their friends that thought they were pregnant to me so that their friend can hear someone say it is ok... You are loved. They have brought their friends who have been used and abused to me so that they can see that there are people who care and people that love. I keep giving so that they can keep living. I keep loving so that they know they are loves. So yes, I did say she could come live with us. And when she is gone is ready and healed enough to say she is moving on there will come a time when there will be another and I will love, advise and so what I can to show her or him love. That is who I am and that is what I do...