Newness.

the outlandishly handsome buggaboo.

Chris and I went out on a date last night. As in a real DATE. Like, where you go somewhere and there is no little person running around like an un-caged madman, making a b-line straight for the fireplace as if he's running to meet his destiny and don't you dare try to stop him or you'll ruin his ENTIRE LIFE forever and ever... Like, where you get to wear clothes from your stain-free pile on the floor that's gathering dust from its lack of use and you get to eat food like a normal person without making airplane sounds or clapping everytime your toddler swallows a crumb.

It was awesome.

Yesterday was Chris' birthday and we went to a restaurant on the lake and sat outside by the fireplace and watched the beautiful sunset over the water. We drank wine and ate fatty chicken and garlicy mashed potatoes and amazing keylime pie. The food was delicious and Chris and I actually talked about important life things and had a chance to get back on the same page again after months and months of not being able to be alone together and be RELAXED at the same time.

It seems whenever we have a moment away from Ezra, it's either because we are busy doing something, or we're too stressed out to connect on any level because I left my cell phone on the piano at home and Chris' cell phone has a dead battery or we didn't plan anything ahead of time so we drive around for an hour asking "what do you want to do?", "I dunno, what do you want to do?" before we end up parked in the driveway at our house again after only 45 minutes of being gone.

So, last night seriously felt like a honeymoon for us again- even though we only managed to stay out for two hours before heading back home again because the movies we wanted to see didn't start until 10:00PM and that's WAY TOO LATE... what do we look like, teenagers? Chris would be sleeping halfway through the movie and I would be thinking of nothing but my cozy pajamas and my good book sitting on my nightstand. We're wild ones, we are.

We talked of the future and where we want to end up and what we want to do with this life we've been given and how we miss our families so deeply that everytime Ezra does something new, their faces are in our minds and we long to share these moments with them. Ezra is growing so fast and these are times you can never get back and it's hard to be away from the people we want to share all of this joy with the most.

And then when we got home, we watched a movie with Jacquie called 'Nomad' about the story of Sara Groves and her journey to Rwanda and her desire to live life to the fullest and her desire to RUN and not walk to help her neighbors. She spoke of how, a few years earlier, she was a mother with two small children and she felt herself go into this mode where she was just "hugging the wall" and "barley making it through each day"... but a couple of years went by like this and her children grew older and she realized that this way of life just WASN'T ENOUGH for her. She didn't want her boys to grow up watching mommy "hugging the wall" and being afraid of everything all the time, so she decided to let go of the wall.

She took her family on the road with her (she's a musician) and then she traveled to Africa where her entire life perspective was CHANGED FOREVER and she was never the same again. She spoke of how she'd always been afraid to go to Africa or do big things because then she would come home with an Africa-sized burden on her shoulders on top of all of the other burdens she already carried and felt weighted down by in her day-to-day life. But she said that instead of an Africa-sized burden, she came home with a new perspective on her own life, and all those trivial burdens she'd been carrying fell off of her shoulders and she could finally stand up straight. For the first time ever.

She had just showed up for her own life.



This movie was the cry of my heart played out on the TV screen in my living room and I felt so full and torn after watching it, I felt like I could just BURST at the seams with tears and laughter and I felt like screaming and getting it all out and letting God into that place of fear I so often (no, ALWAYS) am living out of.

Chris and I looked at eachother and without any words we asked eachother, "What are we doing?"

This, where I'm at right now, isn't enough. I echo Sarah's words of desiring to burn wick, wax, and all to the ground until there's nothing left at the end and I'm all used up. I'm so grateful that I have a God who desires the same and a husband who wants nothing less.

Lord, guide us into the rocky waters where only You will know what's ahead.

I refuse to be anywhere else.