So it just occurred to me that my last post was a little bit whiny. I read it, and although I meant what I said, I forgot to “temper my speech with grace” and point out the good things too. Sort of like a loaf of bread without the yeast to make it light and fluffy. I could have just deleted the old one and typed the new one, but I felt like that was hypocritical. I said what I said, and now I need to re-say it. I don’t like to whine, and I am going to try to teach my children not to whine, so in the spirit of teaching myself how to teach my children, I am going to try to explain what the last post was about without sounding like a spoiled little baby.  Please forgive me.

If you read my last post (which you probably should so all of this makes sense, if you even care to) I was complaining how time passes too quickly, and pretty soon I am going to wake up and have tons of kids and a nervous breakdown because I didn’t take the time to really get to know myself before the babies started coming. This is a legitimate fear of mine, because it happens to people I know every day. I do not think so highly of myself as to deny the idea that this could happen to me just as easily as it could happen to anyone else.

What I failed to mention in any of that was the same point I have been coming back to again and again during this process-

GOD IS IN CONTROL.

Not only is he in control, but he is in good control. Like, he loves me and he wants the very best for me in this life. That doesn’t mean that everything is cupcakes and rainbows, and that doesn’t mean that I can clearly see or understand what the H is going on sometimes, but I can’t ignore the fact that He knows what He’s doing. He hasn’t let me down so far. It goes back to an earlier analogy that I made, back when Eloise was still a Butterbean and I could still see my feet:

My life, from beginning to end, has been stitched into a quilt. On that quilt are all of the milestones, hopes, fears, tragedies, major and minor events of my life. In the darkness of eternity past, God diligently stitched into place everything that would make me who I am. He knows me because He made me. He is the author of my life’s story. He stitched Butterbean into place, and then carefully stitched “Eloise” underneath her little baby body. He carefully stitched around the contour of my enormous belly and my swollen ankles. He has already stitched the wrinkles I will have on my face, the gray in my hair, and all of my grandchildren (if I have any). If I happen to have a nervous breakdown in a Target parking lot, the Nissan Quest minivan will be stitched on there as well. This things didn’t just appear spontaneously, but were authored before time began by the creator of the whole universe. It’s all there. It’s beautiful. It always has been and always will be.

When I think about it that way, it gives me less to whine about. The sudden change that my life is about to undergo is not an accident, or a raincloud on the horizon- it is a line of thread stitched into place by the most talented artist there is. For now, it seems dark and mysterious, but after a little while, the light will hit this part of my quilt and the dark of the thread will illuminate into a brilliant gold, purple, or whatever color- that’s for the artist to decide.

God loves me. I am special. I am His. I forget that, sometimes.

So and so I’m sorry for the last post. I forgot for a second who made me and who loves me. I left the yeast out of my bread.