It is CRAZY to think… yesterday I was sitting in a conference room of a business building, surrounded by inspiring professionals discussing the future of therapy protocols, court cases & the OKC school system… Tomorrow I’ll be spending a few hours with some of my favorite kids & families processing their joys & pains through the gift of therapy, & some heartbreaking circumstances, then have a dinner date with my teen queens & teach a dance class… at our dance studio. And today I get to be stay-at-home mom, drive my girls to school while they tell me their stories, grab groceries & Starbucks & sing TV cartoon tunes all day, chasing potty training toddlers with sponge swords, laughing at them when I prob should be spanking them, no make-up no need, cooking bean burgers for dinner & breaking momentarily with a bath & a book (& Pinterest) while they nap (hopefully).
Staying up late is something I mostly quit allowing myself to do a while back, because gym, and adulting and blah blah blah… But last night I stayed up late just to watch We Bought a Zoo… Again, at my husband’s request.  He loves to hang with me 🙂

And I never re-watch movies.  Except Pretty Woman. So clearly I love to hang with him.  This morning wasn’t even ruined… I was rested?  Miracle… how does God do that?  I got to read my bible this morning, before the babies woke up, and even hit the gym.  In that order hallelujah.

& I have high hopes for some poker gambling w/ my Fam tonight.  And wine.
I have made some really wise time rules and some dumb ones.  But the dumbest thing is to never break your own rules because you think YOU’VE GOT TIME FIGURED OUT.
Pfffffff, that’s some LOL!!   Time management is THE THING I have probably asked for more prayer for and strived to be stronger and more disciplined in than anything.

And you know what, I’m finally figuring out God is answering my prayer.  Amazing how that works.

Like all these days looking different but full of all of the things I love… it just amazes me, this season.  How did I get here??
Over the last couple of years since grad school, not a day goes by that I am not grateful for the opportunities and flexibility that education has given me.  The TIME my degree gives me far outweighs the $$$.

But I have STRUGGLED.

There was a time when all my days were different, everchanging, and I thought it would be amazing to run my own schedule until I figured out I sucked at it and so I just basically SHUT DOWN.  That’s what I do if it’s too much, and that’s what I do if it’s not enough.  I just cannot. anything.

People think I’m all over everything but about 2 of you know THIS IS ACTUALLY ME.  Some days, Lord help me, I want to do ANYTHING but do anything.  I “feel” like I am so much more productive when I have a set routine and organized everything.  Until it get too productive!! Whoaaa Stace.  Then anxiety sets in and fear of failure and scary pants about the unknown and I need to get back to my happy comfort zone box of the well known.  There’s no doubt to the power of planning ahead.  I like to plan.  I’m not super awesome at it. But, I definitely fall between control freak and fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal. More the latter, for sure.

But, GUYS.  The truth is freedom sometimes actually paralyzes me.  Oh, and having a lot of responsibility also paralyzes me.  Yeah, both.  I mean PARALYZED PEOPLE.

God is all, “Be fearless” and I’m all, “Brave is exhausting… and bless me with more of it, please.” I have had to learn, and still need to learn, the balance of letting loose the ambitious world changer in me and some days giving grace to the stay in bed me. Being an adult is so far beyond amazing, getting your life together and having some sanity in your relationships and finances and future is pretty legit. But responsibility is no joke.

DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE.  YOU DON’T JUST PUT ON YOUR BIG GIRL PANTIES AND BECOME A BIG GIRL.

You do big girl things, every day, over and over and over. You make things happen and you let things go and you learn that time is truly a gift – not something to be mastered but something to be appreciated.  And it’s okay for some hours to be a countdown of productivity like a boss because wasting time is crap. Except you figure out – LIGHTBULB– > that some things that waste your time are actually the moments to live for.  It has been so hard for me to figure out how to DO and BE many things, without doing and being EVERYTHING.  God knows my heart, He made his girl with many passions & He is teaching me not that I CAN get it all done, but that I cannot… UNLESSSSS I realize one ridiculously life-changing truth – HE RULES TIME. He gives it, He starts it and stops it and shortens it and stretches it if He wants to because TIME IS HIS. So if I can just do that one..  little.. thing…
If I can just give Him my time
He can make it sweeter, deeper… He can give me back more.  He can show me how to share it with other beautiful people that multiply it, too. He can stop the clock… and it will some day, so wasting time worrying about time is the greatest way to lose time.

I know this, but I don’t live it out every day. Sometimes I’m a crazy lunatic freaking out about time and calling my husband to come home and baby me back to my sanity, and other days, like today, I just… get it. The less grip I have on my hours of my days, and stop stressing about what and how and WHEN, as I release the clutch, fields and oceans and skies of moments and hours and days open up – in what looked like just mere seconds and minutes.

To plan, and not put all your trust in the plan.  To do and be all the favorite things – but only just enough to enjoy the journey, instead of running a rat race.  That balance is some yin and yang we are free to experience and enjoy if we will just loosen the grip a little and let the Spirit’s leading voice be more familiar and clear than the alarm clock.

In business, and marriage, and espeeheecially as a mother, the fine art and deep mystery of time is the greatest gift that we can ever grasp.  But not grip.  There’s nothing more valuable, nothing more fleeting, and nothing more powerful.

To live fully, I am convinced that we – or at least I – must be okay with a balance of bursting ambition and resting at zero, of being the world changer on the run to the hurting, and an absolute homebody useless to a soul because we are actually not superheroes… there is no cape.  Only dirty diapers and teen tudes and grace because we would sure lose our minds with a cape trying to live up to yet another identity the world labels us with.  There is no identity to uphold, nothing you have to DO and BE to somehow gain what is already yours.  THAT IS WHAT GIVES YOU THE FREEDOM TO DO AND BE WHATEVER!!  ZING!!

Time is not your enemy, not your competitor or your dictator.  God owns time.  I’m sure He meant for it to be a blessing and not a curse?  KNOW that yes is fun but also that NOPE is a beautiful word, a gift we can give ourselves… Hallelujerrrrr!!!! Repeat after me:

Yes, I can, and I choose to.

No, I actually can, but I choose not to.

Ahhhh, the bliss of balance.  Use either of those as often as necessary, and don’t feel the need to justify either with more words.

I know that what I want in life is very different from the next person… pleasing people went out the window years ago.  The truth is everyone has different things they desperately hope for, different passions that drive them, certain values and a legacy that is in them to leave; but for me, right now in this moment and this space and this season I’m so dang happy and I have never been more grateful for God’s timing.  It sucked learning the beauty of that, too.  God’s timing – that used to sound like a distant hell in neverneverland.  But, really it is all His timing, right?  It only gets all jacked up when we push and pull and manipulate time, which can’t even be done so why trip?

Enjoy the day, the hours, this moment.  It’s all we have.  Let boundaries be a blessing, and once in a while break your boundary rules lest you become the god of your hours.  Definitely don’t want that.  YOLO or yoNO, some days BOTH YO.

Do it all right now. Or do nothing at all. Just bless God with your time & HE WILL BLESS YOU.

#promise