Sign. Me. Up.

I love love love the domestic life.  Even though I don't get to do it very often, the opportunities I have to wash dishes and do laundry and oversee homework and get kids ready for bed make my heart sing with joy. 

I was babysitting tonight for some friends who have three kids in elementary/middle school.  I met the younger two when they got off the bus, gave them some time to unwind from school, inquired as to the status of homework, and then headed out to pick up their brother from middle school football.  Waiting in the parking lot, I started working my way through Moltmann's The Crucified God for class on Thursday.  When the kiddo had at last collected all his books, clothing, and supplies, and said goodbye to all his friends, he climbed in the car and I put away Moltmann.  On the drive home we talked about school and field trips and underappreciated defensive tackles.   Back at the house, I set the kids to clearing off and setting the dining room table, while I got supper (frozen pizza) ready.  (Side note: gas stoves terrify me.  I always think I'm doing them wrong and that I'm going to kill us all...)  When everything was ready we sat down to dinner, and then the kids cleared their plates and unloaded the dishwasher.  While they busied themselves with homework, musical instrument practice, and TV, I washed all the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen and dining area.  Then I worked on my own homework (Moltmann!!) for a while, until it was time for the youngest to get ready for bed.  We cuddled in bed ("I like being babysitted!") and read Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia.  Back to Moltmann (extremely interesting, but seriously, 75 pages of him is kind of a lot to work through and take in), enforcing the "20 mins of music practice required" rule, and following up on homework.  Eventually the kids' mom got home and I headed back to the dorms to...you guessed it...read Moltmann...

Anyway.  Phenomenal day.  Utterly fantastic.  Call me crazy, but when I'm doing these kinds of things, I feel like I'm doing what I was made to do.  I feel happy and good and productive and self-confident and loving and loved. 

It's so hard to say that, though, because it's so...deserting the sisterhood, or something.  It's just not what women in the 21st century are supposed to say, and it's certainly not what they're supposed to feel.  And the more I tell God to please show me what I'm supposed to be doing, and to make His desires for me become my desires for me, the more I feel like this.  So, there's that.  Which is good.  But I'm also struggling to believe God's promises for me, that He will grant me the desires of my heart, that He's not just letting me feel this way now and then planning to snatch it all away from me later....Wow, I sound like a) a terribly faithless person, and b) a total heretic/blasphemer.  I don't mean to.  I'm just lacking for encouragement right now, and I don't really know why or where it's coming from, but I'd like it to stop, please.

But back to the goodness.  It's rare that a person gets to have two - count 'em, two - freaking phenomenally fantastic days inside of a week.  But I have.  And I love it.  Mmm...yay God.