a stay at home wife

by Alanna

written July 7th

Today is my first official day as a stay at home wife. I feel a little bit strange, as I won’t be working at a ‘real job’ for the first time in many years.  With baby girl due to come in just 3 ½ months, it doesn’t make sense to look for full-time work. I have to rest in this. It’s not my job to earn a regular paycheck, decide my hours, to run my own life. I have a husband, and I’m so blessed to be his wife. This is my purpose here.

So the floors are clean, lawn watered, books all sorted on shelves, the green house stacked with empty boxes. The kitchen organized, iced tea made, meat thawing in the fridge. We are spoiled here with a washing machine, kitchen counter space, and a couch of our own for the first time since we got married. (I don’t understand why God is so good to us. What does He want of me here? There’s nothing I can give in return for His love and His grace and His mercy. His gifts abound and I’m full to bursting with them). I’m ready for my husband to come home. I still feel like a newlywed, the way I miss him.

I came home to find that home is not all I imagined. My family is broken, and how did I forget? My brothers and sisters need Jesus. And apart from Him, what can I offer them? I know what life is like without Him, and it’s not possible to put yourself together. I want so badly for them to be whole, but only He can do it. I feel helpless these days. I am just two ears and two hands, and I can’t make things better here. But I know, I’m certain, that God can.

So what will I do with these days waiting for my daughter to arrive? Perhaps God wants me to simply do what He tried to teach me for so many months in Honduras. Pray. First I have to pray for strength and patience and hope and discipline. If I ask for these things He will give them I think. Maybe then I can be used to bang on His door, begging for good things for the people I love. Begging for love for them too, inside of frail little me. Without Him I’m nothing.