Totally Empty

  It is a new year. 2026. I will turn forty four this year. I am starting out the year feeling hollow inside. I have poured out everything I had to pour in the last few weeks of this year. This is not a negative thing. It is good. It just means that right now I am hollow inside. Totally empty. I am not exactly sure what to do to fill myself up right now. That is also okay. 

The sun is shining. That in itself is filling. I am so thankful the winter sun shines through my window and illuminates the books on my bookshelf and the silk scarf on the eons old piano stool. 

It feels like there is so much needed of me. I am not sure if other mothers feel this way. I assume they do. I have a baby who wants to nurse a lot. She is my third child in a row who does not have a soother or any sort of other soothing apparatus and I am it. That is a big responsibility for a mother ~ to be the soother. 

I have five other children who would love to connect with me, who would love to feel seen by me, and who want to be known. I have a husband  as well who wants that and a grandchild.

I worked so hard to try to give my family a Christmas that felt somewhat happy and warm and caring. I hope I succeeded. 

After Christmas ~ directly after the last gathering ~ the entire family got a horrible flue. It wiped everyone out except my husband (go figure). I was up for many hours emptying buckets and processing laundry and handing out cool cloths and just being hopefully some sort of comfort. I am never enough in these situations.

Everyone has recovered now.

My house is in shambles and I don't know where to start. I have so much work but homeschool starts again in a few days. The schedule for January feels daunting and there are so many things to try to figure out for each child.

I need a hand to hold but I must hold my own.

And so I will take one day at a time

And think on Scriptures like

Romans 8:26-28 ~ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Each year holds so much promise of good.

There is promise of pain and hardship, heartbreak and loss.

There is promise of beauty, of connection, of smiles and laughter, of warmth.

If you are really living you are experiencing, feeling, processing, all of these things day by day. You are working through it and reveling in it and making the most of it.

I am grateful to be here. Grateful for another year 

Welcome to January and welcome to 20206

In my emptiness may I go forth in singing

Xo