i have been waiting to live. no doubt about it. which doesn mean at all that life has been inactive or complacent, its just that as hard as I try to settle my heart in the now, i find myself utterly human. utterly desirious of the life i had planned. totall sure that if this, then peace, then love, then we can move on in our life.

a few weeks ago i heard someone say, keep the simplicity of what makes life beautiful, loving God and loving others. and as unsure as i am that either of those are particularly simple, i think about moments of joy and rest over the last year and they are always connected to feeling i am in relationship with a known God and at peace and living into the lives of those around me.

is it possible to be highly hopeful and highly realistic all at the same time? this is what i wonder because i decided somewhere in the last year to turn the hope off, which wasn't hard, and live in reality. put the petal to the metal, dive in, endure, muscle through, which is easier for me. and some of that i think is good. we must endure, we must push through and live in reality. but something scary begins to happen when days and weeks and then a month goes by and you realize how much your head has been down and you have gotten used to not believing things will ever change.

for example, i literally do not allow myself to think of adoption. i do not have the capacity to hope again for Hannah's sibling, its far far too painful. there is no money to adopt anymore and there is no agency i can imagine that want to offer a child to a household with an unemployed male. so i shove this insanely deep longing of my heart off and i have gotten used to not hoping to grow our family. someone actually spoke last night and said, "oh, that's an only child thing" and i felt my body convulse a little bit. and then i move on. but for split second i can't help to think of what recieving that would have been like if my heart was full of hope and my mind was at peace that i believe in a loving, gracious God who wants to give us the desires of our hearts. Just His timing may not be our own.

Anyway, it all gives me this sense that i must must quit waiting to hope. waiting to live, because hope in and of itself produces movement. hope feels raw and foolish sometimes, sure. and i have a LONG way to go to holding this daily but i think i want to. i want the movement of a different kind, the movement that presses into God, presses into His truth, presses into faith.. .not into me. not into muscling onward.