I need to bring a recorder to bed with me because all the things I want to say come to mind so clearly and poignantly the 10 minutes before I fall asleep. And I wake up excited to write add have absolutely no idea what to say. It's maddening. My head was so full just 7 hours ago and now, nothing. blank.

While I have been waking up to be with God so very many mornings this year, I do not feel with God. I feel like my anxiety around what I am unsure is okay and what I wish was - is so large that that space of with God and nothing else seems to have eluded me for months and months and months. What I may hear from God cannot be scarier than what life feels like with this entanglement though - of feeling desperately eager and also terrified of what I may hear if I let my vigilant self- protection (aka anxiety) take a day off.

its day 2 of summer, and I am so so so so determined to be different for the summer. But i don't know how. how to be different when I am still equally lost. Different when the days feel eternal of hungry bodies and clothes on the floor and sunscreen and bug spray and boo boos to clean and wet bathing suits and sweaty heads. The days of endless activity direction and all of us trying to find new rhythms with no school and sports and not exactly knowing how to rest and play the way that it used to seem so easy.

I know I am part of the problem because I create the circus of entertainment wanting my kids to always be having the best time - wanting each day to seem FUN. Because I live for fun. So i activity direct the heck out of summer and my kids have no clue how to be bored because I have created patterns where they are used to the 10 ideas I will propose each morning. And yet I feel the dread of always having the new idea of the fun things to make life good. I have got to get out of this business. Not good for them, not good for me and the right idea doesn't seem to be the total opposite where I tell them I am tired of entertaining them, but somewhere in between where we create together. Somewhere in between where we learn more being together and less entertaining one another. i don't know how and I am almost 10 years into parenting. for the love. I cannot spend the day where I am trying to get them off my ankles and they are hoping for a few minutes of my eyes. where is the middle?

i am often waiting to escape but i am finding the escapes less and less satisfying. How many episodes of Hart of Dixie will really help my sense of displacement in the world? This is how I know I am back to the beginning. This summer can't be different because I come up with all the spreadsheets of incredible FUN. This summer only stands a chance when I allow the spaciousness for connection with the Holy Spirit. When I let go of the tiny threads I am still holding and open the palms of my hands. i have to be more okay with the day whatever it holds. even if it is eternal and so far from what i pictured or hoped for this season, this is my day. this is the day the Lord has made. I don't know if i can go so far as to rejoicing and gladness but I want to eye that direction, because the day is of the Lord. So maybe I am less lost than I thought.