I have had lots of things running through my mind this week--so many things going on. On Monday, we had a long-distance family meeting with my side of the family and afterward my mother-in-law started teaching me to can. My baby girl turned 18 months old on Tuesday. My little brother started his LDS mission on Wednesday. On Thursday, we did some more house hunting (I am so over house hunting, by the way). And all day yesterday, as these experiences co-mingled in my mind, I put pressure on my myself to write something inspirational about all of it. The problem was, the inspiration just wasn't there.
So I waited.
All day.
And it never came.
So here it is, Friday morning, and I am writing my Thursday post, and I am thinking about failure.
There is a term used in the medical world with infants called "failure to thrive." Generally, "failure to thrive" is used in reference to a child who has not met certain expected patterns of growth.
Perhaps this week, I am failing to thrive according to certain patterns of my expected growth.
Really, though, maybe that could be said of our whole year. You see, in January we thought we were on our way to buying a home. By the end of February, it became clear that a home wasn't in our foreseeable future (you've all read that post, it's my most popular one). In March, we started to feel like another baby was in our near future. By April, it became clear that another baby was just not the right thing for us right away, so we decided to put that conversation and plan away for a time. In May, when my husband graduated from USU, we thought for sure he'd be in graduate school by the fall or at least start sometime during the winter. Throughout June and July, that plan also fell through, as we realized he was too burnt out from studying to do well on the GMAT (have I mentioned my husband hates to study?). In August, without really discussing it, we decided to let go of what we thought were our cemented plans for the future and let the Lord's plan for our family take over.
And do you know what?
It's working out.
It hasn't been an easy road, not being able to really see what is ahead of us. But over the past four weeks since Scott has started his new job and we've slowly been able to piece together what we need to be doing and where we need to be doing it, we have found that a feeling of failure has almost disappeared. And if you know our current track record of rejections from our offers on homes, you would know what a big deal it is for me to say that.
Sometimes in life it is necessary to let go of general expectations. I have two friends with babies that were once labeled as "failure to thrive." Do you know what those littles are doing now? Blowing away every single doctor and therapist and nurse with their achievements and improvements. These little ones have their own time table, their own growth milestones, ones that aren't necessarily in line with the medical world, but ones that their Heavenly Father has set out for them. It is a lesson every parent of a NICU/PICU baby learns--the timing will be different, the plan will be different, there can be no set expectations because these babies learn and grow on their own terms. When you let them do that, they do well.
This is a lesson I am trying to teach myself. Just because so-and-so bought an expensive house at this age doesn't mean we have to also. Just because another person might have five children doesn't mean we need to have that many. Just because someone has a master's degree doesn't mean that I need one right away too. Just because one mother can balance work and parenting doesn't mean that I need to go out and get a job. That is their plan, their path, not mine. Not my family's.
I am learning to love discovering the Lord's plan for our family. I am growing closer to Him in the searching. I am finding that He knows me better than I know myself.
And I think, to Him, there is no "failure to thrive." There is only a failure to try.
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