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Emily Hopkins
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Honey

The hardest part of being a stay-at-home mama is not the endless amount of laundry or feeling like I’m losing my sanity every second of the day, it’s the overwhelming, paralyzing guilt that I am not helping provide for my family financially. We went from a family of two with  4 incomes, a small home and a puppy to admire to a family of four, one income, a house addition, endless amounts baby gear to purchase, and a dog to try to cuddle every now and then.  Our  financial responsibilities ten folded and I have barely been able to contribute. Guilt; overwhelming, paralyzing, consuming guilt.

 

I battle with a lot of guilt. Mama guilt. Sister guilt. Wife guilt. I battle a lot of shame. Not being enough.  Living  in yoga pants.  Being addicted to Starbucks. I battle with some guilt and some shame that I truly feel like only stay-at-home mamas would understand.  As the kids grow older, that guilt for staying at home only increases.

 

When you feel guilt like that, you feel lost. You feel inadequate. And y’all, let me tell you, I have felt so inadequate and lost lately that there are times that I just sit and stare, wondering what the heck I’m supposed to be doing in life.  I have been praying and praying for some clarity.  I have been praying for the slightest whisper from our Father. Well, you know what He gives me? One word…honey.  Yep, you got it..HONEY. I know, I know,  I was like you.

“Honey.  Honey! What the heck am I supposed to do with that?”

 

It took me a while before I started to see what He meant by honey and when I say see, I legitimately envisioned it in one my pity-sit-and-stare moments.  In that moment I had envisioned me, in this field of honey, as far as I could see. I was just there, standing. (Well, I should say, I was more stuck there than I was standing). I could feel this overwhelming feeling of ‘more’. Then the babes started screaming and the vision was gone.

 

Honey.  That’s my stage of life right now. Honey.

 

See, honey is thick and messy but most importantly, it is sweet and golden.  There are times where I know with every fiber of my being that I am in the golden years.  I know that there is going to be a time where I long to go back to this stage of life; to hear their sweet voices, to hold their tiny hands, to comfort them through the day.  I know with everything that I am, that this period of life is the sweetest. But other times I struggle with that. I feel completely lost and stuck in my honey.  I want more. I so want to use my honey to create something else for me…a Bee’s Knees Cocktail perhaps.

 

Tonight was one of those nights where I just felt confusion.  I was once a 18-year-old young woman who was a dreamer to a fault, full of passion and ambition, and now, sitting here, I am a 26-year-old mama of two and I have no idea what I am supposed to do in life.  I don’t know my calling.  I feel lost.  So I reached out to my best girl (an amazingly fearless, prayer warrior) for some prayers for clarity. She responded:

Isaiah 40:11   He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart;
He gently leads those that have young.”

“He is gentle with us with young children.”

 

 

As I read those words, I saw it…honey.

 

So I decided to see what the Lord really wanted me to understand about honey.  Our Father used honey as a symbol of so many things.  A symbol of  wisdom:

“My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.”- Proverbs 24:13-14

 

He repeatedly used honey as a symbol of hope, abundance and filled promises:

“Now when all the people came to the forest, behold, there was honey on the ground.”- 1 Samuel 14:25

“But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples”- Leviticus 20:24

“If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.”- Numbers 14:8

 

He placed me in a field of honey wanting more.  He didn’t place me in the honey so I could feel stuck.  He placed me in the honey understanding that I desired more, yet, He wanted me to understand what the honey brought. He wanted  me to embrace  His wisdom. He wanted me to feel the abundance of hope. He wanted me understand His filled (maybe unseen but still filled) promises that flowed within the honey.  He wants me to not worry about tomorrow but laugh in the joys of today.

 

 

Honey.

It’s really quite a beautiful word isn’t it?  So easy to say. So sweet to hear.

 

Honey.

What a wonderful, beautiful, messy and ol’ so sweet stage of life it is from our Father. Full of so much hope, wisdom and filled promises.

 

 

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