Yesterday was hard.
If you don't know me or my chosen lifestyle, I stay home and homeschool our five kiddos, ages 7 and under. There are some days that make me stand in awe at the fact that I get to do what I do — that I get to take field trips to museums and parks, that I get to witness the progress made in deciphering between a lowercase "d" and "b," that I get to answer deep theological questions that are blurted out when I least expect it. Yes, those are the days when I exhaustedly gush with overwhelming gratitude.
And there are days when I'm calling on the name of the Lord Jesus every second to help me with these children.
And y'all, yesterday was definitely one of those days.
I think I was too ambitious in deciding to wake up at the crack of dawn to wash both of my girls' beautiful, tightly coiled curls.
By 1PM, after many, many interruptions, I wanted to curl up on my couch and escape into a good book. It didn't help knowing that my husband was going to be working late that night. Thankfully, I was able to go to sleep by 9PM, and my body needed every single restful exhale.
And can I just say — I am grateful to be out of the season of waking up to nurse. That deserves its own moment of acknowledgment. There was a stretch of years where uninterrupted sleep felt like a distant memory, something other people had. Now I pinch myself every night knowing I can actually sleep without getting up AT ALL. It's the small things, friends.
This morning I slept past what I intended, cutting short the hour-long walk I had planned on a trail near our home. Instead, I had 15 minutes, so I put on my walking shoes and took what I could take before my husband needed to leave for work.
While walking, I began talking to the Lord about the day prior and how I wasn't looking forward to the day ahead — mainly out of fear of a repeat. As I spoke, I felt Him ask, "Do you trust me to pivot?"
I had a list of homeschool lessons that I desperately wanted to scratch off in order to feel some sense of accomplishment. And if I'm being honest, it ran deeper than just a checklist. I'm in a season of life where so much tends to go awry — where I'll finish combing hair only for my one year old to smash a banana into hers, or mop the floor only for my two year old to spill a smoothie on the baseboards, or finally get settled into a lesson with my four year old only for my two year old to have a meltdown that wakes the baby from her nap.
The uncontrollables are endless. So completing a lesson had become one of the few things I felt like I could actually control. Skipping it didn't just feel like flexibility — it felt like surrendering the one thing I had left to hold onto. So with every step on that walk, I felt my hands painfully loosen their grip on the day's plans. Yielding is never easy, at least for me. Yet it's the only way to truly follow.
I knew what the Holy Spirit was beckoning me to pivot toward. Instead of our regularly scheduled program, I sensed Him wanting us to visit our local children's museum.
That would mean I'd need to pack all of our lunches and snacks. And because I hadn't prepped sourdough the night before, options were limited and more time-consuming than a quick pack. Still on my walk, I brought that to the Holy Spirit too — even the logistics. And He met me right there on that trail. He brought to mind the DoorDash gift card my husband and I had received weeks prior, sitting unused. Pizza for the kiddos. Ethiopian food for me from a spot near the museum. I hadn't even made it back inside yet, and He had already worked it out.
With that, we were out the door. I kept wrestling with the idea of cutting our trip short to go home and do at least some lessons. But the Holy Spirit's piercing question came back to mind: "Do you trust me?"
I must say, we had a SPLENDID time. We took our time visiting each station, no rushing, no agenda.
At one point my oldest son discovered that we were having pizza for lunch — on a weekday, no less — and the grin that spread across his face was everything. We typically reserve our sourdough pizza for the weekends, so to him, this was an event. I pulled out my crochet project during a quiet moment. My Ethiopian food was absolutely delicious and just what my body needed. And I ended up meeting another young African-American mother who also had five small kiddos — we exchanged info and everything.
I've faced seasons of life in which following the Lord felt overwhelmingly painful — decisions that cost something real, pivots that rearranged everything. But now I'm in a season where following Him looks more like quick, whispered decisions to yield and trust. And I think that's worth naming, because I used to believe that faithfulness only counted when it was dramatic. When it was visible. When it came with a testimony that filled a whole room. But what I'm learning is that obedience lives just as much in the small moments — in choosing to loosen your grip on a Tuesday, in trusting Him with your ordinary afternoon, in letting a children's museum be the place where He restores your joy. The decisions may not look overt or life-altering to anyone watching. Or maybe they are, in ways we can't yet see. But they're often found in what seems to be the mundane.
This is just me giving you a peek into my day-to-day. And here's to the reminder that sometimes a pivot requires faith.
'Til next time. Thanks for making it this far haha.
-Pondered Thought
