defending a 'friend'...& my paragraph

okay so I need to defend my 'friend' and explain a few things....

Yes, yes, YES...I am doing what I want to do when I grow up...
I LOVE being a mom
I LOVE being a wife...

but I also can't stick my head in the sand and say that's all there is to that!

when my friend requested that I write a paragraph about how...
where...
what...
I see myself doing/being 5 years from now and to try to be as selfish as possible
(taking Beau and the kids out of the equation, but also allowing them to come back in...)
he was trying to help me stretch myself...
I don't want to be the woman that can only define herself as a wife and mother...
because someday those kids will walk out the door and then those are the women who fall apart...
those are the women who don't know who or what they are...
or the potential be do that...
I need my focus to not be finding myself, defining myself, completing myself as a wife and mom...

He was wanting to force me to look at who I am...not what I am...forcing me to face questions I have never had to answer because I have hid from them....

I never had to 'grow up'...
yes, I am an adult woman...I have made lots of hard grown up choices in my life...
and I have one of the hardest most rewarding jobs there is and I love it...

but just a little secret...
I have never had a 'REAL' job....
I never worked in high school
I went to college and worked hard...worked lots...but all the jobs I ever had were work study jobs...and yes they were jobs, but you all know what I mean...
and then got married in college...kept at those work study jobs...
and then graduated...
and bought maternity clothes with my college graduation money....
so from the 9 months between graduation and motherhood I worked 2 part time jobs in random offices....
stopped working the week before Madison was born...
and then 2 years ago started working for the church as the Early Childhood Director...

so YES, I've had jobs...but nothing that I have LOVED doing, none of the jobs (past or present) were/are jobs that I feel are 'me' jobs....

but is there more?...
and NOT, do I need something more to 'complete' me...
but is there more that God has in store for me?
is there anything that God needs me to be doing while I am also working at being the wife and mother he created me to be?

I am not looking at getting a job because Beau and I are in desperate straights...
I'm not looking at getting a job because we need to finance a lavish life style...
I'm not looking at starting a career because I need to find fulfillment in life...

I'm looking at getting a job because I currently have one that helps pay some bills, but isn't the job that I would love to have...

so I would like to defend my 'friend' that asked me to write this paragraph...
he wasn't trying to turn me into a
I'm not complete with my family, so now I need to leave and fulfill my destiny women...
I feel like he was pushing me to answer some questions so I wouldn't become one of those women...

and after answering lots of my own questions...
and talking to another friend...
(I think I will from here on out refer to my two friends as my life coaches!)
he asked me What I feel is the best way to live out God's will in my life?

so here is my paragraph....

I can't do it, I can't take Beau and the kids out...(and I can't write in paragraph form!)
I am doing what I love to do...
and I know that I am a pretty darn good wife and mother.
I'm not the best, far from it.  But I am trying to be the one that God wants me to be.

In 5 years I see myself taking my kids to school (yikes high school for the girl child!),
making menu and grocery lists,
trying to keep a handle on the household chores,
Picking kids up from school,
driving them to piano lessons,
helping them with homework...
having a comfortable home for them to invite their friends over to...
creating the safe place for them to fall when the world pushes them (which it will)....

I love being a wife and mother, but I also know that it is a hard job...
it's a hard job for those that want to do it right,
it's a hard job for those of us that have wonderful husbands,
and great support systems from family and friends...
Even with as much as I love this job, it's hard...
I see mothers struggling to be good mothers,
I see families struggling to be families...

nine years ago I fell into the arms of a local MOPS (Mothers Of Preschoolers) groups.  I met some wonderful women that invited me to this wonderful group and those women helped point me as a mother, wife, woman towards God, I was a Christian already, they just helped me gain focus...
thru the past nine years I have seen MOPS help women struggling as moms, wives, women
it allows these women to sit down and learn from other moms, other wives, other women how to lean on God.  I believe strongly in MOPS it's a great organization,

but this isn't about MOPS...I was just using it as an example...
I feel that although I am far, far, far from being a perfect wife or mother and we by no means have a perfect family, I do know that we're pointed (I'm pointed) in the right direction, that we know we need to lean on God and each other to make it work....

I have learned that when I grow up I want to be a mom...and if I can help other mothers along the way I would feel honored!  I know that I'm doing what God created me to do and I would love to help others that haven't been as blessed as me...
...blessed with growing up in a Christian home, blessed by knowing what love is, blessed by having a great education, blessed by finding/dating/marrying an amazing man, blessed by being surrounded by others that showed me how much God has showed them...
maybe in the hours between dropping my kids off at school...making menus...folding laundry...doing dishes...and then picking them back up again....I can find some way to help other mothers learn how to be the mothers that God created them to be...

do I have any idea what that looks like...
no idea...
and 100 ideas...

but now that I know what many different forms it might take...and a few forms it won't take...I can be on the look out for what God has in store for this mom!