Recharged ….

Life now seems to be divided into – ‘before Elijah’ and ‘after Elijah’. I find myself placing the time of events in relation to whether that happened, before Elijah was here, or after. When I describe changes that I notice in myself, it seems I use terms like, ‘Before Elijah, I would have been much more or much less ….’ And, it had started to bother me a little if I’m honest. I think a part of me thought it was as if I was blaming the wee man for something, when I absolutely wasn’t.

He changed my life.

Profoundly.

And so I have come to realise that, of course my life will always be, ‘before Elijah and after Elijah’. Just in the same way I guess we say, ‘before children came along’.

Little Elijah changed me. His life impacted me – fully. In every possible way. For the better … and if I’m honest, perhaps too for the worse. Well, no, worse is not right. Words fails me. But, you see, I find myself a little ‘less able’ than I used to be.

I am less able to bite my tongue about what I now perceive as insignificant nonsense.

I am less able to keep commitments and remember appointments.

I am less able to see people and find I will make an excuse to not see them, when really, the truth is – I just can’t do it. Yet.

I am less able to do all the things that I once did and find myself overwhelmed. I used to be able to do sooo many things all at the one time. In fact I thrived on it. But now …..

The last few weeks have found me to be just that – overwhelmed. I was grouchy and snappy and grumpy. Overwhelmed with; well, with everything really. Don’t get me wrong, I was still doing fine, still absolutely OK … I was still enjoying my day to day. But I knew, I was off kilter – I needed to recharge.

The port called …. of the north coast variety, I hasten to add!! So we booked in to some chalets in Portstewart and did our best to hide from our day to day for 4 whole days, and gosh it was worth it. My heart and my mind has been reset. Our family rhythm has found it’s melody again, and we are refocused. Reset. Recharged.

Rejoicing.

Rejoicing in the blessings that we have been showered with. Rejoicing in a good, good Father. Rejoicing in hope of what is yet to come. Rejoicing in what has been. Rejoicing in memories made and in the memory making. Rejoicing in lessons learnt and still to be learnt. Rejoicing that we are changed. Rejoicing that, yes, we are less able, but boy do we have more strength and courage than ever before.

We have come home rejoicing ….. and I thank Ben, Jonah, Seth, Leah and Elijah for giving me so much to rejoice about! And a heavenly Father who gives ALL of these blessings and many more besides ……