Temporary Strength.

My life seems to define the word "temporary" these days.

My job is "temporary" and will be over soon.
My time with my kiddos is "temporary".

My living situation is "temporary". One week I live in Raleigh, the next Wendell.

I am a completely Type A kind of girl. I have lists and plans and thrive on organized chaos. I hate not knowing where I'm going to be three paychecks from now. I hate not knowing what to do about my living situation come January.

Some days I want to be a teacher for the rest of my life. Some days I don't want to be a teacher for another minute. Even my decisions seem to be temporary!

Eden will only be a baby temporarily so I have to soak up her cuteness and her hugs and kisses as much as I can now.

My girls will only be in Raleigh temporarily because the next two years are going to fly by faster than the last two years did...and that makes my heart so heavy.

Everything is temporary.

And I am made for eternity.

Those two things don't exactly mix.

To move on to another tangent, the loneliness that is creeping into my soul is overwhelming.

I've said before that I don't have a best friend. I never have. I have lots of good friends, but I don't have that one person that I can call at any hours of the day, every day. Those girls that had that one friend in middle school that they spent every waking hour with...I used to make fun of them. I really did. I didn't get it. I liked knowing that I had A LOT of friends and not just one or two. A piece of me regrets not deeply investing now.

I sit in a room with eighty-eight children all day every day. I can only share a piece of myself with them. It would be wrong and unhealthy to find my identity in "being a teacher" because if that were true, then days like today--where they don't listen and don't care and are just all-out RUDE--would be the death of me. To have half conversations for almost five hours a day can wear out a soul. Especially when there is no one to help rejuvenate you.

You're probably wondering why I titled this post "Temporary Strength" if all I'm going to do is whine all night.

Well, people have always said that I'm a strong person. Some have said it for physical purposes, others for emotional, others for spiritual. I've always laughed because I don't see it. I see my flaws when I look introspectively. I see where I am lacking and what needs to be improved and I calculate how to do so.

It's hard. Every day.  The lack of genuine conversation. The lack of a true support group. The feeling of being the outsider or the third wheel.

I know I am blessed. I know I am supported. I know this...but knowing and feeling are two different things.

I am going to allow my lack of strength to take over for a moment, and I'm going to be weak and sink in humility for a second.

I need a support group to love me and encourage me. I need friends that love Jesus and can point me to Him. Friends that are present and in my life. And at a stage of life where my schedule is the exact opposite of everyone else's...that doesn't exist.
I need prayer so that I can desire and seek to be filled by Him instead of trying to find my identity elsewhere.
I need to accept that He made me this way and no other way because His plan is perfect.
I need to accept that I am doing what He wants me to do, and I need to renew the faith that this is where I am supposed to be...because my soul is longing for bigger and greater.
I need to find joy and not just contentment.
I need to remember that I am fighting the good fight and to not back down when outside forces tell me differently.
I need to remember that the right thing to do is never the easy thing to do.

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I need to broken again because then He can fix it and put everything back together in the right place.

I know that sounds so weird and I know what I'm asking. It doesn't matter how many days come between me and my depression-filled months...those memories of that defeat and heartbreak are never far away.

But I also know that I can keep scraping the bottom of the barrel and always come up short...or I can be put together perfectly and let things work themselves out.

Any strength that I can find within myself with only last for a few moments. Strength that is built elsewhere will last a lifetime.

I am out of strength. Just add that to the list of the things that are temporary.