So I am still struggling with it.

Still struggling with this path I find myself on.

The reality that I’m turning 40 in a few weeks and I’m holding a newborn in my arms while balancing three other kids as well.  Not quite what I expected at this point in my life.

I thought this year would be my year to look toward what is next professionally. This would be my time to live a little more into my gifts and call beyond being Mom.  Instead I find myself changing diapers and drinking coffee bleary eyed in the mornings because I have been up half the night nursing a baby.  I do love her so, and she is gift.  This is just not what I expected.

And wouldn’t you know, the position I have been waiting for… for 8 years now… holding out for… hoping would come about so I can live into what I feel called to do… it finally comes up, and I think maybe this is my time.  But no, I find out at the same time we are expecting a very unexpected fourth child.  We could put her in childcare, but for me, that doesn’t seem the right thing.

And to be honest this four kid thing has pushed me over the edge and has me feeling like I can barely handle that much right now.  So I am back in it, this stay-at-home mom life and that door to what’s next gets closed.  That path I thought I would get to walk down, well, it has a detour sign on it pointing me in another direction down a path I didn’t expect.

And it is easy to look around and see others stepping through an open door that you wish you could step through, and lose heart.  It is easy to watch others have their moment of arrival, see the stars align for them, but you, you are left feeling a little lost, and you become confused by it all.

Maybe your closed door and unexpected path, isn’t a baby at 40 and a fourth child that leaves you feeling like your professional life, part of who you are, needs to take a backseat yet again.

Maybe for you, your unexpected path is being in the same job you have been in since you graduated college and you thought you would have moved on and up by now.

Maybe for you, your closed door is applying to your ideal school and not getting in.

Maybe for you, your unexpected path is you graduated from school but you can’t find a job.

Maybe for you, your closed door is you had that special person and you thought for sure they were the one, but they ended it suddenly.

So what do you do when you look around and feel like others are walking through open doors left and right, but you, you are hit hard with a closed door?  What do you do when others have their plans work out, but you, you find your plans aren’t working out at all like you thought they would?

You REMEMBER… 

“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jer 29:11

You remember that though others walk through an open door, and you, you are facing a closed door, it is also an invitation to knock again and know that your open door is coming.  When you see another walking down a path you wish you could be on, you rest assured knowing your journey is just taking you a little farther down the path, but your good path, it is coming.

Your open door, it will happen.  This path you are on, it is filled with goodness, it’s just not the path you expected.

Because God, he promised.  He has a plan for you.  God is not done with you yet.