A Different Kind of Tug

When I was a little girl, I had a blue, tattered nightgown that I wore about three years too many until it was way too small and more of a crop top than a floor length nightgown.

Written down the front in big block letters?

CHATTERBOX.

Appropriate for me then. And, still appropriate today. Just ask my husband. Or any of my closest friends. Or my sister. Lord, bless my sister and her patience with me.

Words have always come easy to me. Sometimes too easy. Spilling out onto whomever is before me.

My husband and I will pull into the driveway after an evening out with friends and before I open the car door, I'll stop and look at him, "I talked too much, didn't I? Did I talk too much? Ohhhhh, I ALWAYS talk too much and I think I took too long telling that story about that thing and they SURELY think I'm some kind of 'never shuts up, hand-waving, crazy talker' and well, I'm not sure if they'll ever..."

"SG", my dear, sweet, patient husband interrupts. "You didn't talk too much. Now stop talking."

There isn't really much that quiets my heart. What I mean by that is that I'm always processing, thinking, evaluating. Other people - in judgmental ways (I'm working on that), but also myself. I'm always introspecting. And, writing - whether in a diary or journal or for the last 7 years, here on this blog, - has always been a way for me to cough up the noise and have it land somewhere other than on the human closest in proximity to me.

But, big, unexpected life events - the ones that would seem to inherently BRING ON THE NOISE from the mouth (or keyboard) of a chatterbox - they do something to my heart that I'm never prepared for.

They quiet me.

Sometimes I think it's because God wants me to hear Him. And, loves me too much to let me drown out His still small voice with my ever-ready cymbals and a gong.

Sometimes I think I'm growing up, and the big girl me KNOWS what the immature me didn't - that wisdom is often found on the other side of a season of listening and learning.

And, sometimes I think that when my heart is full of joy, or hurting, or uncertain, or afraid or any myriad of emotions that big life events bring to surface, my words simply cannot do justice to what is in my heart.

It's probably all of that.

And so, for some time now, amidst a season of change, I've felt the familiar tugging to be still. To listen. To learn. To accept the marvelous, unexpected gift of my fifth child and first daughter and watch my family love and get to know her.

I have loved this season. From the moment I found out I was expecting another child to the moment I first met my girl.

It has been wonderfully sweet.

But, now - I feel a different kind of tug. The one that wants to tell our story, again. Because I love what God is doing in our family. I love what He's doing in my children and how precious they are and I love recording the things they do and say and who they are becoming.

I love to tell God's story. The story we get to tell when we live for Him.

All of this - the gift of my family, the love we share, the life we're building, and the things God's teaching me as a wife, mother, and friend - it's such an honor to give Him glory for these things.

And, I've really missed that.