Can I Come Home, Please?

There are times I wish I could visit Heaven. Sometimes, when life is so hard, and when feelings of sorrow become so heavy and intense, I just want to take a break, and walk the streets of paradise for awhile.

I just want to breathe the fresh air of peace and freedom.

Sometimes it feels like life is specifically designed to test me, at my weakest points. For example, if I desire to jump into the arena and fight the good fight against my weaknesses of pride or jealousy, then I will surely be tested to my very core, until the pride and jealousy are pummeled out of me.

I have had some of those "pummeled" feelings lately.

I feel like I am in the process of being broken, like a wild Stallion.

I know that God wants me to be something I have never been before, and the process of changing my wild-Stallion-core makes me want to implode, or explode; or both.

I am trying to learn how to manage my new roles as a wife, a mother, and a stepmother.

To be blunt, it is hard.

So very hard.

It has been the hardest thing I have experienced in my life.

Lately, I often teeter-totter between feelings of extreme elation and total deflation.

When Charles died, I thought that would surely be the greatest trial and test I would have to endure.

I was wrong.

Trials have no limit, and no end, in this life.

Charles dying was just the beginning of a life forever changed. Because he died, my path forward will forever be altered, and it will be more complicated and complex than what I imagined my life would have been with him.

The challenge of combining two families has been far more emotionally and physically taxing than I could have anticipated. David and I are doing our best to figure out how to manage our collaborative chaos. There are so many moving pieces in our big family puzzle. Another struggle is that we are all working with a different picture in mind, of what the puzzle should look like, when it is put together.

Putting together a family puzzle with pieces from two different boxes seems impossible.

And it would be impossible, without Heavenly help.

All the members of our family have been through serious trauma, and have experienced the grief of losing the family life they had hoped for. Each child has their specific needs -- physically, spiritually, and emotionally -- and each child requires a certain kind of love and attention.

There are nine of them.

Nine children!

Five of them are not from my womb.

I am doing my best to open my heart to them, though it is not always easy.

Do you know what happens to a mother's brain and heart when she has to think about nine different children?

No wonder my head hurts and my heart often aches! No wonder I eat so much ice cream to try and soothe my soul.

I find I am losing my ability to remember things very well, because there is so much going on right in front of me. My brain can be quite fuzzy, but I wonder if that is not just a protectant layer that keeps me from seeing reality sometimes.

Please forgive me if I seem crazy currently, because, well, I am!

Did I mention I am very introverted, and I need a lot of space and alone time to function well? Did I mention I can become overwhelmed by being around too many people all at once? Did I mention that I am not the girl who would babysit, or want to watch other people's children?

Sometimes I just laugh at myself, and the ridiculousness of my new life filled with people and children.

God is clearly squishing the old Mari out of me.

Oh how squishy I am becoming! (Maybe it's the ice cream? Nah. Couldn't be.)

I am becoming a new creature -- God wants me to be more than I have been -- and it is an extremely painful process. I know it is all part of becoming who I am meant to be; but it is a battle, to be sure.

Last night, as I was laying on my big fluffy carpet downstairs, I just stared at the ceiling and I had a desire to go home to Heaven, just to visit. (I know my work on Earth is far from finished.)

I wanted to see my loved ones who have passed on. I wanted to hug my grandma Nan, and meet my powerful ancestors who have gone before me. I wanted to meet with women who mothered and loved children that were not their own. I wanted to talk to them, to learn from them, and receive their other-worldly motherly advice. I wanted to be filled with their strength and their power for goodness.

I do believe that one day, I will sit with the Pioneer women in my family, and I might just feel worthy to be in their company; because of the things I have gone through, and the trials I know are yet to come. I look forward to that day of joy and gladness!

I also just wanted to be with Jesus and feel His love.

Because above all, I love Him the most.

For just a moment, I wanted to go where the cares of this world were far from me.

I wanted to go back to my Heavenly home, where things make sense.

As I laid there on the floor, struggling, a voice from Heaven whispered to me,

"No, Mari, you cannot come home yet, but I will come to you...."