Growth

This post may be a little philosophical but the past week deserves a little reflection.

This week presented some challenges that stretched me as a mother, a wife, a professional, and as a person trying to do all of these things at some level of success. I consider myself very blessed and lucky to have such a charmed life. I have everything I have ever wanted (and then some). All this contentment makes me happy just where I am and gives me little reason to push myself or head towards some new challenge. Sometimes God has different plans. We all need challenges to stetch us and help us grow however sometimes the challenges in the growth process are not so fun.
An opporunity came across my path at work and it was a situation that involved a lot of work, traveling out of state to meet a client, and taking a risk. I decided that I would go for it. In order for my efforts to be successful I needed to put in a lot of extra work preparing and a lot of preparation to make sure that Nate would be all set while I was gone. It was a tight schedule and everything was going to have to go according to plan.
Well, that did not happen. Nate's little cold got worse, he started waking up at all hours of the night, the nanny has to cancel last minute which put me behind at work, Rob had a conference and he was gone nights and over the weekend, then I started to get Nate's cold. I also needed to be at Rob's conference for a few wife events. I was hanging in there and then my cold turned into the terrible sinus infection and since I am still nursing my body could not get over the cold quickly like normal it just kept getting worse. I am the kind of person who operates on the understanding that if I just work harder or push myself a little more than I can get through something. However this attitude is conterproductive to illness. The more I kept going the sicker I got. I had a very tough time because I could not control it. I was up in the middle of the night rocking my sick baby and I felt like I was at the end of my rope. I was physically so weak and I realized that I could not do this myself. I started praying that Christ would give me strength to get through the week and make it to the appointment and that I would rely on him and not myself. I clung to Philippians 4:13 " I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength" . The rest of the week was an up hill climb. I will spare all the details but I know that the Lord carried me through. Friday arrived and I made the drive to meet the potential client and I realized a few things.
- Our health is such a precious gift. I am so thankful for a healthy growing baby boy
- that challeges are a necessary part of personal and professional growth
- These challenges that I faced this week are nothing compared to some of the struggles that other mothers go through and I am so thankful for my countless blessings.

Rob spend his 1st 24 hours alone with Nate so he also had an adventure and a growth experience but since he is more private about his personal growth you can just ask him how his week went.