blog posts

Deep Thoughts

By Kylie Barnes
http://jkabarnes.blogspot.com/2010/01/deep-thoughts.html

At times I struggle with my blog. I love to look back at all the pictures, and see the memories I have written, the Asherisms, the date of first smiles, trips, time with friends, new babies. Sometimes I imagine my children looking at their blook (blog turned book) that we will print for them and it makes me smile. I know they will be embarrassed by some posts, laugh at others, or oooh and ahhh over cute pictures. I wonder when I will stop documenting almost daily about what we are up to? This blog could be LONG if I blog everyday for 20 years!!

I blog to document our family, to create a time capsule, to show my children a glimpse of themselves as children through my eyes.

So, what's the big deal?

Recently I was talking to a friend about this. There seem to be a few types of blogs. Those that draw readers due to tragedy, those that teach home decor skills, those that document family life in which the family appears perfect on paper, and a few where the family is great, yet honest in their writing, writing about where the writer truly is, you know, addressing hard life topics. I love those blogs! I'm a people analyzer by nature and I love when people are raw.

As I was visiting with my friend recently about this I mentioned that I feel like the 'Barnes family blog' can make us appear like we have it all together or maybe even a bit fake. But, I defended my reasoning (my friend was not questioning me just FYI), that in 15 years when my children read about their life, I don't want them to read about conflict we had, or about challenges, or about sadness. But, then again, do I want them to think we were perfect? Because, I assure you we are not perfect.

This week has been a hard week, which is why I think I've been mulling these thoughts through my head. Jesse started back to school, we have 6 intense months ahead of us. We will make it through with joy because I know the Lord will give us strength. The topic of finances also came up as we begin to prepare to move back into the working world. We sat down and began looking at school loans and health insurance costs from our new job and suddenly the numbers didn't add up.

We have some decisions to make....sell our cars, sell our house, rent and live someplace even smaller. Do I go back to work? Do we put our children in day care....this has been our conversation for days. I won't pretend it's been fun or even a time where we have been full of peace remembering that we have each other and the Lord,....NOPE, it's been sad to think about selling our home, it's been sad thinking about putting our children in day care, it's caused some anxiety and some tense conversation and even tears (from me - ha!).

But, it's also given me perspective. I'm finding that I "deal" best with these life experiences when I write about them. Sometimes that writing stays in my journal or on my computer, or sometimes like tonight it appears on our blog.

Anyway, back to perspective. We aren't loosing our house to foreclosure that would be worse, we aren't dealing with tragic sickness or an accident that would be way worse, we aren't scared about having enough food or shelter, we aren't scared about fighting with each other or divorce. We are blessed. We are aware of our situation and WE are choosing to make decisions that will better us in the future.

Jesse and I are both "savers" by nature. We have the same philosophy regarding finances and for that I'm thankful. We will make decisions together the next few months and we will be OK. But, our life will change.

But as perspective often sweeps in during a storm, like it did for me I was reminded that we will be together, serving a mighty God, making memories, celebrating new milestones like walking or learning lower case letters...you know, the BIG things in life and we, we WILL be OK.

"I can do all things through Him who strenghtens me." ~ Philippians 4:13

There you have it, real life, deep thoughts by a Mama.