Jealous!

Two things happened recently which gave me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. The first one was in church. Some of the young women leaders were talking about their recent trip to girls' camp. These leaders have small children, I knew, and camp was about four days long. I don't know whether they were there the whole time or not, but they were at least there for most of it. I couldn't really listen to what they were saying because the whole time, I was thinking, Four days without the children?

Then I went to my niece's birthday party. My SIL just moved to a new house, which is a little bigger than ours. And again, I had this funny feeling. I knew it wasn't the house. I don't want to move right now, and I'm not coveting her house (except for maybe the closet organizers. Oh, I would love to have closet organizers).

It took me about an hour of talking about it out loud with Mark before I figured it out. "Do you want to leave the children for four days?" "No!" I said, because I really don't, not while baby is so little. "Do you want a bigger house?" "No!" I said, because then I'd have to clean it. Here's what they have in common: these ladies, though they have small families, figured out what they wanted and then did what they had to do to get it. It was important for these leaders to accompany these girls to camp, even though they'd have to leave their families for a while. It was important to my SIL for her family to grow up in a better house. And so, somehow, that's what they did.

And that's where I have trouble. Not only do I sometimes not go after what I want, I even feel guilty about wanting it. Sometimes I don't even know what I want anymore. So Mark and I had a long talk about what I want. I'm still not sure how to go about getting those things, because whenever you want something, there's usually some kind of sacrifice you have to make to get it. But seeing these ladies who went after what they wanted made me ache inside because of something I've been denying myself: the idea of possibility.