Prayer!

My husband has been talking about retiring now for a couple of years. I can't imagine us stopping long enough to even make a plan much less retire. We are empty nesters but our home is constantly filled with kids and grandkids. There have been those quiet moments that we never knew before and we find that we absolutely love it more than we could have ever imagined. Then the house fills up again and the only way to describe it is like trying to come up for air after jumping in a very deep swimming pool, gasping for breath. We love our children and we absolutely adore our grandchildren. We have also found that we love our time together too, just the  two of us. Absolutely "heavenly!"

We have been parents for four decades and grandparents for two decades. To be honest we never took time to imagine our lives without them. I believe I spent most of my kids lives grieving their growth and that one day they would leave our nest. I grieved each time one of my kids became pregnant with my grandkids because of all the worries, fears and anxieties I felt raising my own kids.

I never suffered postpartum depression at all when my babies were infants. It came much later in their teenage years but that may have been called something else altogether (menopause) but feels much the same. We were so busy raising children, then grandkids and one day when I took my youngest to college I had a day all to myself. Freedom to do whatever I chose to do without having to work around a music lesson or church event. Trust me it was short lived but I got a taste of that freedom and I didn't hate it.

This past year our youngest grandkids began to attend pre-school and we found ourselves with more time to do things we had only talked about. We began to take day trips together, weekend getaways and weeklong vacations to places we never had the opportunity to go before. We found that we were perfect traveling companions and loved discovering out of the way places. It has been such a joy for us to plan on where we are going next.

That is where "prayer" comes in like in everything else we are making it a matter of prayer - our plan to go on a long trip. One that requires we sell our home and leave our family longer periods of time. We came up with the idea together so we know it's the right plan because when do two people ever agree on anything right?  We are eager for this adventure and can't wait until it begins. For now, it is a matter of prayer and we are asking others to pray too. In most cases, my prayer request is just to ask for prayer without all the details because I don't think anyone will take time to pray if I requested prayer about our "nomadic journey!" They would be too fearful for us or think we are silly and I certainly understand. So until then we will be "praying!"

These are two pictures combined that I took on different mornings of the sunrise.

Praying & Planning