he’s mine & i’m his

Ashley from After Nine to Five and i are hosting the Living the Right Life series to share how we are making changes in our lives to bring true happiness and joy. we also are opening it up to all of you to link up your own thoughts and feelings of how you are living the right life for you!

as happy i was after Elijah’s birth, i also felt like a part of me was gone.
i loved my son with my whole heart,
but i didn’t feel like myself much anymore.

i think for a while i blamed Elijah for feeling this way.
[not in a way that i didn’t love him enough] but just that i made excuses for why i was having a harder time.
he was a surprise, we weren’t married long enough before we had him, i wasn’t prepared.
i said all these things to justify to myself why i was having such a hard time with the transition.
and all who i talked to agreed with me! so i didn’t think these were any thoughts out of the ordinary.
it was the truth!

the other day i was talking to a friend and we were talking about our children and how they’ve blessed our lives individually.
besides the obvious blessings of having children
{greater capacity of love & happiness}
but our specific children with their unique personalities were given to us for individual reasons & blessings.

i’ve been thinking about this a lot.
what lessons did the Lord want me to learn through Elijah’s little energetic personality?
why was he meant to be mine instead of someone else’s?

i know i talk a lot about Eli’s high level of energy.
and although it’s overwhelming and tiring and hard… i had this rather epiphany moment where i realized why i needed him to be exactly that way.

i get depressed. i get tired. i get frustrated. and a lot of times i want to give up.
it’s hard for me to even be motivated at times. some days i hate just getting dressed to go outside and put it off til the very last minute.
but Elijah won’t let me.

Elijah wakes up the morning asking for his shoes so we can go outside first thing.
he reminds me every day to pull out the Wii Fit so we can do our exercises.
he lets me know when we need to eat and when it’s time to rest.
he hates a messy house [seriously] which motivates me to keep things clean & organized.
when i’m sad or upset, he gives me kisses & cuddles & comic relief.
when i want to be lazy and play on my phone, he {literally} pulls me by the shirt to get off the couch and do something productive.

i’m not happier just being a mom.
i’m happier being a mom to Elijah.
he balances me out perfectly & makes me do all the things i’ve needed to do for years but now have a reason to follow through.

he was given to me for special reasons, reasons that are just for me.
for a long time i blamed motherhood for making my life hard
instead of seeing that being a mother to Elijah has blessed me when life was hard.