I'm never gonna get this back

I am approaching the one year mark of my becoming a stay-at-home mom. This was a decision I struggled with for a while before I finally resigned from work. I say I struggled, but I always knew what the right decision was. It was a struggle to find the courage to actually step out and obey what I knew God was telling me to do. Overall, this past year has been the best, and most challenging, year of my life.

I will admit that I have been struggling back and forth with the desire to go back to work. I feel like I worked hard to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner and I feel like I am being left behind in the working world. If this is race, I am on the sidelines. But who said it had to be a race, I'm not quite sure. I feel like what I learned in graduate school is slowly seeping out of my brain and being replaced with toddler toons, toddler talk, obsession with sleep, etc etc. I am deprived of adult conversation that doesn't center around children. I am deprived of sleep. I am deprived of feeling like a contributing member of society. I am deprived of money. I am deprived of helping other children besides my own.

I miss working. I miss having adult friends at work. I miss chatting with coworkers, work lunches, getting a paycheck every month. I miss feeling proud of myself for being a nurse practitioner. I miss educating my patients families and feeling like I am there for a purpose. I don't usually miss my specific job but I do miss the hospital, the patients, and the people I worked with. I am bored sometimes. Not that there is a lack of things to do at home or going on outside our house, but bored with the same routine I suppose. I am tired of cleaning up after everyone. I am tired of being responsible for everyone's meals every minute of the day. I often find myself wishing that someone else could be responsible just for a few hours a week.

I have been looking online for any part-time jobs that Colorado may have. And when I find one, I can't bring myself to pursue it any further. Because what is the alternative? The other option is paying someone (either a daycare of nanny) to take care of my children. And I just can't bring myself to do it. I look at Olivia smiling at me or I hear Carter saying something so cute and I think to myself that I don't want to miss a single second of this. I know without a doubt that God has called me to be a stay at home at this point in my life. I don't know why I am in such a rush to give that all up, especially knowing that I am doing God's will. How can I go against that? Even if I desperately want to.

I have been trying to figure out for a while who I want and am supposed to be. Do I want to be this successful career woman, making a difference in the nursing world, with someone else raising my kids. Or do I want to be this semi-hippie stay at home mom whose life revolves around her family. Then I have to remind myself, it's not who I want to be, it's who God wants me to be. And right now, I know He wants me home.

I have been praying for God to give me a peace about being home. I pray He replaces my desire for a career with a desire to take amazing care of my children. I pray that when I do decide to re-enter the workforce that it is with a job He has ordained for me. I pray that I feel productive even being at home. I pray I use this time to become a better wife. I feel as if the Holy Spirit is telling me to just relax, enjoy this time because I am never gonna get this back.