{"id":1171,"date":"2014-01-07T01:34:10","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T01:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.com\/?p=1171"},"modified":"2014-01-07T01:34:10","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T01:34:10","slug":"were-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/?p=1171","title":{"rendered":"We’re back"},"content":{"rendered":"

When my boys were little, one of their favorite movies was a dinosaur classic. \u00a0We\u2019re Back<\/span><\/b> was where the dinosaurs return from the dawn of time, through the miracle of time travel and some brain grain, to live in modern times.\u00a0 When the dinosaurs romp down the streets in the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day parade singing, \u201cRoll Back the Rock\u201d, it didn\u2019t matter what I was doing because Reed would beckon me to come and dance with him.\u00a0 I could be covered in flour or soap suds, but to him, it didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Getting our boogey on down, we would rock with the best of them.\u00a0 Holding his sweet little hand in mine, we would stomp and swirl, shimmy and giggle while a chubby cheeked toddler would laugh watching us.\u00a0 That, my friends, is pure joy \u2013 when you lose your adult inhibitions and get lost in your preschooler\u2019s loving gaze \u2013 knowing at that moment you embody motherhood at its finest.\u00a0 You want to savor those moments forever.<\/p>\n

Until the day, you don\u2019t . . . which is exactly what happened to me this past year.<\/p>\n

You lose your joy.<\/p>\n

When you lose your happiness, you find quiet comforting.\u00a0 There I said it.\u00a0 I was sad. Heartachingly, gut-wrenchingly sad. Distraught. Overwhelmed. Frenetic. Chaotic. Heartbroken and sad.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t happen overnight.\u00a0 No, I would say it took about five years for it to crescendo into deafening silence.<\/p>\n

There were many things that happened that literally ripped my heart in two. What feels like a never ending saga with the tragedy in our family played a familiar role, but so did a myriad of smaller things.\u00a0 Seasons in friendships changed, a health scare that frightened me, doors closed, dreams diverted, and quite simply the chaos of good intentions and overconsumption had brought a sense of darkness to our doors.<\/p>\n

The hardest part about all of this was this was the first time that I wasn\u2019t alone in my sadness.\u00a0 The floor opened up and swallowed us all.\u00a0 \u00a0It is hard to be a cheerleader for a broken spirit of team.<\/p>\n

In the fall of the year, I no longer felt like a cheerleader, let alone a candidate for Mother of the Year.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of our family\u2019s darkest day, I had a conversation with someone who asked me some of the most unbelievable questions.\u00a0 I think she was blown away by my answers, but one such response summed up a large part of my sadness.\u00a0 When asked, \u201cOther than the obvious things, what thing makes you the most heartbroken about your life right now?\u201d\u00a0 My heartfelt reply was, \u201cBeing a red-shirted freshman.\u201d\u00a0 I wanted to play in the game of life, and due to our circumstances, I simply could not.<\/p>\n

Now here I was all these years later, and I had those same misgivings with a twist.\u00a0 With all the distractions and disruptions, I had forgotten how to be me.\u00a0 The authentic Kandy was tired. Worn-out. Exhausted. I wasn\u2019t the mom I wanted to be, and that was breaking my heart. \u00a0I had lost my joy, and I thought that at this juncture all these years later, we should be feeling better not worse.<\/p>\n

But this is where the story starts to change.\u00a0 I retreated and clung as tight to God as I knew how.\u00a0 About the same time as my forced sabbatical, back into our lives came a friend who knew those days of dancing with little boys in the basement. Gently, she reminded me what joy looked like.<\/p>\n

Poked and prodded by her love and the love of several others who picked up the cheerleading banner, I became encouragingly dogged in my pursuit to let go of expectations that were boxing me in, of old hurts that kept me a prisoner in my own doubts, and of chaos that didn\u2019t fulfill us.\u00a0 I looked for the little things.\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0 God showed me they were there the whole time.\u00a0 Making time for the little things, clinging to His promises, and reclaiming the things I enjoy were all beginning steps to understanding what I had allowed to steal my joy in the first place.<\/p>\n

Just like catching my breath when encountering that first blast of arctic air, joy was something that I needed to clasp my hands and heart around as well.<\/p>\n

During the bench-warming sad place, I communed with God to revisit the concept of joy.\u00a0 It was time well spent. <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

For this New Year, our family sat down and decided to follow through with the concept of a one word theme based off a devotional by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization.\u00a0 We had a family meeting where I offered that I thought \u201cjoy\u201d might be a good word.\u00a0 One of our children enthusiastically concurred.\u00a0 What she said next spoken years of wisdom, belied by her actual age.\u00a0 \u201cI agree with Mom.\u00a0 You know, sometimes because of our family\u2019s story, we simply forget what joy is.\u201d\u00a0 After a few murmuring assents, the vote was unanimous as we proclaimed three simple letters to be God\u2019s cleansing tide for our souls for the next year.<\/p>\n

We are going to search out and find joy in our lives, making it our battle cry.\u00a0I don’t think Reed would want us to be perpetually\u00a0sad, and I\u00a0know without a shadow of a doubt that God never wanted us to lose sight of joy in our lives.\u00a0 It simply happened.<\/p>\n

You will go out in joy<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and be led forth in peace Isaiah 55:12 (NIV)<\/em><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\"Why<\/a>

Why family photo shoots go to new heights (or lows) with our family. Photos by Inspired Portraits<\/p><\/div>\n

Just like that movie title – We\u2019re back! And who knows?\u00a0 <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

You just might find us dancing in the basement somewhere along
\nthat path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When my boys were little, one of their favorite movies was a dinosaur classic. \u00a0We\u2019re Back was where the dinosaurs return from the dawn of time, through the miracle of time travel and some brain grain, to live in modern times.\u00a0 When the dinosaurs romp down the streets in the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day parade singing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[802,803,274,312,328,796,427,804,805,761,806],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}