Mama's Haven

Yes, you guessed it, baby is still not here. But this week has been all about nesting: stocking up on frozen goods, tidying, doing loads of laundry and ironing and anticipating the great arrival.

I think I have actually been so busy with all the preparations that on some level it seems a bit unreal that in a few days (hopefully) I will hold my newborn in my arms. It has also been a time filled with anxiety and the normal questions: “How will I cope?”, How will Emma react to the change?” “Will he be a good baby?” “When I be able to resume normal life?”…etc.

All in all, this week has felt like the end of a long and tiresome journey: the last hours always seem the longest, don’t they :-)?

I am responding to Holley Gerth’s 2014 encouragement challenge with this post and I am aiming to encourage you, my sisters and friends.

To be truthful and honest, it is a bad time for me to be writing this, if I look at my circumstances. I am nine months pregnant, as heavy as anything, struggling with sleeping issues and with a dad who is ill and with me not being able to see him, not for another few weeks/months at least.

But being an encourager is not about living in the right circumstances. If is was so, we would all be moping around over some thing or another. No, being an encourager is pushing through that sense of loss or discomfort or inadequacy and pour your heart out. In a positive way, of course 🙂

I have had this thought in my head since last week. I was doing my ironing and decided to watch Ice Age: The Meltdown to make it less tedious. Believe it or not, I hadn’t watched it before (my little one is only 4, I believe it’s all ahead of me from now on) so I got easily engrossed in the story. One character that left an impression with me was Ellie, the mammoth. Unaware of the fact that she was a mammoth, Ellie behaves like a possum under the influence of the “family”who had raised her. It takes a lot of hints from Manny but eventually, a visit into her childhood cave and the flood of buried memories does the trick: she realised finally who she is and as by magic, starts behaving like a sassy, entitled to a voice and size mammoth. Behaving as she was meant to be behaving from when she was created.

I wonder how many of us, under the influence or family upbringing, circumstances and negative past experiences, have come to belittle ourselves and believe we are mere possums (not that they are not cute or anything but they are NOT what we are meant to be, girls!). If you recognise yourself in Ellie, there is only one thing to do: ask you Creator to take you back to the cave where your identity was changed and show you who you really are. And then, once you get confirmation, ROAR, as a true mammoth, entitled to a place and a voice in this world! Assume your right identity and stand up to your full height!

Quite a challenge, ha? Let me know how you get on with it, will you?

Don’t let the possum voices in your life dictate your destiny!