I don't have....

I don't have enough money to go shopping for whatever I want...
I can't go buy a new computer, even though mine is starting to deteriorate...
I can't just go to Publix for groceries and get whatever suits my fancy at the moment....
I can't walk into the mall and buy the first thing I like that I see on the rack....
I can't own a new car....
I can't buy my kids all the toys they ask for in the store....
I can't pay for my big house anymore.....
I can't buy birthday presents for my friends....

AND I AM THE FREEST I HAVE EVER BEEN IN MY LIFE!

I buy every birthday present, Christmas toy and baby item on clearance.
I plan meals out as best I can so kids always eat free or we pick places to eat solely on kids eating free.
I wear the same things over again instead of buying something new because I want to.
I only purchase the groceries on my list.
I tell my children there isn't money for toys because honestly there isn't and they don't need anything else anyways.
I may very well have to sell furniture and toys and "things" in our home to downsize our life when we move. 

And for the first time in my life, I am okay with the fact that in the next 90-120 days we may very well be welcoming in to our lives a new little baby and at the same time packing up our life and moving out of our home....because I know the exchange of time is worth not having money.

I could very well go back to work and leave my littles and have the material possessions this world is so easily enticed by....I know because I've been caught in the trap. I've worked 50 hour weeks to pay for a home that we never lived in, to buy toys that we were never home to play with, to wear clothes that my husband never got to see me in, to go on vacations away to compensate for the time not spent with one another on a day to day basis, etc. And while it may seem weird to many, it is the only thing that makes sense to me. To be there every morning when my big guy gets out of the car at school, for him to hear my voice say to him, "Be good buddy, I love you and am proud of you." To snuggle my little one before his naps, to be the one he smiles at when he cries to have some one get him out of his crib, to no longer feel guilty when I have to leave him at the church nursery for an hour, or to go the doctor or run an errand by myself. Because my husband deserves a wife who isn't strung out on the stress of everyone else's problems at the end of the day that I can't absorb his stress or support him.

So while we may not have "everything" that we used to have in our life like we used to, I am so happy with what we do have. Our faith and hope is being securely tied to our Provider and not to ourselves. Our marriage is intimate and safe, and there is wholeness, love and respect where frustration and resentment used to lie. Our children are disciplined by us, with our best intentions and out of love and not guilt.

And I am so incredibly grateful that I am married to a man who understands my deepest desire as a woman to raise our children, to stay home and nurture and protect them, and to be a homemaker, not simply because I am incapable of working or uneducated enough for the workforce, but because I want to with everything in my being.