Capacity 🔩

A few weeks before we made the move to Turlock I met with a dear friend and woman I look up to so much. She has prayed with me and cried with me and walked alongside me through college, marriage and now motherhood. We met one last time and talked about how I felt about leaving Pepperdine, my job, and friends, to move to a new place. At the end of the conversation she said she felt like in hard seasons it was helpful to cling onto a word that would encourage and remind me of truth when everything felt hazy. The word that kept coming to her as I talked about my fears and excitements and hesitations was this: Capacity. She said to remember that God has given me the capacity for more than I can fathom. That he would give me the energy to move through pregnancy. He would provide me with fellowship while I was in between communities. That he would give me more grace than I thought was capable for myself and my husband and family. Essentially to cling onto Ephesians 3:20:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.

Capacity.

I’ve been thinking about this conversation a lot lately. Mostly because that word ended up taking on a few different meanings for me in these past few months of moving and tearing up our house and slowly putting it back together. For some context:

When Jeffrey and I bought this house on El Camino Drive we had such visions for what it could be. It’s an older home built in the 1950s. Most of the home seemed to be true to the original design…including the faded and stained blue-ish carpet. Yuck.

The kitchen was small and cramped. There was carpet in the dining room. And the layout made it feel smaller than it was. So before we even closed on the house we started dreaming of what we would do to make it our own. We watched a ton of Fixer Upper, gathered ideas on Houzz and Pinterest, and came together with our vision. We made the decision to remodel the kitchen and put hardwood floors throughout the house right when we moved in—rather than settling into a home and down the line remodeling. After interviewing contractors and companies and getting bids, we finally nailed down someone who was within our price range and had availability to start in June. I booked a ticket to Michigan for two weeks at the start of construction to be out of the way for #demoday. I thought we had it all planned out. My mom would fly back with me and the construction would wrap up and she would help me put the place back together and I would really start feeling settled in Turlock.

That was the plan.

First lesson I learned about a remodel: Nothing goes according to plan. Ever. If you have a schedule, hold it loosely. Like so loosely… Plan on things taking longer than expected, people not showing up when they said they would and hidden expenses that feel like a punch in the gut. Seriously, if you are Type A this will be painful. That’s about the only thing you can plan on.

Lesson #2: Be ready to see the worst side of you surface. It gets ugly. I seriously thought I was doing decent in the patience-loving-kindness thing but I was just so wrong. I went to a counselor in college and she pointed out that I'm prone to what’s called catastrophosizing -- the tendency to take something small and imagine it snow balling into the future, wreaking havoc on your life and destroying everything. Some also call this being dramatic. 

So for a small example, our contractor wouldn’t show up one day and I felt like the project would NEVER be done and we’d be cooking food out of a microwave for the rest of our lives. I would spin out of control every time something didn’t go according to my plan. And the ugliest part, instead of realizing this was just a part of the deal, I would take it out on Jeffrey. Or throw myself a pity party. My conversations were filled with negativity and all that was hard and wrong.

I lost myself for a little. I felt like I couldn’t handle anything. My life felt very out of control. I am one who loves routine and familiarity and order. Remodels are nothing but chaos and unknowns. I felt like I was drowning in decisions and always consumed with anxiety. I didn’t feel like I had the capacity to do basic everyday things—like pick where we were going to eat dinner, or schedule a doctor’s appointment. My mantra over those 6 weeks was “I’M AT CAPACITY.” I would say this to Jeffrey constantly. It’s the first time in my life I felt like I couldn’t handle things. I’ve always thrived in busyness and juggling lots of plates. I felt so ashamed that for the first time I couldn’t do it. I felt limited. And weak. Which led me to feel like I was a bad wife and a bad mother. My standard for myself, my productivity, my contributions have always been so high. And I hold others to those same standards. My husband. My friends. My contractor. I realized how stingy I am with grace when those expectations aren’t met. These weeks were tough on our marriage and we had several hard conversations with lots of tears (on my end…thank you pregnancy hormones). For those weeks I forgot what the word capacity was supposed to mean and instead twisted into something that made me feel like I wasn’t measuring up.

And now here we are on the other side of the chaos. We did eventually move back into our house and have once again cooked meals on the stove. We’re finally settling into new rhythms. I am a huge fan of our space we call home. I’ve become quite a homebody, which is something I’ve never called myself before. I’ve moved every year since I was 18 which doesn’t really give you motivation to nest into a space or give it a chance to feel like home.  Everything up until now felt temporary. Now we have a forever home.  

Elle + I have our daily schedule, and I’m finding I have room for things I didn’t before. Like reading books...for like fun. Accidentally journaling for an entire hour. Spending more time outside, especially in the mornings when the world feels so peaceful. Attempting to bake cookies from scratch. Pulling out cookbooks I got two years ago for our wedding that were collecting dust and trying to master a few new recipes to throw in the mix from our usual quesadilla or meat-veggie-potato crockpot meal. Spending time thinking about the hopes and dreams I have for our family. Reading books on raising your kids to be responsible and loving human beings. (#Lordhelpme). I’ve started this practice of meditating and quiet time each day. I’ve reread Shauna Niequist’s books and cried over the truth in those pages.

It feels so completely opposite from what life was like just two months ago. And it’s funny because in both of those times God was present and teaching me something. He was whispering Ephesians 3:20 to me: Stephanie, trust me. I can handle the chaos. I can do more than you could ever imagine if you just trust me. I will give you what you need, when you need it.  

My friend was right in choosing this word for me.  God has given me the capacity for more than I can fathom. The capacity and grace to say “No, I can’t handle that right now and it’s okay” as well as the capacity and freedom to say, “Yes, I think I will try that, thank you.”