The Beauty of our Story {31 Days}

(this pretty much sums up my life right now)

Well, I feel like I've made it to the home stretch of writing for 31 days. And honestly, I'm excited for the last week's topic: Believing beautiful about our story.

If you would have asked 15-year-old Nicole what she thought her life would like at 29 and some change, she would have said this:

Well, I'll probably have two or three kids and go on a date with my husband at least once a week and definitely write him lots of love notes. Also, I'll probably look better than I have in years and be super fashionable. Of course, I'll be busy writing another novel while the kids play at my feet and probably be basing it off the experiences from our last trip to Europe. Oh, and I'll have my own writing room in our traditional and full-of-history home. 

Oh, darling, young, Nicole.

My life and my story have not been tragic, nor ridiculously hard, nor full of overwhelming problems and difficulties. But, my story looks very different than I imagined. It looks different than I imagined it even a year ago.

Right now, my life is simple and not full of exciting things. And even though I'm usually content and thankful for that, sometimes it just seems a little boring and without big and important purposes.

Somedays I question what I'm doing and what else I could be doing. Am I really contributing enough? Will spending my days loving and tending and teaching my son be worth it? Am I really using my life?

I ask a lot of those questions, and I know that many other women to do--we ask ourselves what our lives mean and why we are living them in the way we are.

Somedays I feel defeated and deflated when I look to closely at others' stories and wonder why my story isn't as fancy or incredible as theirs. Somedays I wish my story looked different.

It's easy to get caught up in that--especially in a very visual and often misleading culture of highlighting the good and hiding the bad of our lives. So, in these next few days, I want to explore the beauty of my story. Because, in the end, I know my story has purpose.

And yours does too.

Questions for today:
Do you ever feel underwhelmed by your life? Or maybe your life and story feels like too much or is too heavy to bear. Do you believe your life is beautiful--just as it is? What do you wish was different or changed?