It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down to write here–or really to write anything. While I was pregnant, I was having so many issues that I couldn’t sit up for longer than a few minutes at a time, so that really put a damper on my computer use. Then I had my baby, on July 5th, a beautiful little girl named Violet Kathylene. It was a tough birth–I may share the story later. But she arrived, safe and sound, and I’ve been busy taking care of her. She loves to cuddle and generally cries if she’s put down, so it’s been all I can do to keep up with the bare minimum of housework, meals, and taking care of myself.

But I’m ready now to wade back into writing. I’d love to make it my goal to write a little every day, even if that’s only a few minutes. It won’t, however, be my top priority.

But then, it’s never really been my top priority. It’s always been something I fit into my life, whatever that looks like. Sometimes that means writing a lot, nearly full time. Sometimes it means squeezing it in or barely writing at all. I’m sure I’ll never stop writing–it’s what I’m called to do. But I’m just as sure that it will never take precedence over my other calling–being a wife and mother.

Honestly, that mindset has been very freeing lately. It means that when my baby needed more of my time than I thought, there was no pressure to leave her and do something else. I don’t have to meet specific deadlines or achieve certain goals if I choose not to. I have the opportunity to dictate my own priorities. Do I miss writing more? Yes, at times. But do I regret taking a break and putting it on the back burner? Not one bit.

It reminds me of the question I often got asked after I was married. Friends old and new, family members, acquaintances–everyone seemed to ask the same question when they saw me. “Are you happy?”

I felt confused by the question. Not because I wasn’t happy. I was–much of the time. Not all of the time, of course, because no one ever is. I loved my husband. And I loved being married. I still do. But the question confused me because it felt like it put the emphasis in the wrong place.

Happiness is a beautiful thing. But I’ve never seen it as the most important thing. It’s so fragile–so fleeting. Something to enjoy, to delight in, but not to chase. It’s too much of a fickle target to aim for.

I’ve been similarly baffled lately by other questions. When people hear how difficult my pregnancy was, how traumatic my baby’s birth, again, they all seem to have the same question. “So do you think you won’t have any more kids?”

To be honest, it stuns me a little to hear this. Like the question about happiness, it never would have occurred to me to think this way. It’s as if people assume that the reason I wanted kids was that I thought it would be easy. That I had some sort of idealistic, naive view of childbearing and rearing that was shattered when experience reared its ugly head. But nothing could be farther from the truth. I didn’t want to get married or start a family because I thought it would be pleasant and easy.

All of these things have been harder than I thought, yes. And hard in different ways. But as I said, my goal in life has never been happiness. I don’t find my joy by chasing pleasure and ease. I find my joy by being exactly where I’m meant to be. By nesting myself in the center of God’s will for my life. Sometimes–often–that path is gloriously happy and pleasant. Sometimes it’s even easy. But sometimes it’s not.

Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes I’m sad. And sometimes it’s just not that exciting. Sometimes it’s boring. Or exhausting. Or really, really difficult.

But when I know I’m where I’m supposed to be, doing what I was made to do, I find joy there. In the midst of it all. In happiness and pain and weariness and the little moments and the big, life-defining ones.

I’ve always known my callings. To be a wife to a good man, to be a mommy to as many kids as I am given, to share God’s love with everyone around me, and to write. Neither hardship, nor the unexpected can change that.

That’s why I don’t know how to answer these questions. That’s why I’m okay with my little girl being more important than my writing, no matter what that looks like. Am I happy? Sometimes.

But better still, in every day, as I follow the path before me, I find joy.