What do you want?

I get asked this question a lot.
I'm going to be thirty in less than two years ( a thought that sneaks up on me from time to time and consequently makes me jump when I realize it).
I often get asked what I want out of the rest of my life.

It's kind of a funny question.

When I was a little girl, I had this dream of a perfect life. I'd be tall, skinny, dressed in chic black pant suits (they were in back then guys, really) and I'd be a very important person. I'd be rich, and have a refrigerator full of chocolate pudding. I wanted to be a dentist, and I wanted to be darn good at it. I wanted to drive a red fancy car and shop every day.

Most of that sounds horrible to me now. I realized my first semester of college that I would make a horrible dentist due to the fact that I am a germaphobe. Maybe I should have put that together sooner.
I hate pant suits.
I'm short.
And I no longer care for chocolate pudding.
Oh, and I'm not at all rich.

A family member asked me the other day: "Angela, what is it you want from life? You've got these two beautiful boys, but then what? What's you're plan?"

Now, to be fair, this person was having a rough day. She wasn't saying that raising my sons isn't enough. At least, I'm going with that. But the question bothered me a bit. For a second or two, I thought maybe she was saying my work in raising these boys was minuscule. The easy route. 
 And it made me sad. Because it's my dream.

Here's the truth. What I want out of this life is this: to raise my children to love Jesus and to love others. For them to always feel so loved and secure and able to come to me with anything. I want them to ALWAYS, ALWAYS know how loved, treasured and prayed for they are. And I want to be fully present for all of it.
If I get to do that, only that, the rest of my days, it's enough. And you can quote me on that. As Holley Gerth would say, this is my God-sized dream. And it scares the you know what out of me.
My fears? My worries? They are all, ALL centered around somehow failing my children. Which is silly, because I am one VERY flawed, messy human. Of course I will make mistakes. But the anticipation of these mistakes is what keeps me awake at night.

I was asked by a mom panel what I hoped to learn in the coming year. My answer was simple (and a little embarrassing). I said I wanted to learn how to not pass down my fears, my worries to my children. I wanted to know how to make them feel secure when I feel the opposite.

I'm a hypocrite. I tell my son to have faith and to trust Jesus but I don't. Not really. If I did, my fear wouldn't be camped out on my shoulder constantly. I wouldn't be running worst-case scenarios through my mind, because I would truly believe that Jesus would make any worst-case scenario doable. Right now I am a bad advertisement for the faith I know I have deep down, underneath all the lies that tell me this world is way too scary to trust in a God.

So to answer the question, what I want is this:
To show my children that love wins. That Jesus loves us, even when we feel unlovable. That we can trust him, even when logic tells us it's safer to rely on our own understandings. That they are loved, treasured, and adored, not just by their parents and family but by the God who created every beautiful thing out of dust. I want to be there for their skinned knees and their bike rides and their sibling squabbles. I want to give them birthday parties and Christmas traditions and breakfast every day. I want to kiss their sweet cheeks.
And I want to dance with them at their weddings.

That's enough for me.