Category: Faith

Showing Up

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

Lore Wilbert1 is one of my new favorite authors, and not because I always agree with what she writes about. In fact, her work is very challenging to me, in both good ways and ways that are much harder to handle. What I love about her work, though, is that she writes with a gut level of honesty that brings the case for humanity to the table while pushing back against mainstream arguments.

I’m not sure how or when I stumbled across her work. It was a few years ago and somehow, I found myself on her website which, at the time, had a free book of hers available for download. I read that little pdf in a single night and was hooked. Someone who wasn’t afraid to put into words real emotions and experiences without trying to sugarcoat them with Christian platitudes? Yes, please.

In one of her recent pieces2 discussing the launch of her newest book, she concluded with the following.

“Releasing a book into the world is a huge act of vulnerability. Maybe some people do it and feel like patting themselves on the back for it, but I mostly feel like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head for the foreseeable future. To show up and continue to show up takes almost every ounce of my energy. I want to believe that my showing up matters not just to you and you and you, but also to me and to God because it is how I grow and mature and change and become more of who I am actually created to be.”

And honestly, it’s so good to hear someone else say that. I feel every bit of this, and not just in my writing. I’ve found that most of my life has really been a daily war between wanting to hide under the covers and needing to show up.

I guess I kind of thought that the older I got, the more energized I’d be about life. Instead, getting older has felt a bit more like grief, because while other people seem to be excited about what lies ahead, I have to choose each day to keep showing up. Sometimes it’s rather wearying to think about doing this for another few decades. (Not to say that there isn’t also goodness and mercy and blessing with each passing year; I’m finding eyes to see that much more clearly too.) But I’m finding that showing up for life takes a serious amount of defiance.

And if you’re a person like me for whom depression has been a near constant acquaintance, one of the most important things you can do is to show up every single day and defiantly refuse to give the Enemy the opportunity to let you quit. If we can be honest, showing up for life and seeking the good, the true, and the beautiful is “hard as hell sometimes,” as Sarah Clarkson recently put it, “because it is precisely a pressing back agaisnt the gates of Hell itself.”3 We don’t need to sugarcoat the reality that we are in a war “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”4

The unfortunate part of all of this is that when showing up is hard, either one of two extremes seems to be favored. The one approach is to say, “get it together.” This approach insists that depression is a sin and that real Christians are tough and always smiling (because Jesus, of course). This approach assumes the underlying perspective that tough times indicate that you are doing something wrong, and if only you’d do XYZ, you’d be happy, energized, and motivated. You definitely wouldn’t be struggling.

The other approach is the extreme opposite in which feelings dictate our every move, and we are permitted to be victims of our emotions. Hiding under the covers becomes totally acceptable as is spewing our inner chaos all over everyone because “I’m just being real.”

I like to think that honest, mature showing up lies somewhere in the middle, that God invites us to bring Him all of our humanity, including doubts, uncertainties, grief, tiredness, even anger, while also kindly but persistently leading us into hope and perseverance.

It takes courage to show up every day for a life that you didn’t expect. We don’t need to sugarcoat that either. What does that look like for you? Maybe it’s an unexpected disease; maybe it’s watching a spouse or child suffer; maybe it’s heartache and betrayal by people you trusted; maybe it’s pain in important relationships; maybe it’s the fact that this parenting gig is way harder than you ever thought; maybe it’s not anything ‘major’ but just the fact that some seasons of life are more exhausting than others; maybe, as for me, it’s facing down the reality of depression, anxiety, and physical pain as possible lifelong foes. It takes courage to show up for reality, for this messy thing called humanity in a broken world.

The beautiful thing I’m finding is that when I show up, God shows up. And yes, God fights for us, but not in the sense that we get to lie in bed while He does all the work. We have to join Him in that work. When we do, victories are won; territories are reclaimed; growth happens, even if it seems small. But let’s be honest. Sometimes, we show up and it seems like nothing happens, which means showing up is going to take courage. It’s going to take defiance. It’s going to be hard as hell. Why do we insist otherwise?!

Showing up means you take care of yourself, even when it’s hard, when you don’t want to, when you don’t enjoy it, when you’re embarrassed or ashamed that it feels so hard. (I saw a remarkable post by Elyse Myers5 this morning which really struck me. She talks about how taking care of yourself doesn’t always feel good and might not even always be something you are immediately glad you did; but we can still take care of ourselves to help ourselves feel a little more human and “get back to the starting line.” So many things to unpack there, woah.)

Showing up means calling your people and asking them to pray for and encourage you, no matter how uncomfortable that makes you or how much you think that you shouldn’t need to ask or how ashamed asking for help makes you feel. (This is a really tough one for me for so many reasons, but I also realize that asking for help is, first and foremost, my responsibility. I can appreciate when people offer help unasked, but ultimately, if I don’t ask for help, I can’t blame anyone else when I don’t receive it.)

Showing up means accepting emotions as a part of humanity and learning how to process those emotions in a healthy way. (Let’s start with this: emotions such as anger, frustration, or fear are not BAD, they are part of being human. But our thoughts are what drive our emotions, and we don’t have to be a victim to emotions. It takes practice-like a LOT of practice-but we can learn to pay attention to what we think about in order to walk in a healthier emotional state, and we can learn how to experience and process “negative” emotions without them overtaking our lives.)

Showing up means learning how to rest, surrendering the belief that we are on our own, that the burden is all on our shoulders. It means learning what actual rest is, i.e. not necessarily just a nap. (This may be my least favorite one, I have to admit. Avoiding rest for me has, over time, become a means of self-preservation. That’s also a whole other post to unpack.)

Showing up means doing what God has given you to do, faithfully, daily, when you’re tired and when you’re not, when the tears sting your eyes or when you feel on top of the world. It means, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.” It means that we “bless God in the sanctuary, . . . in the fields of plenty, . . . in the darkest valley, . . . when my hands are empty, . . . with a praise that costs me, . . . when nobody’s watching, . . . when the weapon’s forming, . . . when the walls are falling.”6

I grow in hope and perseverance as I show up because when my foundation is Jesus, I know that my house stands7, that with the Lord, I can “attack a barrier and . . . leap over a wall.”8 I have courage to participate in the battle because I have “the promise that heaven is waiting for me.”9 Some days, that’s all that keeps me moving forward, and that’s okay too.

Footnotes
  1. Sayable, https://lorewilbert.com/. ↩︎
  2. Wilbert, Lore. “The Impossible Work of Being Here.” Sayable, 1 May 2024, https://lorewilbert.com/p/the-impossible-work-of-being-here. ↩︎
  3. Clarkson, Sarah. Facebook Post, 9 May 2024, https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=882427800562911&set=a.176543481151350. ↩︎
  4. Ephesians 6:12, King James Version. ↩︎
  5. Myers, Elyse. Facebook Post. 20 May 2024, https://fb.watch/sbi5WBD8qz/. ↩︎
  6. Ligertwood, Brooke. “Bless God.” Eight, 20 October 2023. ↩︎
  7. Matthew 7:24-25. ↩︎
  8. Psalm 18:29, Holman Christian Standard Bible. ↩︎
  9. Wickham, Phil. “Reason I Sing.” Hymn of Heaven, 25 June 2021. ↩︎

I’ve Got a Testimony

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

“Your testimony isn’t dramatic enough.”

I’ll never forget being told that as a 17-year-old on a mission trip. Our team had written and rehearsed our testimonies before the trip, but when we got there and met up with other teams from around the country and the organization, mine apparently didn’t make the cut.

Looking back, I guess most of our testimonies probably didn’t measure up. In reality, the majority of us were church kids with relatively uneventful backstories, and more still, we were all teenagers . . . we hadn’t exactly lived a whole lot of life.

But I got the point: they were looking for miraculous transformation stories that brought home the point that Jesus can change anything. One day, you’re living one way, and the next, your life is radically transformed and totally different.

We all love those stories. I get it.

And, if I’m being honest, I really wish that were my story. I like to think about looking someone in the face or writing here and saying, “I experienced anxiety and depression, but I’ve been set free and it’s gone forever.”

Instead, my story goes more like this . . . “I grew up in the church. I had a lovely childhood. I gave my life to Jesus when I was nine years old. Still, I’ve experienced anxiety and depression for almost 30 years. Almost on the daily, my mind is plagued by all manner of chaotic, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts. Some periods of my life have been extremely dark, and I’ve experienced suicidal ideation more than once.

BUT GOD HAS SHOWN UP EVERY SINGLE TIME. God has kept me and continues to keep me when I can’t keep myself.”

So far, that’s my testimony. Maybe it’s not powerfully convincing, maybe it’s not the overnight miracle we all want, but it’s the story of my path.

Immediate miracles are incredible and very real. I can’t deny that. But what about when our miracle looks like bread from heaven every day for 40 years in the wilderness (Exodus 16)? What about when our miracle looks like showing up every morning to gather and receive that bread from heaven rather than being angry that God hasn’t shown up in the big way (the one time and it’s over way?) we’d hoped He would have?

I think that when we only look for the momentous, single-time, swift miracles, we rob God of the honor He’s due, for being the faithful God who shows up every single day in the wilderness and meets all of our needs (even when we complain).

I think saying that God is a God of miracles while placing Him in a box that defines miracles as only astonishing one-time transformations also diminishes our ability to see God’s movement in our lives and the world around us. The stories He is writing are not often black-and-white, yet such stories are no less valuable because the journey seems a lot more like faithfulness and obedience and trust than a miracle.

Recently, I was talking to a woman who is very dear to me,  and she said, “When I read your work, I always think that people are being healed little by little by your words.” That idea of little-by-little healing struck me. It’s not that I show up once to work or write, and call it good. My obedience to walk in the path God has called me (whether that is teaching or writing or being a mom or any number of other things) requires daily and long-haul obedience, and He can use that to work out the little-by-little healing of people’s souls.

The whole idea got me to thinking. (That’s what we writers do best: think and then think some more and then overthink everything. Yay.) I have experienced this very thing myself, quite tangibly in the last year.

For one, my journey picked up with a visit to the chiropractor last February. And although I had desperately hoped it would be a one-time adjustment, reality hit hard. My body needed a lot of attention. I would even have been okay with going for three months and having success. The process, rather, has been a slow, every-three-weeks plus every-day-at-home kind of healing with plenty of setbacks in between.

Not long after this visit to the chiropractor when the need for wide sweeping healing became evidently apparent, we set foot in church for the first time in five years. I was bitter and bruised, angry and cynical, full of doubts and surrounded in emotional armor. I can still vividly recall walking in the door with a deer-in-the-headlights look and totally unable to breathe and being rescued by a complete stranger who helped us figure out how to check the kids into their classrooms.

This stranger-turned-friend? I have never met anyone like her. Every interaction with her makes me feel like the most important, valued, and loved person in the entire world, and that says absolutely nothing about me and everything about the way this woman loves people. God has given her an incredible heart for people, and I know I’m not the only person who has been touched by the level of love that pours out of her.

But I was thinking the other day that I didn’t become a new person overnight simply by meeting her. Instead, over the course of the last year, every interaction I’ve had with her (whether through a text message, a hug in the church lobby, or sitting across from her over coffee) has brought healing to my soul. (Honestly, it’s a healing I didn’t go looking for and haven’t asked for, a healing that has surprised me and undone me.) It is this woman’s day-in and day-out faithfulness to the gifts God has given her and the call He has placed on her life, not a single transformational moment, that God has used to touch deep and painful parts of my heart.

Couldn’t this, just maybe, be what actually makes up our testimonies? Meeting Jesus is a monumental, life-changing thing, but it is really just the start. It is then, the meeting with Him day after day that transforms us and restores our souls. What if we began to see all the places and spaces God shows up in our lives, all of the (seemingly little) ways He meets us and loves us and heals us day after day, year after year? (And the ways He uses us to do the same in the lives of other people?) And then tell those stories?

I do think that as we follow Jesus, we will get to experience and receive one-time miracles that are powerfully transformational. But I pray that we’d also have the eyes to see all of the little miracles we are given each day, all of the daily gifts of healing and wholeness God delivers straight from heaven morning by morning. If we have decided to follow Jesus, our testimonies will never only be a single moment. They will be made up of a lifetime of showing up, more importantly a lifetime of seeing God show up, a lifetime of choosing faithfulness and receiving God’s faithfulness in spite of all of our lack. And maybe this doesn’t seem dramatic or powerful or transformative enough, but it’s still a testimony and one worth sharing.

Deep Gladness

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

By default, I tend to pick up this burden that everything I do must turn into a business, a stream of income. And while I fully acknowledge the importance of having an income and being able to pay the bills, I wonder if sometimes we ignore God’s call on our lives because it doesn’t look like a career.

I have spent the better part of the last fifteen years wrestling through God’s purposes for me, and while I don’t think this is something that is necessarily easily answered nor defined, there’s something to this wrestling. I have never been one satisfied with the idea that we are merely here to take up space on the earth, and—for better or worse—I have never been satisfied with the idea that my purpose is simply to lead an ordinary life and then die.

For some, that is okay. I have talked to many people for whom that is okay. I just have never been one of those people. The need for inspiration and meaning and a larger thread weaving through my ordinary days has always been a part of me.

I guess this is what thinkers call vocation, though I have been one to assume that vocation is merely what you do to pay the bills. And while I believe that God can use me and is using me for His purposes while I wash dishes or teach students how to write five-page essays, I find myself always asking for more—not in the sense that I want an award or accolades. But in the sense that there has always been something stirring in my soul, this need to reach down deeper for something that goes beyond merely existing. And I am beginning to think it is a need for vocation, that is a calling, mission, and purpose . . .

My coach recently shared this quote by author, minister, and theologian Frederick Buechner with me: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Woah. Deep gladness.

I think part of the wrestling I have experienced over the last decade is due to the fact that I thought I would find that meeting of deep gladness and deep hunger in particular areas. Maybe it would be marriage or motherhood. Maybe it would be in homeschooling or running a business. Maybe it would be in music or cooking or art. And while all of those things are very good and very much shape the person that I am . . . well, how do I put this without sounding ungrateful? They are not where gladness and hunger meet in my world.

Do you ever make a list of the people you know and their skill sets, so that, when you need something, you can reach out to the right person? If I have a serious medical question—like my kid just tripped into the corner of the coffee table and busted his lip (real life, y’all)—I call my aunt, the nurse. “Do you think he needs stitches?” I ask, while texting her a picture. On the other hand, if my computer is giving me all sorts of attitude, I call my dad, the computer guru, who spent hours over his Christmas vacation bringing our desktop computer back to life after a tragic “corrupted file” error. If I’ve got a question about the best new board games or toys, my sister-in-law is wonderfully resourceful. One of my friends is particularly knowledgeable about good places to eat; another about the best chapter books for elementary students; another about how to parent with a clear head and right outlook.

You know what I mean, right? It isn’t that I look for people in my life based on what they can provide me, but we each have something (or things) that we are deeply interested in and knowledgeable about, and since we can’t all be devoted to and passionate about everything, we need other people in our lives—for help with practical needs, for different perspectives, for filling the inevitable gaps of being one, limited person.

I follow a fair number of writers, curriculum developers, and other creatives on the internet—and how lovely it would be, I think, if I could be one of them. Perhaps my vocation could simply be teaching other people to write. Maybe it could be teaching other people how to become successful with their writing. Maybe I could create courses that teach people how to begin and run a small business. How nice it would be if my passion were homeschooling and raising kids, and I could write deeply about the impact of morning time and certain educational methods and spending inordinate amounts of time outdoors. Or maybe I could develop gentle pre-school curriculum. Maybe I could just make cakes or sew something or be a photographer.

I guess I had kind of hoped that I could be the person on your list to call if you just wanted some new recipes (I mean, I do love to cook, so I won’t turn down the chance to talk about what’s happening in my kitchen). Or maybe, if you had a random question about the different figure skating jumps, you would know that I know (I’m guessing that’s not really a question you’d ever have; I’m just dreaming). Maybe even, you’d know me for being a book connoisseur or grammar nerd and reach out to me with your most pressing questions about MLA format.

Yet again, as much as I had thought I’d find the convergence of gladness and hunger in those places, they have never fit right on me. When I have dipped my toes into those pools, it has more been in an attempt to fit a mold that I created for myself, more an attempt to quiet the ever-present questions of vocation in my mind. I don’t discount any of those things and fully believe that each person has their own lane—it’s just that those lanes are not mine.

The road of my life has been one laced with questions and doubts, often overwhelming waves of darkness, a journey that has involved staring sorrow and brokenness dead in the face. But maybe it’s not all for nothing. Maybe, my deep gladness could be found in being able to make space for conversations of sorrow and weariness that are so difficult, so rare, and often so filled with shame. Maybe my deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger could meet in making a space for people who feel shattered, for questions that are almost too preposterous to pose, for places that feel dark and hopeless. I have found that it is in those conversations, in those places and spaces, that God is stirring something in my soul, and although I realize such topics basically put a plaque on my forehead shouting “I am not the fun friend,” I’m here for all of it. Yes, I’ll still take your questions about whatever is a roux or how to cite a website any day, but if you find yourself asking other—harder—questions you never thought you would, I just want you to know that I am listening.

This Is Faith

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

I have sat down to write so many times this week and grown incredibly frustrated—because I can’t give solid answers. Because everything I write comes out making no sense, like the swirling mass of thoughts in my brain. Because I can’t tie everything together nicely in the end.

As an English teacher for the better part of the last fifteen years, I have gotten really good at understanding the mechanics of a sound academic paper: there is a beginning with a clearly stated main idea (the ubiquitous thesis, anyone?); the middle portion of support and defense; and the end, in which all things are brought together in a way that creates a cohesive whole.

Exploratory writing about challenging topics seems to be quite the opposite, however, and I find myself spilling thousands of words onto the page and coming up, somehow still, with literally nothing.

I find that the best words and ideas also like to leap into my brain at 11 PM when I am supposed to be going to sleep—most definitely not helpful. And somehow, those wonderfully worded sentences I worked out on my pillow are nowhere to be found when I sit at my laptop the following day. Then, my brain is blank. My fingers fly but very little of it makes sense, nothing works together in a way that screams “blog post” or “book chapter,” and I’ve got no nice sentiment to top the whole thing off.

It just feels like a mess . . .

I think there is this very weird thing about walking out healing in real time. I am not writing from a place that I can say, “This is all in the past, and I don’t struggle anymore. If you follow my twelve-step program, you too can be free.” I am writing from a place of war and a place of deep faith.

But that brings up a whole other point, this whole topic of faith. There seems to be this idea that real faith is something that eliminates struggle, grief, tiredness . . . and most definitely doubt. I can’t count the number of times I have been informed that depression is a lack of faith, that anxiety means I don’t trust God enough. Au contraire, faith is defined as trust, hope, reliance, dependence—and those are all things I actually need to stare depression and anxiety in the face on the daily.

I guess I wish I could say that I had this permanently optimistic type of faith that says, “I believe God can do anything, and I am so happy all the time, and I never struggle.” Conversely, my faith is more like a “death grip until my hands are raw and bleeding.” (So lovely, right?) It is the kind of faith that produces desperate reliance on God because He is my literal only hope, and I am counting on Him to come through because I’ve got nothing else.

Is it just me or is that type of faith not very marketable? That type of faith doesn’t sell books or programs or churches. That type of faith sounds hard and really, rather, quite uncomfortable. We like to talk about the kind of faith that gives us energy and motivation; we like to talk about faith in terms of “positive vibes.” We don’t like to talk about the kind of faith we must have when there is no energy or motivation left, when all the positive thinking in the world doesn’t make a difference in the reality of suffering or grief, in the ache of longing for how God intended life to be.

But if this isn’t faith, then what is? Is faith only this idea that if we trust God, we won’t suffer? Is faith, “I trust God, so of course, I don’t struggle”? Or is faith, “I trust God even when I do struggle.” I am finding it difficult to articulate my thoughts on the subject, but let me say this: I trust God that no matter how much my brain screams at me about my worthlessness that His Word says that He is for me, that He loves me, that He sings over me. I trust God that no matter how dark the day or how hard I find it to breathe that He promises He will never leave me nor forsake me. I trust God that at the end of this road of humanity, heaven is waiting for me, and that one day, I will be made whole—body, mind, and soul.

But this trust, this faith—it doesn’t come easily. It’s a daily war, of reminding myself of what is true. It is being willing to get up every day and fight. I think if we are all willing to be honest, following God in the long haul requires a deep sense of faith, and not the kind that sells t-shirts and coffee mugs.

My confidence is in a God who shows up in the literal trenches, not in the absence of trenches. My faith is in a God who shows up when things are a mess not once I’ve cleaned up all of the mess. My hope is in a God who is bigger than the brokenness of the world, of your body, of my mind, not in a God who we can only say is bigger when everything is going well.

Like I said, there’s no way to tie this up because this is an ongoing process for me. I realize that part of the reason I have ignored writing for so long is because I have known how messy the process is and how much I cannot offer pithy answers. I cannot pretend like I have it all figured out. For a long time, ignoring has been easier than writing, easier than digging, easier than feeling anything, easier than staring sorrow in the face. But I feel this urge, this need to write—for myself, and for the people who wake up each day to a battle and are convinced that it is because they lack faith.

If you’re in the trenches, for whatever reasons that is, know that I am there too. And more, know that God is there with you. He sees you. He doesn’t condemn you. He doesn’t belittle you. He doesn’t call you weak or worthless or faithless. In fact, He meets you there. He fights for you. He gives strength when you have nothing left. He binds your wounds. He heals your soul. He covers you, protects you, comforts you.

He is for you. He is with you. He goes before you and behind you. He surrounds you. He is faithful. He is good. He is kind. His promises are yes and amen.

I’m preaching to myself. This is faith.

Time Keeps Moving

~ Cati Grape ~ Leave a comment

Two and a half weeks ago, we welcomed our fourth child into the world. I am cautious to say that things have been going really well. The big kids have been great helpers, even letting me sleep in many mornings and playing together so I can attend to the baby. It is a great difference having a baby when the other three don’t need as much and can do so many things by themselves. Although there have been night wakings, I haven’t felt extremely tired, and haven’t felt overwhelmed, depleted, or emotional exhausted as I have in past post-partum experiences.

But I have been surprised – perhaps shocked – by something totally different. Something I really didn’t even expect. And that is the emotions of having just had my last baby. It’s weird really. I guess I thought that what everyone said would be true: “You will know when you are done.” But I don’t feel that way.

After our third child was born three years ago, I felt regret and resentment. I thought she would be our last, and most of that pregnancy had been spent in stress, overwhelm, exhaustion, terror, and even anger. She was born just 13 months after her sister, definitely not part of my well-oiled plan, and there I was . . . three kids in three years and a complete mess. I was very sad that what I thought would be my last pregnancy/baby had gone that way.

It took me a long time to admit that I was even remotely interested in having another child, and another long amount of time to agree to even give it a chance. In no way whatsoever do I regret having another baby. I am completely humbled and utterly grateful to have been given this chance again, that my husband and I have the honor of raising four children in this world.

But I thought that having another child would ease the ache I felt in my heart, somehow close the gap I feel inside . . . that it would provide feelings of resolution and completion. Yet what has become so clear to me in the last two and a half weeks since our son was born is that these expectations cannot be met by anything here on this earth. And that I have actually been attempting to cling to time, to somehow avoid its passing.

When our son was one week old, I felt this incredibly overwhelming sadness, and I just cried and cried. It took me a while to sort through.

It seems so cruel that such a monumental event, such a life-changing experience as welcoming a child into the world, should rush away as quickly as every other day, just the same as any other mundane thing.

The hardest part for me? No matter how much you purposed to enjoy every moment, the season comes and goes and is over before you’re ready. Are you ever ready? I tried so much to enjoy every moment of this pregnancy. Even on the days I felt so sick, so tired, so large . . . I praised God and thanked Him for the chance to do this again. I feel as though I really treasured every part of the experience, had a good attitude, and soaked it all in. But then it was over.

Someone asked me the other day: “So does your family feel complete now?” And I couldn’t honestly say yes. I’m not sure what that feels like.

It’s not really so much that I think I would want more kids. But there’s something so hard about realizing the never again. There will never be another positive pregnancy test. Another growing bump. Another first heart beat. Another ultrasound. Another round of that wonder and anticipation and horribly draining yet impossibly exciting wait for baby.

Never again will I get to experience the incredible and intense and powerful thing that is birth, the hard work that is poured into meeting one’s baby for the first time. Suddenly what felt almost abstract becomes reality. There really was a human being growing inside all that time. That first meeting is impossible to describe.

I’ve tried to hold on to the experiences, the emotions of those times from my four kids . . . And yet with time, the memories blur and the details slip through my fingers like sand.

I guess what I have realized is this: Time waits for no one. Time does not stand still. It’s not an enemy. I don’t want to blame time. And yet, time keeps moving. And right now, I need courage to embrace the passage of time.

A decade ago, I had a broken heart. My life had not gone as planned. I hadn’t even started dating my husband (though that is kind of a funny story . . . for another time). I was still wondering who I’d marry and what our future would hold. I was still convinced I wanted but two kids, two girls only.

And then, like that, a decade has passed. We have married and weathered many storms together while also basking in so much beauty. We have moved states and homes and bought houses and cars, done renovations and made decisions, traveled, had dreams and made memories, lost two babies, and birthed four . . .

So now it feels like we are standing on the precipice of “what’s next”. I know in ten years, I’ll look back and see even more wonder and beauty, God’s goodness and faithfulness, in this decade, but right now it feels unsure, almost lonesome . . . Even sad, as we bid farewell to the season of growing our family and step into a season of raising our family.

I think it’s so contrasting because for so much of the beginning of life, it’s all about becoming and anticipating. What will you be? What will you do? Let’s study and start a career, get married and have kids, make a life . . . And then you actually get into LIFE, and you realize, wow, this is going by fast, and this life is seriously fleeting.

Which feels terrifying.

I never thought I’d be praying and asking God for courage to accept that these days are short. Or asking for courage to watch my kids grow up.

It’s really just so strange. I never expected any of this to be part of life, of parenthood. It’s so beautiful and so good, and yet so emotionally conflicting. So when I say I’m crying because I just had my last baby, it’s not really that I want more kids. But it’s all of this, so many things that are so hard to explain.

So I continue to pray for courage – so that I could embrace the moment I am given, instead of grieving the loss of the past or being afraid of the future.