This beautiful northwest summer was all the things that summers are made of: the lake days and the barbeques and the nights that stretch out their sunsets long and slow. It was kids laughing and friends chatting and the lingering smell of baby sunscreen— the scent of heaven, I’m sure.

This summer has been so good to us. Not easy, but so good.

I will always remember this as the summer my daughter continued to amaze me with her bravery, going from jumping off the dock into to someone’s arms to calling the attention of anyone within earshot to “watch my 360!” and wanting to go under water with no life jacket at all. She’s not a baby anymore, she’s a little girl who puts her own clothes on and no longer needs my help with her shoes, and I watched that transformation happen right in front of me.

It was also the summer bookended by two distinct appointments: one with clipboards and conclusions, another with a doctor and a few hopeful theories. The months in between were marked with all kinds of dance steps: forward, backward, a few side shuffles and mostly rhythms I have no idea how to follow, but music I’m growing more comfortable with by the day. But the other bookend was a little boy who didn’t even like the bath when summer began and would swim to the middle of the lake with a grin on his face by the end if we let him—a beautiful reminder that things do not always finish the way they start, and what amazing grace that is.

It was the summer the third baby began to crawl and we hardly noticed; such a stark contrast to the first two who had cameras ready as soon as they found their knees and started rocking back and forth. I remember just looking down at the carpet and the baby was pulling himself toward a remote control and I said, “Oh, he’s crawling. Good job buddy.” Don’t worry, we’ve started planning for his counseling later in life, poor third child.

It was the summer that I read books that actually changed me; words and sentences that are now written on post-it notes around my home, reminding me of truths that make every heavy thing feel a whole lot lighter.

It was the summer I felt the poles of being at my worst in front of people I love and being at my best only in the quiet moments with Jesus: both serving to strip away any illusion I had that I’ve got my stuff together. I so do not. But I have a Savior, and that’s better.

It was the summer of gourmet hamburgers and fruit salad. It was root beer floats and ice water with strawberries. It was lounging on hammocks and four mile walks. It really was everything good, and it was a lot of things hard. But mostly, it was the summer God got so much bigger, the summer I learned that broken things are daily being made new, and that repentance must be part of the rhythm of my life, not the random occasion. It was the summer I’ve had to be the most honest with myself and others, a time I’ve had to come clean about my selfish ambitions and trade them for the beautiful gift of insufficiency.

And now, sitting here on the horizon of a new season, anticipating the order that comes with regular schedules, a daughter in preschool (praise hands!), and the fresh desire to see God’s kingdom come in the smallness of my simple life, I can only think that every season is good and hard, because life is good and hard. But I’m learning how to hold both with joy, how to live both with gratitude, and how to actually love both, the good and the hard, because of the glory God can get in them.

Both. There is so much tension in that word. We must need Jesus because he’s the only one I know who can handle both.  

Summer, thanks for being good to us.

Jesus, thanks for being the best for us. And thanks for giving us the summers. That was so good of you.

We are sitting pretty in the middle of the very best time of the year around these parts: summer. When you live in a four-season destination, the seasons themselves become verbs, universally understood and described by locals according to the activities we can and cannot do based on the weather. And right now, everyone summers: sprinklers, lakes, popsicles, baby sunscreen, red cheeks, s’mores, and 9:45pm sunsets. It’s all just dreamy. Ten months out of the year we more or less live our lives around school and work schedules. But summer in the Pacific Northwest rolls around and all of a sudden we work around our summer. The early, quiet, peaceful rhythm of the mornings makes the days feel welcome and full of potential; and the long-lasting sunsets have this beautiful way of helping me savor the day. When I really sit with all the goodness that fills this time of the year, it is impossible not to measure my gratitude in fresh ways.

And along with the change of pace, there is this new sense of possibility. The schedule-free weeks could be a time of rest, or a dedicated season of goal achieving; summer seems to offer whatever our souls need the most, doesn’t it? For me, the long-days are a mix of both: I read more, I write more, I see my people more in the summer. And yet, for the last two nights, I’ve poured myself a glass of Trader Joe’s sparkling limeade and taken a sunset bath after the kids are in bed. (I know, getting crazy around here!) I can count on one hand the amount of baths I have taken in the previous nine months. But once that blissful quiet of the post-bedtime hustle sets in over our home, and I look outside and see that the sun is still giving me permission to take in the day, I feel like I have to do something to honor it. So I do. We are in a really cool play all day, savor all evening cadence, and I like it.

This year, the gift of summer is refining me in so many ways. We have all adjusted well to my little guy’s therapy schedules, and we are learning, with the Lord’s help, to pan out on our perspective a bit more than we had been. It is certainly a day-to-day process, but progress is much more easily seen from start to finish, so we have to learn to hold both. Cannon is not saying more words than he was yesterday; but he is engaging with tasks and people 100 times more fully than he was two months ago. It’s always a battle for my faith, because I want to come home from each therapy session and say “He said two new words today!” But it is so much more encouraging to say, “He’s not in the same place he was when we started. He’s growing.” God continues to teach me more about Himself and his glory through my son than he ever has through anything else, and that’s not something I say lightly. It’s just true. And see? There’s that hustle then savor pattern showing up again right here, on this journey, too.

I’ve also been writing. A lot. I’m dreaming of a book and I’m actually walking in to that dream as best I know how to. I think most writers dream of the book they will one day write; I certainly have been my entire life. And yet, my efforts have always been stifled by the reality that anything I can say, someone else can say better. That, and I spent five years trying to force pretty words from my brain onto paper and I never got farther than a potential title. I once watched an interview with author Amber Haines, and she said of the book writing process, “Wait for the fire.” And right here, in the midst of motherhood that feels like it is drowning me some days, the embers are staying warm enough to slowly, but surely, grow. It has been the best thing for my heart to listen to Jesus every morning and feel my way towards him in words. And that’s what the book is shaping up to be about: Him, and the knowledge that he is unchanging and unspeakably beautiful even when life feels the opposite. This is the truth I am learning right now, so it’s the lesson I’m writing. (I must add that publishing and writing feel like two very different things to me. It’s all safe and controllable over here in the writing: me and my words, and a few sets of trusted eyes on them. It’s all vulnerable and unpredictable over there in the publishing, where thousands of writers offer their very best efforts every day, only to be told it’s not good enough. So, I don’t know what that looks like. I think I want to try, but when you write about Jesus you’re pretty much forced to measure success as a greater view of Him, and I already have that. So I guess I can say that this writing has been worth it, no matter where it ever goes.)

With two months of the best of the year still ahead of us, we are all looking forward to more of that summer list of sprinklers, lakes, popsicles, baby sunscreen, red cheeks, s’mores, and 9:45pm sunsets. And friends, lots and lots of friends. I’ve never been more inspired by and grateful for the people around me. Friends that are faithfully navigating hard marriages, thinking about returning to school, pursuing their own writing goals, raising precious babies and teaching them about Jesus, opening their homes and family to foster children; you name it, and I have people in my life doing it. It’s the best, seeing the body of Christ on display, doing the unique and beautiful things he has given each of us to do, learn, persevere through, pray for, and believe in.

Wishing you marshmallows, campfires, friends to ask good questions around them with, and the sweet cadence that only the summer can bring.

This list has been our summer.  Sure, we’ve had to work and grade papers and enforce timeouts along the way.  But I know I won’t remember those things as much as I remember all of the reasons why summer is the greatest, a little gift from God to remind me that seasons are a beautiful part of life…

Cold brew.  The last thing I do before bed is make my cold brew.  One cup of your favorite ground coffee, two cups of water, let it sit overnight then strain in over a coffee filter in the morning.  Fill a big mason jar with ice and mix with water and creamer.  Y’all, I absolutely cannot get enough of this.  Good iced coffee just makes it feel like it’s going to be a really sweet day.

Early mornings.  One of the things I love so much about the northwest is the long summer days God gives us.  The sun is up before 5:00am, and it makes it so much easier to crawl out of bed (cold brew waiting) and meet Jesus in the quiet.  Alex and I often sleep with our window open, and maybe it’s a sign of me getting older and more sentimental, but waking up to the birds talking to one another could be my new favorite way to wake up.

Open back doors.  Nine months out of the year it is much too cold in this neck of the woods to open any doors.  But summer, oh beautiful summer, your mornings are as close to perfection as it gets. 

Lake days. I’ve told you this before, but in the PNW, we summer.  We go out on the water before work, we come home and go swimming after work, we take days off to spend the whole week near boats, paddle boards, and fishing poles- we simply do this season big.  And our summer so far can be summed up with two words: lake days.  Harper thinks she is queen of the world with her little puddle jumper on, and anyone within five feet of her may have a tiny hand reach out and beg you to stand in the water and catch her seven hundred times.  But we have had the sweetest memories already with friends and family, getting sun-kissed and covered with sand, soaking in the gift of each other.  Because our people truly are a gift.

Hamburgers.  Truth be told, I spent my entire life not liking hamburgers.  Honestly, I have probably eaten three in my whole life.  Well, that was until this summer and this little baby bean in my belly, who cannot get enough.  I have easily eaten five times the amount of hamburgers this month as I have my whole life, and I wish I was making that up.  But you know, something about this warm weather and a big deck just make it feel so right.  (PSA- locals, get yo'self over to Crafted in Couer D'Alene for one.  My friend Kelly and I had a date night there when we meant to get salads and accidentally ordered hamburgers.  Not even sorry).

Hats.  Because I cannot pull them off any other time of the year, and no one looks silly protecting their face from the sun, right?  My straw hat from Target has gotten wet and dried right on my head so many times it really only fits me now, just how I like it.

Little girls in bathing suits.  Chubby legs in a bikini never looked so dang good.

My son’s curly hair.  When Cannon gets a little bit sweaty, or is drying off from a dunk underwater, the hair around the edge of his face curls up around his ears and neck just perfectly.  I cannot stop running my fingers through it.  Mama, Daddy, and big sister all have totally straight hair, so this little guy and his sweaty ringlets are the best.

Fire pits and s’mores.  The smell, the people, the melted chocolate.  I don’t think I need to say anything more about this.

Late nights.  Just to complement our early mornings, we also enjoy a subtly lit sky until about 9:30pm.  I think it could be God’s way of reminding me that enduring the winter is worth it, because once we put the littles down for bed we still have a few hours of fleece blankets, lawn chairs and shared words.  Just a few more of my favorite things.

Here’s to hoping your summer months are filled with tan lines and cannonballs and fresh cherries from a tree in your yard (that would have been number 11 on my list).  Viva el verano!

P.s. The Giving Shop is giving another $75 to Christ Kitchen/Christ Clinic this month-   Thank you for still coming back and spreading a little bit of brave around!