“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:15-17

By him. Through him. For him.

Six words that are becoming a lifeline to my anxious, wandering heart these days.

Right in front of me, I see so much that makes me want to run. I see a stack of insurance paperwork that has officially overgrown the paperclip. I see a scatterplot data sheet where I track every single SIB (self-injurious behavior) my sweet boy resorts to out of frustration so that we can nail down antecedents and coping mechanisms.

I see a handful of dear friends absolutely distraught at the outcome of our democratic process and another handful hesitantly relieved. I see our communities existing on far ends of a spectrum that no man-made bridge can bring together, and I see fingers pointing at one another across the aisles of our churches, not just our political leanings. But I see many people somewhere in the middle, knowing that from the day we demanded a king* our fate was sealed: a sinner would always be our political leader, no matter the banner they carried in to that position.

But it’s a mess, so much of it. Life can be a mess. Autism is brutal and politicians operate and execute on half-truths, at best. And I have to be honest, some days my mind runs anxiously away with the headlines: the ones in my own home and the ones we are screaming at one another.

But by him. Through him. For him.

All things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— by him, through him, and for him.

It’s a truth that stands forever. But dang, it does beg some hard questions from us. When I look at my Cannon, I don’t get the luxury of basking in God’s goodness because circumstances are good. No. Autism is so, so hard. Instead, we have to confront questions like this: is it really possible that something like autism could exist for God’s purposes? Would a loving God really allow a child to have a handicap that he will carry with him through adulthood, or is this just a flaw in the system?

And as followers of Jesus, we don’t get the luxury of looking around the world and at our own nation and putting hashtag blessed on every picture of the flag. No. People are hurting and scared and imagining a future in this very country they believe their own children are not welcome in. Instead we have to ask if we truly believe that God knew before he divided darkness and light who would be the head of the free world all these millennia later. Would He allow corruption and power hungry men and women in places of great decision-making power? Would he allow a nation to fall? Would he sustain a nation through turmoil and blame shifting? Was the election of 2016 just a mistake while God was looking away?

By him, through him, for him.

There is no flaw in God’s system. And the only time in all of history he ever looked away was when the sin of the world landed on his precious son; a pain so great for a Father who so perfectly loved his son that even He had to turn his face away**.

So how do we make sense of all the mess?

We remember by him, through him, for him.

We go back to the truth that God’s purpose is not to bless us. That’s not popular, but it’s true. God’s purpose is his glory. His glory is our good. Our good is being made more like Jesus through the sanctifying work that is raising a child with special needs or loving a neighbor who makes us crazy or actually praying for a leader who arouses nothing but animosity in our hearts.

The hard part is not looking around at the messes we all live in and being angry; the hard part is being hopeful, in having an absolute expectation of coming good; it’s loving and listening well and showing up and standing on God’s word because it is the truest thing about who we are and what we are even doing here. The hard part is being so undone with gratitude that the world wonders how we could be so joyful when something so big invades our lives. Jesus holds all things together, even the things that look broken by autism and irrevocably damaged by leadership. If our hope was only here, of course those things would shake us. But if our hope is truly in God’s kingdom, we are not shaken because He is never shaken.

God will get the glory for every big and little story of history, even this inch of it that we occupy. We can be sure that even when we don’t understand, all things are headed toward a glorious end.

By him, through him, for him.

Six words. Such amazing grace captured in just six words.

*1 Samuel 8:1-22

**Matthew 27:46

The kitchen windows of our home face west, offering an afternoon sun shine that is warm and bright on our backyard view, and on the toddlers giggling their way down the slide and crashing the toy car into the fence. It also means that in the hours before dinner each day, the natural light flowing through my home is radiant. Everything glows with the warmth of sunshine, and my kitchen table becomes a welcome spot to take in the golden hues that our view to the west offers.

But this same light that I love and look forward to each day, it also makes me just a little bit crazy. The brightness that gently illuminates my home shows me every mark of filth in the room. Each fingerprint on the stainless steel refrigerator seems to grow, a dead give away that the toddlers have been attempting to help themselves to chocolate milk. Soft water rings dance around the counter, reminding me of all the places I set down my drink without a coaster. And every inch of un-dusted table space appears seemingly out of nowhere; the more I wipe it off, the more I find. A home that felt somewhat clean in the muted air of the early hours suddenly feels impossibly dirty as the light shines on it. I love the gift of the sun’s rays. I savor them each and every afternoon that the weather is kind enough to let them in. Still, I simply cannot clean my home enough to handle their revealing power.  

I think that my heart looks a lot like my kitchen on a sunny afternoon.

__________

Jesus is an alluring figure. As he walked the streets of the Holy Land people could not help but be drawn to him. Who was this man healing the sick and speaking of a kingdom yet to come; of a Father not here in the world but watching from a throne in heaven? All who came near him saw themselves differently; no one could be so close to Perfection itself without feeling their hearts react to its presence. But the reactions to Him were not universal; they were, and are, indicators of just how much of a dirty home one is willing to show others.

The proud and self-sufficient crowd recoiled in pride that this man was offering the goodness they thought they could achieve on their own. They approached him first with passive aggressive debates, and then with hostile false accusations of wrongdoing. When Jesus’ words revealed in their hearts a pride that they could not stand to be found out, their defense was anger. The light shined on their filth, and they accused the light of lying.

But the humble and desperate groups saw Jesus differently. They found in his presence a longing for what he offered, even at the cost of admitting that they had no ability to manufacture it themselves. Instead of holding up their own worth, with trembling in their voice they said things like the centurion did in Matthew 8 (v. 8): “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Their response was one of meekness; a state of gratitude and wonder— not to be confused with weakness, though the world might give them the same connotation. When the light of Jesus shined on them, they saw their filth and instead of hiding it, they begged Jesus to clean it, offering to him genuine responses and sentiments of “I am not worthy. You are, though.”

Our lives are not so different from the masses that met Jesus. We, too, will encounter this man in our lives, and the closer we get, the more dirt we will see. Living our lives at a distance from Jesus, sin looks like innocent, fun, short-lived moments of indulgence that don’t really hurt anyone. It is easy to disconnect our daily comings and goings from scripture and settle in to a life of self-sufficiency. But when we press in to him, when we meet him in the pages of our Bibles, our sin looks like what it really is: damaging, painful, and with often long-term consequences for our lives and others. And more importantly, our sin is what keeps us from Jesus, both now and eternally. The light reveals what is really there; that is its primary function. And the closer we get to it, the more clearly we can see. Even places deep in our heart that we thought were worth offering to the Lord, the seemingly righteous acts we want to be proud of, in the light of a perfect Jesus we see they are actually thick with dust bunnies that we cannot, for all of our effort, get clean enough.

We have two options when in the presence of such revealing light: we can do what the Pharisees did, close all the window shades in the room, insist that we worked very hard to clean up on our own, and stand proudly behind our dimly lit lives. We may know that by doing so we are refusing to enjoy all the warmth that the light has to offer, and that anyone we invite in will only see a sterile version of our hearts. But we do not step into the freedom playing in the sunlight offers because the thought of being truly seen for the mess that we are is terrifying. We all default to wanting praise, to desiring the applause of men, and to being built up by others for all that we have accomplished. It takes a great amount of humility to hold this truth: we can work our entire lives to build a reputation or make ourselves presentable, but outside of the glory it brings Jesus it is of no lasting value and offers us no advantage, no high ranking, no more approval than anyone in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Or, we can respond with gratitude. We can look at all that is revealed and say, “open the windows even more and clean this all, Lord! I want the freedom to be seen as a sinner so that I can enjoy my Savior.” We don’t have to dwell on all that we cannot achieve on our own or on all the places we have failed to present ourselves right before God. There will always be rooms we cannot get clean enough, because no one could keep the law, and no one is righteous on her own. But Jesus says this: “My Father is not looking at the dirt you missed; he’s looking at me.” Jesus is the only example of perfect that the world has ever known. And his perfection is a threat to the proud, to those who do not want to admit their insufficiency and see the very real impacts of sin. But to the humble, Jesus is the answer to our insufficiency, the welcome reprieve from the façade of keeping up the appearance of a clean life when we know deep down the dirt that’s really there. He is the only peace in the chaos. He is the only joy in our sorrow. He is the only thing that makes real sense in a world that we will always feel just a little bit out of place in. He is the only One that calm our hearts when they ask, "Is this really all there is?" 

No, friend. This is far from all there is. 

__________

Each sunny afternoon as I both bask in the sunshine and shake my head a bit at the true state of my home, I’m learning in those moments that where I decide to look makes all the difference, and I want to look at the light. Constantly thinking of myself, and how I can attempt to hide the dust in my heart, keeps me busied with the wrong things; the futile building of a moment of recognition today when the joy of eternity is the only thing that will sustain me. And if someone were to walk in to my home, my prayer is that as I guide them to the back of the house, I would not apologetically interject my disclaimers of “Please excuse the dirty counters,” or “I haven’t had a chance to wipe down the refrigerator yet!” But rather, I would point straight out the windows and say, “How beautiful is that light!”

For much of my life, I have been pretty good with formulas. Following a prescriptive set of instructions has generally turned out well for me: work really hard, make the team; study a few hours, pass the class, you know the pattern. But God has recently given me a gift— a life-changing gift— something that not only turns the formulas on their head but completely shakes up all of the things I used to cling to for confidence. The gift is this: a beautiful, vulnerable, completely real awareness of my insufficiency.

Growing up in the church, I knew all about the vine and the branches metaphor, and I’m sure I responded to the part where Jesus says, “Apart from me, you can do nothing” with something like, “Sure, sure, Jesus. Love that verse and I’ll grab its truth every now and then when I’m really praying for some big blessing to rain down on me. But surely you don’t mean nothing. Look at how hard I’ve worked at life. I [mostly] avoided sexual sin and drinking and drugs and diligently prayed for a husband and a family. I mean, I’ve been a pretty good girl, don’t I deserve some credit? I go half way with hard work, you meet me halfway with a blessing, isn’t this how faith works?”

No.

(I think that could be called something more like karma, or the white privilege side of the American Christian Dream, but it’s definitely not called following Christ).

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

If I’m being really honest, for thirty-one years of my life I have harbored just the slightest bit of an I deserve a good life mentality and combined it with the words Yeah, but I did... Only now that circumstances are so far out of my control do I see the story of faith I have been living is not the story of faith modeled in scripture. Faith in my life has been the fifty-fifty kind of faith, at least a little bit dependent on how awesome I can be. But faith in scripture doesn’t really have that precedent, because scripture makes it real clear that we are, in fact, not that awesome.

Faith in scripture looks like standing at the edge of the sea knowing there is no way you’re getting across it unless God makes a path—and then he does. It’s marching around the fortified walls of a city knowing there is no way you’re getting in unless God breaks them down—and then he does. It’s mourning at the grave of the most important person in your life, knowing there is no way you’ll have hope again unless God walks out from that grave and says, “Woman, why are you weeping?—and then he does.

Scripture is crystal clear about who the Author of our faith is. (It’s Jesus). It’s brutally honest about who assigns the work of our lives and who equips us to do that work (It’s Jesus). And there are zero mixed messages about who justifies us (It’s Jesus). Yet somewhere along the line, I talked myself into believing it was mostly me and a little bit Jesus. And then I got married (stop one on the humble train), became a mom (stop 2), and am raising children that stretch my arms like a Gumby doll in opposite directions (a very good confirmation that I am never getting off this train). The mostly me theory has fallen apart in every way. I would never have said this out loud before; you would only hear me say the good girl answer that I could take no credit for my success and I give all the glory to God. Oh, but I was always taking some credit. Just ask my heart.

One of the many blessings God continues to reveal to me about raising a child with special needs is that needing Him each day is truly far more life-giving than relying on myself. Before Cannon’s struggles became apparent, I held on to the illusion that all of this depended a whole heck of a lot on me. But as the challenging journey ahead came more clearly into view, I learned—and am still learning—that the only thing that depends on me is my response: to give Cannon and my whole family my very best, diligently learning and trying and exploring options, praying for wisdom and discernment, and then resting— knowing that the outcome is the Lord’s, and fighting to believe that he will work that outcome for his glory. And our good. 

But that outcome will always be in spite of me, not because of me.

And what I know with a new kind of faith now is this: without the hope of Jesus on the throne, I will fall apart. I will treat a certain therapy or doctor or special diet as our savior and be devastated when those things prove to be what they are: imperfect and fallen. I will find a way to blame others for not pursuing me when a phone full of text messages sits unanswered, because pity has a way of blinding you to blessings. I will take a season of challenge and turn it into a season of contempt, because while challenges are fertile ground for the glory of God, they are equally fertile ground for entitlement. I will slip into thinking this world is home, because one of the great battles for our faith lies in the moments we think earth can be turned into Heaven if this one thing could just happen for us.

And in the end, the mostly me mindset will leave me with, well, just me. In the real, raw moments of life, times I want to mourn or times I want to celebrate, I’m pretty terrible company for myself.

But when it’s all Jesus, y’all, the hope abounds. Anything good turns into a chance for genuine praise, and anything hard turns into a chance for genuine faith. When it’s all Jesus, I see every little thing as an opportunity for the gospel to be shared more, known more, and lived more. When it’s all Jesus, I know that I don’t take one breath outside of what is a gift from him, and my posture of gratitude changes completely. The work of my hands, the words from my mouth, everything I do becomes that response to what he has done for me.

I cannot heal my son, tend well to my marriage, craft words worth reading, love my friends, understand scripture, work for justice, or do anything apart from the provision of God. I can pray for those things, and certainly give them all the effort I have. But I never want to forget that, in the end, my best is merely offering a colored pencil drawing of the earth to the Father who actually created it.

Apart from me, you can do nothing. Words that I used to qualify are now the most freeing, hopeful promise of my life. Jesus is our confidence, and his sufficiency never changes even though our circumstances always do. And isn’t that the best news you’ve ever heard?

Y’all know I’m a sucker for a good story. I love a beginning that engages me; a middle that is suspenseful, painful, hopeful and all the things that real life is; and an ending that is meaningful—not necessarily happy, as there can be plenty of meaning found in places one might never call happy—but closure that I can live with in light of who the characters really are and the kind of future I can imagine for them.

I think everyone loves a good story. In many ways, our lives are a played out narrative of what we believe about ourselves and the world we live in.

This story, our story, is a story about reckoning.

Reckoning is a strange thing. To learn something, discover something, accept something, it divides your life into two distinct pieces: before the reckoning, and after the reckoning. Last week our family, in many ways, reckoned with something we had suspected, maybe even feared, for many months. Our little guy, two years old and full of goodness in every way, was put in a really big category that he’ll spend his life, one way or another, defined by.

The honest truth is that I am relieved. For many months we have been waiting, watching, treating this precious boy more like a research project than a child, and it’s been exhausting. When you are wondering if you are looking at a developmental delay versus a developmental disorder, everything, everything goes in to a score column for one or the other. Every good day, every smile with good eye contact, every time he looks up when you call his name, every new word, all of it putting points into the he’ll be fine category. And then the humming, the awful sound of his head against a door, the babbles coming from his mouth trying to form words but just can’t, the vocabulary lost, the recent weeks of regression, all of it tallying in the column that we don't want to look at. And yet, we have to.

We don’t have a specific label, or an official diagnosis, or a doctor or therapist telling us what our sweet boy will and will not be able to do as he grows. None of those things feel important right now, and I don’t know if or when they will. What we do have is a collection of discussions with a lot of people and professionals who care about this boy, using the words we have been holding at a distance and gently encouraging us to lean in to them. We have learned in the last few months that social communicative disorders are categorized as a spectrum because, well, that is truly what they look like when each precious soul fighting one is lined up. We’ve got a smart, sweet little man who has a ton of strengths and some significant struggles, and we are working through each one as they emerge. But we have so much more to learn. So much. We’ve ordered the books and scheduled the meetings and learned that when God tells us to ask him each day for what we need to get through just that day, we have to truly believe in enough for that day.

But let’s get back to the story about reckoning, because that’s the really good part.

When we realized that God was going to be asking something very hard of us as parents (and he asks hard things of everyone), we had to get real clear about who we believe He is. CJ Mahaney once said that, “You need your best theology in your darkest hours.” And that was certainly true for us. But if there is anything I can say without a doubt God has been teaching my husband and me over the last year it is that his character is unfathomable, holy, and good. He has been preparing us for this in ways we could not have imagined even six months ago. We never questioned if God loved us, or if he loved our little boy, because we know the cross answers that without a doubt. We also know that there is nothing God allows that he cannot use for his glory, even the special needs of children—maybe especially the special needs of children. And we haven’t had to wrestle at all with “why” because we know “Who” and believe in the story He has been writing since he separated the dark from the light. He has been so good to us to lift our eyes off of our circumstances and let them land on Him, on the one who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us.

One needs only to spend a short time in scripture to know that it is a story of redeemed suffering. Joseph, Abraham, Job, Jeremiah, the bleeding woman, Jesus, Paul, and hundreds of others held together by their hope of future glory. No matter what brings suffering on, all of it is covered by the blood of Jesus; every single moment of longing for heaven was answered on the cross, and we get to cling to Him as we wait for the glory that is to be revealed to us—what a privilege.

And while reckoning does bring about a certain amount of, let’s call it comfortable acceptance, it certainly doesn’t make this easy. In fact, I am still a hot mess as I write this. There are a handful of people who have had to quite literally wipe tears from eyes in the last two weeks, and I've been keeping a whole crew of friends at an arm's length because I'm not sure what to say. My husband and I sat in the office in our home the other night and asked questions of one another that no parent wants to think about; questions about the future, questions about school and adolescence and all the what ifs that will kill you if you let them take over. We are not confident in much; but we are confident that we cannot do this apart from total dependence on God. We simply do not know what comes next, only what comes today. But since tomorrow has enough worries of its own, we’re doing our best to camp here and remember the daily bread.

I wrote before about the peace I have that this story has a perfect start, and will have a perfect ending. I still believe that to my bones. Right now we are in that middle, living the suspenseful, painful, and hopeful moments that real life is; waiting for an ending that is meaningful—not necessarily happy in this world, as there can be plenty of meaning found in places one would never call happy—but the closure we long for in light of who God is and the kind of future he has prepared for us.

And as we wait, we get to raise the absolute sweetest boy on earth. I mentioned that in one way or another he will be defined by this struggle, and he will, but we are praying boldly that he defies it in the process.  I hope you all get to meet him one day; he’ll melt your heart.

“In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.” Isaiah 26:8

We started speech therapy with our middle son when he was 18 months old, back in January of this year. One of the things our therapist taught us was to incorporate a start-stop language repetition to the routines and play that we already do with Cannon. For example, when we would swing him around- something he loves to do- we would pick him up, and with a predictable cadence say, “ready, set…” then wait for eye contact from him and finish with, “go!” It was a practice we began daily, and for the last seven months we have been swinging, repeating, meeting his eyes, almost willing the words to finish that sentence to come out of his mouth.

And then last week, out of the clear blue summer sky, Cannon climbed on my back, grabbed my neck, and completely unprompted by me said, “Set, DAA!”

Seven months of working on this phrase, of any part of it to come out of his sweet mouth. Hundreds and hundreds of spins and swings and slides and two persistent parents so badly wanting to hear the word “go” finish our sentence. And then one day, he just said it. “ Set, daa!” And now this little man walks around saying this at any opportunity— jumping off the couch, pretending to drive in the front seat, playing hide and seek: “Set, daa! Set, daa!” It’s so, so beautiful.

I have to confess though, that after seven months and all that spinning, I started to wonder if I would ever hear it. We brought out our very best enthusiasm and anticipation every single time we would pick him up to practice, and in all these months our enthusiasm could not pull the words out of him. “Ready, set…” then leaning in closely with my own mouth open as if to mimic the word he needed to tell me what to do next… and then silence. Hundreds of moments of silence; the loudest sound in the world sometimes.

It’s a little bit funny to me that God would choose a moment for Cannon to grasp set go when I was not prompting it from him at all. No enthusiastic play on my part, no fanfare, no looking down at his big green eyes willing the words from him. He just got in position and was ready when he was ready. A little ordinary miracle on a Wednesday afternoon.

Every one of us is thinking daily about the world we live in, about the fear and the anxiety and the politics and the maddening headlines. In fact, some of us are thinking so much about all that is wrong that we can’t celebrate what is right, all of the ordinary miracles around us. I’ve certainly been in this place, tallying in the “bad” category almost daily and forgetting to mark in the “good” category, too. It is no wonder the heaviness in my heart has been so present when so much of what I’ve been doing is scorekeeping for evil.

But that’s not how it’s supposed to be. We weren’t designed by Perfection Himself to merely survive our lives by avoiding as much bad as we can, nor is our call to begrudge and complain about any and everything that doesn’t fit our preferences or meet our needs. We were meant to celebrate the joy that He gives us right here in the midst of the bad; we were meant for glory, and that often shines brightest in the dark, if we will let it. The Christ follower has an incredibly important responsibility: to hold in our hearts the paradox that is the miracle of every breath and the unspeakable pain of a sinful world. It’s so, so hard. I fail at it every single day. And then… “Set, daa!” Oh, yes, something has been building the whole time I only heard silence.     

And something is building now.

One of the greatest sins of the Israelites was that they kept forgetting how much God had showed up for them. The seas were parted, but in the waiting that followed, they forgot. The manna came from heaven, but in the resistance at Jericho, they forgot. And really, we are the same. Tragically, the same. We watch the news and cry “where are you, Lord?” forgetting that he is in the very breath it took to call out to him. Somewhere along the line, the fear in our hearts has drowned out our ability to see the ordinary miracles. Paul Tripp says, “[Amnesia] is the worst kind of blindness. It’s the physical ability to see without the spiritual ability to really see what you’ve seen. It’s the capacity to look at wonders, things specifically designed to move you and produce in you breathless amazement, and not be moved by them anymore. It’s the sad state of yawning in the face of glory.” It’s being so devastated by the headlines we forget to celebrate a little boy who found a new word.

God is always building something. Maybe we will see the answer in seven months or seven years or maybe not until we view history from our eternal vantage point. But something is happening, because God still has us here. I have this picture of God in heaven and Jesus at his right. The Savior of the world is poised and ready to come back for us, aching in the pain of sin and seeing each tear falling from our eyes. And there is God, feeling the same ache, waiting until the perfect, predestined moment to send this Savior back for his people. He’s watching, waiting, saying to his son, “Ready, set…”

We are just waiting for God’s “go”—waiting and trusting, clinging to the evidence of his goodness in all the beautiful, ordinary things.

What a gift.  That’s the phrase that keeps coming to mind as I think back on this year: what an incredible gift!

As I try to put in to words the ways in which God has blessed and provided for us, I realize that reducing his greatness to the tangible blessings of life in middle-class America does a great injustice to him.  We are blessed, to be sure.  And no one knows that more than we do.  I have an incredible husband, humble to the core and devoted to me and his family above anyone or anything else.  Together we have three precious babies, and parenting them has taught us more about God and each other than any other endeavor.  We both have been given the gift of meaningful (paid!) work: Alex as a nurse and me as a teacher.  And of course we have the blessing of enjoying the little things in life: creativity and writing, reading and learning and filling our bookshelves to the brim, setting goals and being disciplined toward pursuing them, and enjoying the people God has graciously given to us as our friends.  These are graces that so much of the world does not have, and when I really think about it, they are not so “little” at all.

But perhaps the greatest thing that has happened to us this year is that we finally understand with new purpose why we have this life: to bring God glory.  That’s all, and amen.

Our marriage, our parenting, our work, our hobbies, our passions, our home: none of them are meant only to set up a comfortable life from now until the end.  God is far too big and far too concerned with the things of eternity to think only about giving a very small percentage of the world a nice eighty-or-so years on earth and then entrance into his presence forever.  No, no.  We have purpose here, and great work to do.  And that great work happens in the big moments and the small details. 

This past year our family grew from four to five.  God was just so good to give us Jordi Daniel. We bought a mini van to accommodate and, haters gonna hate but it has been my favorite purchase ever.  Alex began his career as a nurse and found a home in a job he loves.  I spent the school year as a “lecturer” at a small Christian university in town, which basically means a teacher but my title made me feel the tiniest bit proud (and gave me something to write on a resume, you know, the important things in life).  We spent much of the warm months at my parents’ home on the lake, we laughed with new friends and even got the chance to visit old ones in other parts of the country. 

We made lots of mistakes and let other people down at times, moments I wish I could take back and words I wish I could unsay.  But we learned a lot about repentance and hope to walk out those lessons with more and more humility our entire lives. 

We read books, studied scripture, and are imperfectly finding the beautiful rhythm of new routines that allow for real time in God’s word, even in the busy-ness of a swing shift job and three children.  And after almost four years at our church we decided to make the move to a new one, a small church plant in the very heart of our city.  It has been the best decision for us; we absolutely love the place God has led our family and the way we are learning about Him there.  But leaving one home for another after four years has not been easy.  We have over-explained to some and failed to explain at all to others.  I wonder still how one finds the right words for a transition like this.  We tell people the truth, that we sensed God doing many new things in us, and in that process calling us to a new place- but how does one manage how others interpret and accept that?  Well, I have landed on this: I do not think you can, and I do not think I should.  My desperate to please everyone self wants to more than anything, but I have to trust that the Holy Spirit is alive and moving and directing the steps of all of us, and in the process he is teaching us to keep our eyes on Him and on building his bride, the church, the way he has asked each of us to.  We pray daily for unity among all believers, and then we walk forward with a humble confidence.  The way we see it, we have two precious church families now, and hope to forever.

Alex and I have fought and then reconciled.  We wrestled with what his sobriety needs to look like, how to parent together rather than one at a time, and how to value this marriage relationship more than any other on earth.  I wish I could say we’ve found the formula, but we haven’t.  What we have found is God’s word, and what he has to say about dying to ourselves seems to inform the way we need to do our marriage better than anything.

I struggled to no end with fear and insecurity this year: in my parenting, in my job, in my friendships, and like always, in my writing.  But I think when the anxiety of those feelings hit the hardest we also have a chance to learn the most, and that is what happened to me.  I turned off the tv a few months ago and really have not turned it back on, because I am finally taking responsibility for the things I let in to my mind and taking seriously the exhortation to truly think about whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, anything worthy of praise... (I have tried so hard to fit Bravo into this category and right now, for me, I just cannot.)  I am working so intentionally to get a handle on social media and the comparison issues it causes in me.  I love the connection and learning about meaningful work of others afforded by Facebook and Instagram, but at times I fail to celebrate others in their life and work because I’m only thinking of me and my not-enoughness; and then up comes an ugliness in my heart I am anything but proud of.  But I see it all very clearly now, and I’m daily learning how to walk with Jesus through a culture I want to be in but not of.

And finally, I think Alex and I are re-learning what it means to parent.  Maybe this is something we are always re-learning, all of us.  As our children grow from babies to little toddlers trying to grasp their words, and toddlers learning their words to young children telling stories and practicing kindness, we have to continually find ways to give them each what they need.  I think that being a mom of intention may very well be the most profound journey God takes me on this coming year.  But as I look at all three faces under my roof, I am overwhelmed every time to know that God would give me the gift of investing in these three souls with eternity in mind.  It's my favorite job. 

A whole year’s worth of moments, mostly really great, some really hard, all of them telling a story.  In the end, I think this year has been one of me wanting to keep the main thing the main thing and fumbling my way towards that end.  I’ve learned who I am not while learning who I am, and those are important distinctions to make.  I am a follower of Jesus, a sinner saved by grace through faith.  I am Alex’s wife and mom to Harper, Cannon and Jordi, the two titles that are the honor of my life.  I am a teacher and a writer, a homemaker and an advocate for the marginalized.  And, I hope many of you reading this would also say I am a friend, because caring for the people in my life actually makes me come alive, too.  I hope and pray that in 2016 I can live in to these roles with more love and intention than I have given them before, spending my days wanting more of Jesus and, by his grace, making more of Him, too. 

He's making all things new, friends, and he is starting with each of us.  Here's to a year of faith in Him, lived out with a bold simplicity and the humble offering of praise that our life can be. 

We all got an extra hour of sleep last night, which to a mom of little ones essentially means that everything just starts an hour earlier.  But that’s ok, because mornings are my favorite and I love that the sun will rise before the world really gets going with their day now.  And do you remember that summer sunshine I bragged about for three solid months?  You know, the 10:00pm sunsets and late nights on the deck with friends?  Well, THIS is where we earn them.  We have officially entered the abyss of darkness that is the winter months, when the sun is gone a little after 4:00pm and we all walk around just a little bit tired and slightly Vitamin D deficient for the next half a year.  Soldier on, Northwesterners.  June is a mere eight months from today and in the meantime I will just casually leave three words here for your cold hands to hold on to: toasted graham lattes.

Our life on the homefront has been both the best and the fullest of any season I can remember.  In the midst of babies and bellies growing, careers demanding time, relationships needing tending and all the usual stuff of life, God has been so, so good to do something for Alex and I: He has united us in ways that I’m not sure we have ever been so ‘together’ on before.  We are hungry for God’s word, and while our time and walks with the Lord are separate, the paths are merging in the sweetest ways.  I did not truly realize until recently that we have mostly cheered one another on in our four years of marriage—not at all a bad thing—but right now it feels like we are hand in hand and not waving at each other from a sideline.  I feel so lucky to do life with this man and call him the leader of our family, more and more every day.

The last two months have also taught me a whole lot about juggling, a skill I thought I had down because, well, former student-athlete over here.  But let me tell you, Division I sports has nothing on motherhood, nothing.  Add 36 weeks of pregnancy to that mix and GOODNIGHT.  Keeping up with an almost-three year old, an eighteen month old who climbs on everything, and a baby boy who seems to be half-ninja in my belly has me leaning toward the deep end of exhaustion every day.  The kind where, if you sit down past 3:00pm, it takes an effort of monumental proportions to lift your own body again—mostly because we all feel the size of a child humpback at this point in baby-growing.  I’ve also taught nine credits since the end of August, which means grading, always grading (shout out to the two grandmas in my life for free babysitting!).  And perhaps the weightiest, no pun intended, piece of the last few months has been less physical and more emotional, because I’m watching the refugees and learning more and more of their plight and my heart falls right down to the floor (p.s. you can still HELP raise money for them right here!).  I’m sitting with friends who are walking through cancer diagnoses with people they love dearly, and it’s painful.  I’m part of building a small team of women that want to tell a different story to the world about our sisters stuck in the sex industry, and it’s hard to meet those women and hear what they actually think of themselves. 

You see friends, I’m so much of a make a list and get to work on it kind of person that this season of tenderness and deep feeling God has brought me to has truly stretched and humbled me.  Between God’s Word, and of course, third trimester hormones, I’m in a new place.  Still rejoicing in all the good, but really feeling the hard and wrestling through the insecurity that seems to follow any good endeavor we all make (anyone else feel like they always need to be told “Hey, you’re doing alright!”)?

In the end, the Fall season has been beautifully stretching, as much of life seems to be.  We’ve had children’s dentist appointments (I cannot talk about this), broken garage doors (not cheap), and freeway calls to AAA (just get the membership, worth it).  But we also have had late nights in our friend’s home, the kind where you put the babies to bed in pack n’ plays and stay up late solving all of life’s dilemmas (my favorite kind).  Big Al and I snuck away to a hotel (with a Jacuzzi tub!) for one night and enjoyed very second of it (and also slept nine hours. Hallelujah).  My best friend spent a weekend in town from Georgia and Harper jumped into her arms again and again and again at the park (it does something crazy good to your soul when lifetime friends become heroes to your babies).  We’ve all been growing, all been learning, all been stumbling.  And it’s all been worth it; I think it always will be when you somehow love Jesus a little bit more when you’re standing again. 

And here we are in November.  Just over four weeks from my third baby in three years, and very much looking forward to life with him and the other three people under my roof.  I have prepared less for this baby by a large measure than the other two, and I’m looking forward to wrapping up a few projects and then just being: finishing the room transition, packing a hospital bag, praying, waiting, praying some more, teaching my toddlers about thankfulness and practicing it every day, and keeping scripture at the center of my life and home.  And who knows, if baby boy decides to come a week early like his siblings, my November round-up might be a little extra exciting!

I hope your November is filled with good things, including cozy socks and fireplaces and time, just time to be around the people who fill you up.  I am immeasurably thankful for mine.