Last week I had the type of health scare that’s enough to keep you up at night. One night, as I tried to fall asleep, I prayed my worries wordlessly, trying to find peace. I was almost asleep when I bolted upright, gasping for air and shaking my head in disbelief. I heard two words so clearly that they shook me from my half-sleep: Don’t wait.

I was terrified. It wasn’t the kind of fear when you wake from a nightmare and slowly realize it wasn’t real. It wasn’t even that those words were a sense of foreboding, that something was definitely wrong with my health. It was something totally different, something that felt mysterious and much, much bigger than me.

Since then I faced a diagnostic test that declared me just fine, but I haven’t stopped mulling over those words. I am not arrogant enough to dismiss a message because of the dubious way it’s been relayed.  The night before my test I did a word search in every Bible translation I could find for the phrase “don’t wait.” I found a handful of verses, but none that I felt spoke to me in that moment.  Now that the panic has passed, I can’t stop thinking about them. I don’t want to miss whatever I could be learning here.

Ecclesiastes 12:6

Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well.

Ecclesiastes 5:4

When you make a promise to God, don’t wait too long to carry it out. He isn’t pleased with foolish people. So do what you have promised.

Psalm 40:17

But I am poor and needy. May the Lord be concerned about me. You are the One who helps me and saves me. My God, please don’t wait any longer.

Until this experience, I truly didn’t realize I was waiting for anything. But in the 10 days I’ve been sitting with these words, I see it so clearly. We’ve lived here for 9 months, yet sometimes I behave as if I just got here. Sure, there were extenuating circumstances, but still. Unintentionally, I’ve used this adjustment time as an excuse to put a lot of things off. Once we get settled, I might say, I will be more intentional about investing in new friends. Once the baby is sleeping through the night, I will do a better job structuring life for my other two kids. My house will run smoother; I will run smoother. Once I get my home under better control, I will be more generous with it. Once I feel more in control of my schedule I will share my time and serve others. Once the baby is more predictable, I will take better care of myself.

Sure, all of these are legitimate things. I’m not beating myself up. But truthfully the message “don’t wait” doesn’t sit well with me. It pulls me out of a relatively comfortable place. It whispers again, loud enough to wake me from my complacency:

Don’t wait until you feel ready to give of yourself, your time, your home, your talents.

Don’t wait to lavish love on others, even if you don’t know them well yet.

Don’t wait until the house is perfect to invite others in.

Don’t wait until your soul is fed and your heart is contented to serve others and speak joy into their lives.

Don’t wait until you have “more time” to call someone you love and be an ear for them.

Don’t wait until the to-do list is done to play and delight and enjoy your children.

Don’t wait until the mundane is managed to look your spouse in the eye and connect with him.

Don’t wait to have hard conversations that might mend old hurts.

Don’t wait for the absence of fear to try something new.

Don’t wait until you’ve found extra time to start taking care of your body and your soul. 

For the love of God, don’t wait.

What this time of striving and exhaustion and falling short and adjusted expectations is teaching me is this: In this season of my life, there will always be another load of laundry to fold, more floors than I can keep swept, another meal to cook, more dishes to put away, another child to bathe, another toy on the floor, more toothpaste in the sink, or another errand to run. 

I can let these things wear me down, and in my still-sleepless state, it’s not hard to do that. Or I can look at all of this mess as an indication that my life is filled to overflowing with blessings. I have a lapful of sweet children who want me to look up! To stop working! To play with them! I can’t do everything, but I can do that. 

This house we were so blessed to find is more than I can manage on a daily basis at this time in my life. I am doing the best I can. But the reason we bought it wasn’t so I could spend all my time cleaning it; we hoped it would be a haven to our family and a welcome respite to anyone who entered it. We hoped and prayed we would have chances to use it to bless others—family, old friends, new friends and even people we don’t know well yet. It doesn’t have to be perfectly renovated to do that. It doesn’t have to be spotless. Our overgrown yard doesn’t have to be under control. We just have to be warm and inviting and willing. We can’t be those things if the door is closed.

Right now two of my children are napping and I am not cleaning or organizing anything or being otherwise “productive.” But if I wait until everything is done before I feed my soul, it will starve. If it starves, then I am not being responsible with these others—namely, my husband and children—who have been placed in my care. 

Our little one is still not sleeping reliably, so neither am I. It’s wearing on me. I feel justified saying I can’t stay up with or go out with Daniel because I’m just too tired. But slightly less sleep here and there is a small price to pay for a renewed connection with the one my heart loves. It’s easy to forget about him because he’s self sufficient—he doesn’t need me like our children do. He’s the least squeaky of all the wheels. But I can’t wait to invest in us; it’s too important.

I hope these words have challenged you to rethink how you order your days, but please don’t let them make you feel judged or heavy. I still don’t know whether I am doing with them what is meant for me, but I feel completely certain they were meant to offer freedom and relief, not additional burden. There is grace and joy and peace and it’s all there for the taking now, not in some ill-defined future when everything has changed. Don’t wait.

The last eight weeks have been a strange mix: of waiting and wondering, of contentment and restlessness, of making it work and impatience, of beauty and messes, of loneliness and family and soaking up the fading daylight. I don’t know what they would have looked like if we were still in Tennessee, or if we were in a more stable situation here in Virginia. Depending on the day—or really, the moment—when you catch me, I might be overwhelmed with joy and gratitude or I might just be overwhelmed.

New in the area and new to homeschooling, we have found ways to fill many of our days. And yet I’ve found myself with time, as I don’t yet have many external obligations. The first time we did this, in Tennessee, those expanses made me feel anxious. I felt they had to be filled.  This time I’ve tried hard to acknowledge that this is not yet real life, since when we settle here, it will actually be all the way across town. Our every day won’t look much like it does at the moment. This is a bit of a holding pattern.  But then there’s a balance. I think going too far in that direction, waiting around for life to begin, can be dangerous. I can make all kinds of excuses: We can’t find a church yet because we don’t know where we’re going to live. We can’t join this club or that group because we’re not sure when we’re going to move. I can’t sign the kids up for that field trip, because we might be moving that day.

It’s hard to embrace the everyday when living in between; it’s hard to stay motivated to be fully present when you’re moving through a tunnel to an unknown destination at a pace you can’t control. These times always remind me that I’m never actually in control of it anyway. All I can really ever do is trust and pray, focus on the problem in front of me, and take care of the people around me.

And if I really believe that, then I’ve mostly been doing awesome, though I haven’t had much to say about it, nothing to write about it, and if you call me at a weak moment, you might think otherwise.

Pending a successful inspection tomorrow, we are set to settle on a home in mid-November. It’s not our dream home. But something about living the way we have been, in a ramshackle rental house with most of our life in boxes, makes a late 70’s ranch with roomfuls of eventual upgrades strangely appealing. Because it will be our 70’s ranch, the upgrades ours to dream and do. It will be the first place our family will call home that we intend to stay and grow in. So I guess that makes it kind of a dream after all.

This season has been so weird, so full of faith and doubt, blessing and uncertainty, hard lessons and lovely moments and seeming contradictions. But when I look at the photos, all I see is the beauty.

A friend of mine lived with an adorable Southern girl for a while whose signature phrase one summer was, “I can’t be bothered.” I thought it was perfect and adopted it. For years I could be heard saying I “couldn’t be bothered” with any number of things, worthy and less so. Now I’m working on perfecting the inverse—  “You’re not bothering me” – and meaning it.

Maybe it’s leftover from years of squeezing driving and working and cooking and mothering all into too-short days or maybe it’s a byproduct of my personality, but I like my plans. Even as a stay-at-home mom and even on days when I didn’t really have a particular place I had to be, I have struggled to remind myself of this and not rush my children. Being home with them in a new place has taught me loads about myself and life and being a mother, and this concept is not the least of it.

Some structure is necessary, but we must be careful to count the cost of too much rigor. What do we lose when we always stick to the plan? And what might we gain if we looked away?

It occurred to me that my irritation at plans gone awry, schedules disrupted, was terribly selfish.

It was also about this time I realized I had always thought that, if I had just had the opportunity to stay home, I would be so much more useful to others. All those groups at church I hadn’t had time for—I’d finally have the time! All those people I knew I could help if only I had a spare moment—now I could!  And that’s not how it went down. I was preoccupied with adjustment, with getting my family settled, with figuring out how to operate in my new world, and it seemed at the end of most days, it was all I could do to accomplish my basic tasks.

This inability to help others started to seem like less a necessary result of my station in life and more a product of my unwillingness to look up. It wasn’t a lack of time or other resources. Yes, energy is in short supply these last few months. Yes, we have some changes on our plate. But so does everyone. I just needed to be willing.

I prayed that I might start to see disruptions as opportunities, and that I might seek out more opportunities. I didn’t have to wait long.

Choosing to put my agenda aside and saying yes has meant getting to see a high school friend from Maryland I hadn’t seen in years in my Tennessee living room. It meant an invitation at 7:00 AM, a harried trip to the grocery store, and spending the morning on the couch of a friend who had unexpectedly lost her dad just so she could talk through it and I could offer her the frozen (but seriously incredible) meat sauce my husband had made the week prior. It meant hosting our friends for a night of laughter that healed parts of my soul I didn’t know were hurting. Even though my floor was dirty and I was tired.

Recent interruptions have included long phone calls I didn’t know I needed. Skipping the grocery store and feeding my children hastily-named “banana dogs” (peanut butter and bananas on hot dog rolls) so my daughter could have a leisurely day at the pool with a friend she may not get to see again. It meant finally making time to be a good neighbor. Early morning blueberry picking and delighted squeals of my daughters. It meant piles of abandoned laundry so we could make giant bubbles in the backyard. It meant letting my children stay up until 10:00 so their Daddy could be with them to sing a half-birthday song and blow out candles.  It meant watching a friend's children at the last minute, as so many have done for me; a perfect afternoon at the county fair instead of home packing up closets and mulling our impending move. It meant foregoing my quiet time to myself to help my husband with a work project or look him in the eye. It’s meant editing resumes, reading extra stories, giving extra hugs and grace and lying in the bed to hold my five-year-old for five more minutes.

These acts are so small; sometimes my life feels very small. And this shift comes at a time when my stress is high and my patience is low. I’m pregnant and worried about details of the coming days that I can’t hurry up, single parenting during the week while Daniel starts his new job; my children are growing tired of spending all day every day with each other, and I’m just so very, very tired. Sometimes even these small things have been a struggle, friends. But I have been so grateful for these “disruptions” and the lessons they offer, sometimes lovely, sometimes stinging, but always needed. I find my strength is renewed in this pouring out, even if I thought I had nothing there to begin with.

This is not an argument for always saying yes. I know there are a lot of people-- women in particular-- who struggle to set healthy boundaries for themselves and their families and their time. But that’s not me. After years of being overcommitted, my default answer has been to say no, to protect my family from drains on our time. And while I still believe that instinct is necessary and good, I’m afraid I've been missing out on the enormous blessing it is to bless others, even when we think we don’t have enough ourselves.

When I first moved to Tennessee I found myself volunteering on not one but two hospitality committees. I think I joked to Daniel that God was laughing at me, the career woman, now home and the type of person who would sign up for such a thing.  Recently I read a blog post by Ann Voskamp that reshaped my thinking on the importance of these “small things:”

“Our actual theology is best expressed in our actual hospitality…Hospitality isn’t for the good housekeepers … hospitality is meant to shape our churches and politics, our work and our schools, our homes and our faith and our schedules and our meals and our lives.”

I can be hospitable even when my house is a mess, even when the laundry is piled up, even when I haven’t been to the store or put on my makeup, even when I don’t have my own stuff together. 

“Hospitality is Life with no Gates. Hospitality means if there is room in the heart, there is always room in the house.”  -- Ann Voskamp

May our houses always have room.

Recently I heard a brilliant woman explain her standard advice for approaching uncertain times: “Trust the process,” she said.  I shifted in my seat and sniffed. Whatever that means I thought.

On our Tennessee home front we are facing a couple situations of such a tenuous variety that I am not yet comfortable sharing them wide. Everyone is well. Everything is good, and we are thankful. But we are living in the tension of not knowing, in the reality of having not a shred of control.

This lack of control leads me to dissect every turn for clues as to how it all might unfold. One afternoon, in a moment of despair over what I thought was a situation devolving, a gift snatched away, a turn toward an end, I cried out for an answer, a sign or some hope. And then it hit me: I only have hope when it is reasonable; I only think the best when the moment calls for it. And if faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, then I don’t often have it. I want to protect myself from falls, from failures, from hoping in something that might not come to be. Not only is that the opposite of faith, it also doesn’t work.

A couple of Sundays ago we sat listening to a sermon from Matthew, about Jesus appearing to the disciples on the water, and about Peter walking out to meet him.

When Peter saw the wind, “He was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:30-31)

Again, I shifted in my seat.  I can trust when there are positive test results, interviews that go well, or encouraging feedback. I can be joyful and hopeful and believe when signs point my way. But when logic isn’t in my favor, when there is nothing tangible and promising to speak of, when there is silence, I cave. I fear. I lose faith.

Our pastor asked us to enter this story, to imagine longing for the relative safety of the boat. He asked us to name our figurative boats. Again, I sniffed— as if this were not a useful exercise to me. It occurred to me this reaction of mine is not uncommon. I thought back to that phrase “trust the process,” and realized immediately what my boat would be called.

Process. I want the assurance that things are going as they should, as they have for others. I want to be able to see forward, around corners, through storms. I want to be able to figure it out on my own.

So instead we are here. In the midst of uncertainty, we are tired.  But we have renewed hope, regardless of the circumstance. We strive to live in the moment without becoming beholden to the ups, downs or silences in between.

If trusting the process works for you, I am happy (and a little envious). But if it doesn’t, why not try jumping out of the boat?

“If dreams are like movies,
then memories are films about ghosts.”
                                        -- Counting Crows

Like Adam Duritz, sometimes I think with faint sadness of ghosts from the past. Those people  whose names conjure warmth or laughter or stories, those people I wish I still knew so they could know my husband, my children, my older self. They are people whose season in my life has passed, and mostly I am accepting of this coming and going.

Yesterday one of my most prominent ghosts said good-bye to his father. Not unexpectedly, but far too soon. And for him, and his wonderful family, I find myself heartbroken.

Though I am cognizant and accepting of seasons and their passing, there are people I used to think I’d always know. People for whom I had assumed I’d always be able to be there. I am struck by this deep sadness and loss, on behalf of others for whom I can do nothing. There is an urge to help, but to them, I am also just a ghost.

My time has passed. I can pray and will continue to. I can offer deepest condolences.  And I can use this untimely passing to inform my outlook today.

Today my little girls and I ditched the to-do list and went adventuring, through thousands of buttercups, strawberry fields, an antique café and ice cream parlor. My oldest played hooky and we wandered, unhurried, through a bright, gorgeous day.  I continue to grieve, vicariously and to no avail. But I am covered by a sense of peace and overwhelming gratitude for this family, for our life together, and for the gift of today.

I remember riding shotgun in a good ol’ boy’s Jeep in college. I don’t remember where we were going.  I don’t remember who was with us. I don’t even remember his name. But I remember a comment he made that his daddy had told him about never driving faster than the distance his headlights could shine.

Lately I am reminded of this idea of outrunning the light—of devoting mental space and worry to a time that’s not yet here.  When we are waiting for something: a change to come, an answer to be given, a circumstance to let up, we can feel paralyzed. I’ve often likened waiting like this to living in darkness; I don’t know what’s coming next.

I know people who get excited about the unknown. They love feeling out of control; like anything can happen. The older I get, that’s just not me. It’s not that I’m under the delusion that I’m in control of everything—I know I control very little. But I like to know what’s coming.

I’ve been ruminating on a line from the Avett Brothers song “Live and Die” that says, “All it will take is just one moment and you can say good-bye to how we had it planned.” Except it’s taking me far longer than one moment.

So many things in our life, from where we live to what we do, are far outside what I had previously been able to imagine. For them I am unspeakably grateful. Still, there are other things I thought would be different at this point, and they just aren’t.  My need to acknowledge these— and mourn them— has surprised me more than their lack of existence in the first place.

I’m not dismissing the role or importance of responsibility and planning for the future to the best that you can. I am a born planner; I thrive on it. Always there is some sort of balance between faith and diligence. But there are things that cannot be predicted and days that cannot be planned.  I wonder where we will end up, and when that will change. I wonder what the makeup of our family will look like in the end. I wonder who will join us that isn’t here yet. I wonder when and how. Sometimes this wonder is healthy and hopeful, and sometimes it is problematic in its ability to distract.

When I focus on what may or may not come, whether it be in wonder or worry, I take my focus off the blessings I’ve already been given and the responsibilities I am currently charged with. I fully believe it’s essential to dream and to wonder.  But my priority must be to make beautiful things—whether they be investing in our community, building friendships, looking for opportunities to show love and share kindness, or making memories with my husband and our quickly growing children—right now, with what I already have in front of me.

I will not often know what’s coming, and even when I do, it’s bound to change. But I can do my best with what I’ve got where I am. And I can commit to striving to live in the light of this moment and learn through and from it—even when it brings with it uncertainty about what may follow. 

Today I stumbled upon a beautiful reminder, not surprisingly, while in search of something else:
“You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” (1 Thessalonians 5:5).

Let’s live in the light of today.

Let me start by saying I am not an extrovert.  If an extrovert is expressive and outgoing, then that’s often me.  But I also let calls go to voicemail for reasons even I’m not sure of.  I’d rather communicate in writing whenever I’m able.  And yet, in social situations, I can be engaging, gregarious, and even have fun doing it.  Before we moved to Tennessee, I had regular dates with myself that are on my calendar as “Christina’s Time.”  Sometimes I spent this time with a friend over drinks downtown, but more often I spent it with my laptop at a coffee shop, or getting lost in a bookstore.

I always miss my Daniel when he is away, but there is a part of me that longs for those hours after bedtime in a quiet house, just me, a candle and a fireplace and my words—a combination of the heard, the written and the read.  My days always start better when I am up first, early and alone.  On these days as I walk the hills with my iPod or open blinds and brew coffee, I have time and space to think over the day, to breathe deeply and prepare.  To move, to stretch, to read, to plan.  Before everyone needs me.

But when we moved away from our family, to a place where we knew no one, there was nothing restorative about that kind of solitude.  I learned I needed community—if not friends, if not confidantes—a village.  People who understood my station in life, if not yet me.  I had thought this would come first in the form of church.  And strangely, we’ve been here seven months and that’s still not the case (though I think it’s getting closer).

I know “church” is a word that doesn’t make everyone feel warm or welcome or loved. And I really do get it.  For years, as a pastor’s kid,  I saw the church from the inside, and it often wasn’t pretty. Thank goodness God and love are not confined to the houses we've built for them.

I’ve been in Baptist churches, a Pentecostal church, non-denominational churches, between churches, and on the outskirts, which is where I’ve found myself lately.  Though we have become regular attenders of a particular church, that’s been it.  I’ve never been hung up on the physical spaces—having attended churches in so many forms—but that’s about what it’s been for us so far here.  A place to go.  And that is all.

In Baltimore, more often than the place we went on Sunday, Church happened on a weeknight. We met in noisy, crowded kitchens over collaborative meals that were usually ill-planned but always seemed to be the perfect mix, always seemed to be enough.  We met in good times and sadness; we brought questions and doubts, many that never found answers.  We were so very different.  But together, we were the best kind of family. We chose to come together; we chose to stay together.  We chose to show up for each other--for our families-- on birthdays and bad days, for new babies, hurt babies, lost babies. In times of mourning and loss, on first days and moving days.  We miss them most days.

Ronald Rollheiser says, “Church  is … walking to God within a community. To attempt to make spirituality a private affair is to reject part of our very nature and walk inside of a loneliness that God himself has damned.”

I’m not sure this is meant to be taken quite as literal as it can seem.  I think there is need and room for both private and communal spirituality.  I can’t always reconcile my craving for solitude and space to dwell and ponder with my need to know and be known, my desire to process out loud.

This doesn't look the same for everyone, I know.  For me, lately, it has meant finding community with similarly disoriented women, and with others who are surer of their steps. It’s meant finding people to listen to and be authentic with, even if I’m not always sure I’ll be accepted. Just now, through our church, it’s starting to mean our family is finding individuals and families to share our meals and stories and lives with.

We still have a place we enjoy going on Sunday mornings. It’s a place that welcomes anyone, no matter their background or attire. We are finding it’s a place where people believe everyone matters and they actually live that out, here and all over. We still believe this belonging is important (and if you live near us, you can sit with us any time). 

But I have lived the last seven months in a different kind of Church…one where we seek and ask and walk to God together. We listen to heartaches, offer hope, sit in stillness, share laughter, wisdom and time, make food for the weary, offer and accept kindnesses to and from near strangers, and care for each other’s babies.

I still think it’s hard to be vulnerable. Scary to be authentic. Lately I have relished stolen moments writing alone at my new favorite coffee house while Daniel stays with the girls. I still value my solitude. But there’s just no reason to live unknowing and unknown. The upside-- being loved well and learning to do the same-- is just too great.  Here's hoping we find our people, however beautifully flawed we all may be.

Recently someone who sort of knew me a long time ago asked me the secret to my success. Naturally, this made me laugh nervously, look around my messy, suburban life and think, "What success?"

My reaction got me thinking. In my stunted grad school attempt, I had to record myself answering interview questions.  Daniel was my interviewer. He asked me what “success” meant to me.

I have always known to say that success is not achievable by income or status, and it turns out I still believe those things are true.  But we have debt, for a multitude of reasons we don’t own a home anymore, and this past year we’ve been learning to live on one income. I have chosen to forgo what was turning out to be a lucrative career to be home with my babies while I still can. 

When I became a working mother, I sometimes thought immediate success would be having a choice to make about whether to stay home.  Other times I thought success meant being there for every milestone. Now that I’m home, I see it’s more complicated.  I wonder if my decision—while the right one for us at this time—means I will not ever know career success.

And then there’s the issue of passion. I envy teachers, doctors, fire fighters, even politicians; I envy people who have always known what they wanted to be.  Who have the kind of jobs little kids say they want when they grow up. For many of them, making a living is an extension of their passion. How very convenient, I think. I remember, in the aforementioned grad school attempt, sitting beside people who worked at National Geographic or the Smithsonian, people who found fulfillment in their work. And while I have always tried to make the most of whatever situation I’m in, I have not yet found creative fulfillment in a job I’ve had. Since I was a second grader, I said I wanted to be a writer. So now I write here, for you, for me, for anonymous passersby, but it’s without the expectation that it will ever line my pockets.

So, then what success? I wrote this in a few moments of blissful silence while my beautiful blonde spitfires slept upstairs. That day I made breakfast and lunch, put two children in timeout a combined total of five times, bought groceries, and did laundry.  Later we headed to the library, too close to dinner, and Daniel met us out to eat.  Every day doesn’t look like this day. And, on the surface, to me, it doesn’t look “successful.” 

But, at least for today, my children and family are healthy. I’m married to a man I still adore and who really is my best friend. We have the things we really need. I have creative outlets, albeit not income generating ones, and friends that love me, albeit not ones I can hug very frequently.

In my interview I remember saying something about not worrying. I thought being successful would mean attaining peace. I can’t say I’ve realized my 24-year-old self’s idea of success.  I still worry—about money, that something may happen to me, to my kids, to my traveling husband.
I still actively seek peace. I have dreams I’m not sure I’ll ever realize.

But I don’t take enough time to be thankful for all that I already have.

I think Facebook and Pinterest are partly to blame.  Most of us are guilty of posting only our red letter moments online—the highlights—for all to see. I don’t take pictures of myself on days without  mascara or when I’m wearing those wretched faded black yoga pants Daniel is liable to throw away at any moment.  Even when I share slip ups, I don’t really let you in. It’s all done in a self-deprecating way so that you’ll think I’m charming and relatable, but I don’t share the darkest days. I don’t want to acknowledge or immortalize them, so why would I share?  And I know that’s what most people do.  Their Pinterest boards reflect the homes, wardrobes, and hobbies they’d like to have, not necessarily the ones they actually do.  They’re not trying to mislead anyone, and neither am I.

The problem is that I forget, and I think many of us do.  I compare the galleries of nights out, smiling children and best meals with my dark room of unfolded laundry, temper tantrums, and not yet developed potential. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop posting highlights—they are what make all the rest of life worth it—but I’m going to try to remember that that’s what everyone else is doing too.

Why not step away from the social media and comparisons with me. What does success really look like? And are you certain you haven’t found it yet?

We really ought to get out of our own way.

Of the hundreds of pages written, thousands of pages read, thousands of minutes spent listening and studying, and tens of thousands of dollars my parents and I are still spending, I’m pretty sure I can distill the most valuable thing I learned in my undergraduate career to three words: Be here now.

At the time, as a haughty, first-semester freshman, I remember rolling my eyes.  I was forced to sit through a freshman seminar of sorts with the “honors” kids. We were not the cool kids, and I liked to consider myself other than “them.”  I probably was, as most of them were far more intelligent than I was. I had a lot to learn, I just didn't know it yet.

Back then, the phrase would help me remember to slow down and really live my last and fleeting carefree years. College was more fun than I had imagined: It contained the start of most of my closest friendships, my first love (and subsequent heartbreak), a widening of my world, and a shrinking of my importance in it. I started a long process of learning to listen, to work hard, to try.

I remarked to Daniel recently that this advice is among the only piece I can think of that has always applied, no matter where I find myself.  But not always for the same reason.

When I found myself unexpectedly alone, post-college, overdrawn and unsure of what was next, I cried in my bathtub as those words came whispering back.  Be here now.  Be present in the stillness, the emptiness, the pain.  Listen. Seek. Let the disappointment in, learn from it.

As I’ve grown older, and my life more crowded, this phrase reminds me to use my precious time wisely. That being productive doesn't always look the way it used to. That sometimes reading a stack of library books on the couch is more important than keeping up with the laundry, that going out for milkshakes in our pajamas is more valuable than honoring bed time, that being here through the often monotonous every day of my children’s waning childhoods is more pressing than the career I had and wanted but have chosen to put aside for now.

It reminds me of the importance of taking lengthy phone calls from lifelong friends, of sitting down, slowing down, and looking people in the eye.  It constantly reminds me to put my phone down, to be present for the person in front of me, making sure she knows she is more important than all the other things I could be focused on. It reminds me that I don’t have to fill all of our days, don’t have to always say yes and probably shouldn’t, and that I don’t have to feel bad about any of it.  

Committing to being here means accepting that things will change, but choosing not to be preoccupied with coming change.

Lately, being here now has been solemn. It has meant not focusing on what might be one day, when things are brighter. It has meant settling into the dim light, the silence, the sadness, the loss. Not offering possible redemption stories ahead of their time. It has meant fear, mourning, open weeping, and quiet rebuttals to a chorus of “of course it’s going to be okay.”

Sometimes it means carrying the heavy burden of the sorrow of those suffering around us because we don’t know what else to do.  It means letting all of it take as long as it takes, and feeling every emotion along the way.

Necessarily, mercilessly, life still goes on around us. In our families, in our homes. Being here now doesn’t mean getting stuck, I don’t think. For me, it meant pretending to care about putting up our Christmas tree, too early, because it made my husband happy. It meant, as Jen Hatmaker so eloquently put it, “mothering with my hands” when my heart wasn’t in it. It means showing up for our loved ones to the best of our ability, even if it's not as good as normal, even as we allow our souls to ache, to heal. It means recognizing the light wherever we can find it. And in time, it will mean allowing our hearts to feel happiness.

Being fully present, "being still and knowing"—all the time—may be the lesson of my life.  The hardest one, the one I never really master.  I think of it every day.  I never would have believed something so simple would take so much consistent effort.  But I don’t think there’s another way. 

We can’t wish away the pain, the horror, the uncertainty, the doubt or the fear without missing out on the joy. And there’s too much of the former for us to miss even one second of the joy.

It seems I’ve lived a lifetime in the past 10 days.  I’ve felt and processed and hurt and cried and laughed and cherished enough to last me quite some time.

Two days before Thanksgiving, we went to our much-anticipated 9-week prenatal appointment for our much-wanted third baby.   We were hopeful for a good appointment, looking forward to telling our girls, who would tell their grandparents, aunt and uncle, who would arrive later that night.

But it was not to be.

At our ultrasound, we saw the baby, but not the heartbeat.  Though we could see the baby, it was already gone.  I was in disbelief.  I sat on the couch and heard my midwife’s gentle words, saw the tears in her eyes as my own streamed.  She grieved with me. But, like our baby, I wasn’t really there.

The days that followed were a strange mélange of sadness and comfort, food and family, rest and angst. It was not the visit it was supposed to be.  I spent my days in easy chatter or silence with some of my most loved ones, and my nights in tears in my steadfast husband’s arms.  Ever so good in crisis, never afraid of my sadness, even in his.

My accommodating midwife scheduled a follow-up ultrasound to confirm what we already knew.  And by then half a dozen women it feels I’ve only just met were reaching out with kindness—in words, in offers of love and care for my kids, with food.  Daniel has a commitment that’s been scheduled for months that I couldn’t let him miss that has taken his physical self three hours west to Memphis.  The rest of him seems to be somewhere in between.  My dad was able to fly down to be with me and the girls, while family sends prayers and hugs from home, even as they are going through far more dire personal crises of their own.

Moving here, where we knew no one, was so daunting.  When I became pregnant I feared—what if Daniel is away and I need to go to the doctor?  What if I’m too sick to care for my girls well?  Who would I ever call?  And somehow just weeks later, in my tragedy, I am surrounded by love, phone calls, text messages, prayer, and casseroles and chocolate cake on my front porch. 

I spent today at the hospital, being given the most compassionate care I’ve ever had by a large medical team.  Each individual led with kindness, confident it did not diminish his or her professional prowess. I have never seen anything like it.  Everyone from the (free) valet to the admitting team, to the nurses, anesthetists and attending treated me with patience and care. My little girls spent the day playing dress up, having their nails painted and being loved by a new friend in my neighborhood and her sweet children—they were so excited about their day they forgot to kiss me goodbye when I dropped them off.  My friend encouraged me to take my time, take care of myself, and let them stay as long as we needed them to.  My dad the superhero went foraging for organic milk and humanely-raised chicken nuggets and various other sundries that are likely not on his usual list, after spending the day being confused for my husband and communicating steadily with him.  Daniel said, “I wouldn’t have made it through this morning without your dad.”  I reminded him I wouldn’t have either.

Our loss is profound.  We have already been grieving for nearly 10 days. And I’m sure it will continue.  I will never start a sentence about this type of pain with “at least” or say, “everything happens for a reason,” because, frankly, I think that’s a crock.  Whoever said everything happens for a reason?  Can God redeem everything that happens to fulfill a greater purpose?  Absolutely.  Do we always get to know what that purpose is?  Not a chance.  But that doesn’t mean that down here we aren’t subject to some brutal, seemingly random, excruciating stuff that has no apparent redeeming value.

Still, as much as I’ve felt like an emotional hostage during this week of waiting— living some shell of a life— I am grateful for it.  In this week, I allowed my family to care for me, and they really showed up.  I let myself need.  I allowed others to shower me in grace that is so humbling that I’m running out of words to thank my new friends for it. For that matter, I learned I have friends that I can’t wait to return the favor for, should they ever be in need.  I was reminded of how loving and compassionate and accepting that man I married is. This week I really saw my children.  I cherished them, held them close, breathed them in and nuzzled them and marveled over their very existence, their precious selves.   I lived every moment with a raw and bitter pain, and though I had moments of numbness that will likely recur, all the other feelings seemed to get stronger too.

I am sad.  So humbled.  And grateful for love I haven’t earned and never saw coming from just about every side.

Note: If you are a friend or loved one of mine and are finding out this way, I'm sorry.  Please know that writing this was cathartic for me, and, though I am open to sharing details, this is less painful than reliving the story again and again.  I love you all.