When I learned I was pregnant, in November, I often sat in stunned silence. I tried to make sense of our new timeline, our new life. I’d tell myself, “you’ve got the whole school year, and then some,” or, “the baby will come when the crepe myrtles bloom,” which, uttered in the midst of dreary, cold rain, felt oddly comforting.

School has been out for two weeks and the crepe myrtles that line so many streets in our city and decorate our backyard are bursting blush and crimson, dark pink, white, lavender and deep purple.

Nine months have flown by, and I find myself aware that the time is growing short. My mind races with all that needs to be done: lists to be made, supplies to be procured, meals to be prepared now and eaten later, tiny clothing to be washed and folded, pictures to be hung before they sit where they are for a year, closets to be organized, and—most noticeably—a POD in my driveway that needs to be emptied and taken away. Of course, that is not to mention our new closets that still don’t have doors or our foyer that is prepped for paint but remains unpainted, our “five-week” renovation bleeding into its fourth month.

This is nesting. I prepped and froze five dinners last night, in addition to the one we ate. I start some days with energy, but it wanes throughout the day. My body feels heavy and foreign; I analyze every ache and pain in my back and abdomen, mentally checking the clock for regularity. The calendar says we have twenty-three days until our baby may join us, but I feel certain that she will be here sooner than that. So, I buy and make food and try to sneak in moments with my older kids and relish opportunities to slip out—anywhere—alone, and attempt to rest during these days since sleep has been eluding me at night.
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I also find myself loitering in the doorway of our latest nursery. Once, almost ten years ago, it was ladybugs: baby pink and white, mint green and red gingham with a crib tucked into the eave, and then, two years later, it housed two babies. In two houses, we didn’t have a nursery, just a little girls’ room. Until we moved here and decorated our smallest bedroom in red and navy, with vintage cars, trucks and airplanes that our son systematically took apart or off the wall as he learned to climb. Now, our girls have moved clear across the house, to the room over the garage that has built-in beds decorated with teal, grey, coral and yellow—no sign of pink, per their request—it’s the room we always intended would one day be theirs. But I feel vaguely sad about them being so far from me. What if they need me, I think, but am then reminded that they don’t as much anymore. I still check on them each night before I go to bed, climbing the stairs to tuck in spindly limbs and standing on tiptoes to kiss flushed cheeks, and it always makes me ache. Back in our hallway, Deacon has moved to the larger room, with patchwork plaid and stars, airplanes and cars on the wall, a train table, and a nightstand filled with pirate and cowboy and superhero costumes that he loves.

And so, in the littlest room, we have a nursery again: navy and deep coral, poppies and stripes and a particularly cogent verse from Jeremiah framed on the wall: “Before you were born, I set you apart.”  I stand in the doorway at various points each day, trying to envision the tiny person that will soon inhabit that room, the thousands of diapers I will change at that table under the Bible verse; the countless hours I will spend nursing and rocking her in that chair, the songs I will sing as I pace that floor comforting this newest—and last—piece of my heart whose face I still can’t picture. And a lump rises in my throat, and I still can’t believe it.

For months we have dithered over a name. It still eludes us, days before her arrival. We think we have it down to two, but neither feels the clear answer to either of us. I hate it. I feel like I need the name to connect me to her, to help me see her, to mentally add her to our family. Annoyed with our indecision (and unwillingness to share our thought process), the other kids have named her Cleopatra and are content with that. They don’t need to picture her to love her. They don’t need to know her name. They talk about her constantly, Deacon with his hands and little face pressed against my belly, telling her to “come when you are ready.”

I feel anxious about another child, about how I will care for her well while doing right by the rest of our growing children. How will they get what they need? How will I maintain my health and sanity? Will I ever sleep?
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But this nine-month process isn’t random. Looming larger than the fear, as my body grows tired of being pregnant, I allow my mind to venture into the next few weeks. I remember the pain, the lows, the tears, the lack of sleep, yes. But I also remember the sheer joy of meeting each of my children for the first time, the high privilege of welcoming them into the world. I remember the indescribable feeling of siblings being introduced. The warm comfort of being surrounded by family who will come to meet her. I am grateful for the space of this summer, to slow and process and adjust. As I try to relish these last days being a family of five, I fold impossibly tiny clothing and imagine the little body that will rest inside of them and wrestle with what she will look like and who she will be.  I cannot wait to find out. 

I’ve noticed a theme running through my conversations with friends in a similar stage of motherhood as I am, about work. Some of my friends, like me, are fortunate enough to have a choice about whether they work. Others don’t work because they can’t afford the childcare. Others work full or part time, and wrestle with the feeling that they are never fully present anywhere, while still others are trailing military spouses who have forgone their careers for a season to raise children while they move every few years.

It’s come up a lot lately, as since March I have worked a part-time job that I wasn’t looking for. It’s not a dream job. It’s definitely not great timing. And yet, after several hilariously direct conversations with my potential employer, I ended up going for it.
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In the week I was learning and mulling, I sat in a circle of women, mostly mothers and one young newlywed, and fielded this question: “Christina, do you ever regret staying home with your kids?”

It’s an interesting one whose answer is more complicated than it seems on the surface. Short answer: Of course not. But do I miss work? Absolutely. I miss tackling problems that can be solved, feeling proficient at something, making money, having my work (and, sometimes, very existence) validated. I miss going to work sometimes, which this part-time-from-home solution does nothing to solve, but which I’m not looking to solve at this moment. Naturally, the perks of being able to stay home with my children are numerous. I’m available for field trips and sick days; I’m there every day when my girls get off the bus. I get to go to a mom’s group, a morning Bible study and playdates; I get to read stories every afternoon before nap time; I get to be outside on perfect days and take impromptu trips to the park or the beach; I get to have coffee or lunch with friends on occasion; I get to go to Trader Joe’s on a Tuesday morning instead of with the masses on Saturday afternoons or weekdays after five.
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But do I worry about the gap in my resume and experience? Definitely. Our workplace culture—in general— isn’t kind to mothers. I remember fielding the insinuation, when I had two babies and worked full time, that someone else was raising my children. And since I’ve been home, I’ve sometimes felt the accusation that I’m somehow “wasting” my time, education, experience or talents by being home. That I’m not living up to my “potential.”

​Since I started working in March, my house is mostly a mess most of the time. I have said no to things I would have rather done. I have run out of coffee on several occasions; I ran out of milk on my husband’s birthday and had to borrow some from our next door neighbor so he could have coffee when he woke up. I haven’t seen the bottom of any of our hampers in nearly three months. I have fed my children differently than I’d prefer more often than I’d prefer. I’ve spent a small fortune on fill-in-the-gap childcare. I haven’t done a properly planned-out grocery shopping trip, and I have dragged my son on errands when he should have been napping because I couldn’t waste my kid-free time on shopping.

But also, I have been reminded that I am competent. I have skills, knowledge and abilities that make me a desirable employee. I can exhibit a level of professionalism on the phone that belies the fact that I’m sitting at a desk in my cluttered laundry room/office, praying my child stays enthralled with the show he’s watching since he is skipping his nap today.

I model behaviors for my children every day, and while I obviously feel that staying home with my children is a high calling and worthy use of my time, I am excited to show them—especially my daughters—that women are more than just what they are able to do for others. Sure, I model this in how I carve out time for myself and my passions and friends, but I am excited to show them, now that they are old enough to notice, that this can apply to work as well.

Now more than ever, I am embracing what I’ve always known to be true: there is no right way. This might work well for us for now, for the duration of this contract. When our little girl arrives this summer, it will not. I reserve the right to shift, and I am grateful for the freedom I have to change my mind. I am grateful for an employer who, though she cannot relate to being a mother, recognizes the need mothers have for flexibility in their work options and does not see this as a liability.  I wish more employers realized the upside of hiring women in this season of life—of offering them something other than an all-or-nothing proposition.

​Absolutely, I recognize that having this to wrestle over at all is in itself a privilege that not many are afforded. If you find yourself in that place, without options, I hope you never for a minute allow yourself to feel guilt or condemnation for your situation. Whether you work by necessity, choice, or some combination of the two, or whether you’re home because you have to be, because you want to be, or a little of both, I hope you find rest in the knowledge that you are doing the best you can for your family, and that is always enough.  I don’t know whether my choice was wise or ill-timed, but I’m working to navigate it with as much poise as I can muster, and I’m proud of the effort if not always the results. And I’m maybe illogically looking forward to a couple months from now, when work falls away and focusing all of my efforts on welcoming our newborn will—in some ways—feel like a relief. ​

Sometimes, as a stay-at-home mom, and more recently as a work-from-home mom, my world can feel small. Days used to drag by, and now they can buzz past, filled with work and tending to and carting around children and managing the house in between. It can be hard to feel like I’m making an impact beyond the walls of our home. There is a temptation—and even well-intended external pressure sometimes—to fill any white space with activities that feel more “meaningful,” that look more like “ministry.”

For several weeks, our house has been a partial construction zone. It would be a hard sell to tell you we’ve been roughing it, but because of the nature of our remodel, we and all our belongings have completely vacated the part of the house we usually sleep in. Aside from my middle-of-the-night treks downstairs to the bathroom, my son’s inability to nap in that room, and that there is clutter seemingly everywhere, life goes on as usual.

These are temporary annoyances, but we’ve found ourselves with unexpected opportunities to host guests. Let me be clear: we love hosting guests. It is, we believe, in large part our family’s mission. When we bought our first house, a narrow Baltimore rowhome with little over 1,000 square feet, we relished throwing cramped parties and dinners. I found surprising joy in changing sheets and washing towels, in placing fresh flowers in our modest office/guest room. I learned how to make big breakfasts. I discovered a side of myself I hadn’t known before.

From there, we lived in rented houses, looking forward to the day when our space might match our desire to welcome people in. So, when we found this house, despite its needed updates, we fell in love. It is nearly three times the size of our first home, but that’s not its appeal. This home, with its rambling layout and cozy nooks, its shady backyard, front porch and pool, lends itself to company. A  lot of company. As we contemplated making an offer, we talked about why we wanted the house.

“We don’t need a house this big,” I told Daniel. “But it feels like a calling. Like, if we get this house, the answer is pretty much always yes.” He agreed.

We have joyfully carved pumpkins in the back yard with seventy of our closest friends and neighbors. We have hosted pool parties, planned and impromptu, roasted marshmallows with a crowd, tucked kids in on the floor because grown-ups occupied all the beds; we have hosted Easter and Thanksgiving and Christmas, parents and siblings, cousins and old friends we rarely get to see. I’ve had the joy of hosting dinner parties, a paint night and first-day-of-school mimosas for my mom’s group, and every year a week before Christmas we cram twenty people from Daniel’s company into our sun room, which we do our best to transform into a wonderland.

This house, and our belief that it comes at a cost—that God has asked us to be generous with it, and share it sacrificially—has been such a beautiful gift. It has taught us so much about others, ourselves and operating within our gifts. Saying yes to generosity with this house, it turns out, means saying no to other good, worthy things. We can't open our home to others if we're never here. We've had to be available.

“Love is not a victory march; it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah,” Leonard Cohen wrote in one of his two versions of the song “Hallelujah.” And, mostly, I think that’s true.
 
Sometimes, it’s wave after wave of circumstance that chokes out romance or the feeling part of love, laying bare just the faithfulness.
 
Sometimes, it feels like work—like the conscious choosing, over and over again—yes, I choose you, even though it doesn’t feel particularly good at this moment, I still choose you.
 
Sometimes it feels crowded—with children and family, with work and stress, with others—so that even the choosing feels far off.
 
All this is true. And it’s all worth mentioning because, God forbid, you’re in a season like this with your love and you feel alone. Don’t ever believe the lie that it’s always supposed to feel good, that these aren’t all real and necessary seasons of lifelong love. They just are. And if you haven’t hit one yet, just hold on and you will, then keep holding on through it.

​Because sometimes? Sometimes love feels like a high.

Sometimes it feels like four nights away in a too-big-for-us bed with white-sugar sand and the Gulf of Mexico just out our window. Like roaming around an unfamiliar island, following behind him on a borrowed bike, not caring where we end up. Sometimes it’s wandering through a bookstore, for myself, but losing him in the stacks and then being shocked at the books he chose for himself. It’s reveling in a surprise, twelve years in. It’s talking and dreaming across the table, along the beach, across the covers, and then his familiar hand on my thigh from the lounge chair beside me and, “Does it get any better than this, my love?” Sometimes it's peaceful silence.

It’s convincing him to come to a yoga class and, when asked by the retired ladies beside us if we had just gotten married, realizing that, as a matter of fact yes, we had. Just ten years ago, almost eleven. Sometimes it really is these things, then returning to our house of giddy children, anxious to scoop them up and squeeze them, to kiss their cheeks and memorize their faces, just as they are, right this minute. It’s a red tablecloth and paper-heart Valentines in little, dollar-store mailboxes on our breakfast table. 

It’s both staid and exhilarating, enduring and fleeting, stoic and bursting with passion, searing and the salve. In all of these seasons, and through all of these seasons, it remains the greatest gift of my life.

I will throw my arms wide with gratitude to receive this season, knowing we will need these gifts to sustain us when leaner, harder times inevitably come. Whatever season you find yourself in today, I hope you find rest in the knowledge that you are loved.

I didn’t want another baby.

Two and a half years after Deacon was born, after praying and hoping and waiting for peace about the future of our family, that’s what I had decided. Though we still hoped for a fourth child, we had grown excited and passionate about our plan to (eventually) adopt an older child.
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I had let go, had accepted that I would never again rejoice over the miraculous, horses’ hooves sound of a prenatal heartbeat, never feel a child move within me again, never again feel the high of childbirth, never witness the precious first meeting of new siblings again, never nurse another newborn to sleep, feeling like the only two people awake in the world. Because I had caught glimpses of the next stage for our family, and they excited me.

So, twenty months after giving our swing and baby girl clothes to our new niece, ten months after giving our crib, changing table and practically everything else to our new nephew, five months after deciding we were done with babies, and one day after returning from a weekend trip to a new city as a family of five in which we stayed in a cool, downtown apartment, ate out and visited museums successfully and with joy, I stood in the bathroom staring in disbelief at a positive pregnancy test.

No. This just couldn’t be. This wasn’t in the plan.

I jammed the test in a drawer and continued making dinner, fed my three kids, and waited for Daniel to come home. We tackled bedtime together, and then I sat on the couch staring into the distance.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked.

“No.” I admitted, starting to cry.

I cried for a shocking sixth pregnancy ten years after my first one, for the feeling that I was too old to do it all again. I cried for the peace I had finally made with my body. I cried for the space and opportunity to find myself that felt like it was slipping through my fingers. I cried for my baby, who surely deserves a mother whose first reaction to his or her impending arrival isn’t despair. I cried for my friends who have struggled for years to conceive, to carry a baby to term or to celebrate their baby’s first steps or birthday; I cried with grief for them and in shame that I would be blessed with a child I hadn’t even wanted. The news of this pregnancy felt like a heavy weight; I mourned for the loss of what I thought was next for our family, for my marriage, for myself.

I felt guilty about all of this, but I fought hard against that feeling. Because, the truth is, I had to mourn those things first. Shaming myself out of those feelings wouldn't make them go away, wouldn't hurry my acceptance. I had to acknowledge and mourn what felt like loss before I could accept and embrace this unexpected addition. 

Maybe most importantly, I reached out to three friends who had been in my exact predicament. They were empathetic and gentle, patient and kind. They gave me wise advice, telling me to pour my heart out to my God, to journal, to allow myself to feel all the feelings, and to find safe places to talk about them. One friend advised me to sit—uncomfortably if necessary—with the knowledge that hope may take her time getting to me, but that she would definitely come.

Hope will come, she had said. I wriggled under the discomfort of how intimate those words felt, from what pain they must have been borne.

Daniel and I handled the news differently in those first weeks, both of us grateful for friends who let us process without fear or shame. But still, feeling so disconnected during such a pivotal time for our marriage and family disoriented me.

I needed some time, before people started learning of my pregnancy and giving me the side-eye, asking whether I “knew how that happens,” before strangers in the grocery store started asking about my family planning methods, or whether my kids were “all mine” and “all from the same father.” So, I told a few friends but held the news close to my heart, where I could protect it and try to accept it. 

Ten weeks in, on Christmas Day, we told our kids. The girls were ecstatic from the start: Mirabella can’t wait for another baby to care for, and Emerie is thrilled to be moving to “the big kid team,” instead of being the middle child. Deacon, despite his first reaction of, “I don’t want a baby in ‘dis house,” now lifts my shirt to kiss my belly each morning when he wakes up and at night before bed. “I wuv you, wittle baby,” he whispers.  He informed me that God “opened da speaker in his mouf” and “teached him” that this baby would be a boy. But we have to wait a little longer to see.

This baby intrigues me. More than even with the other three, I feel fully confident that this baby is meant for our family. Just as he or she is, no matter what. No amount of planning on our part could have brought him or her to us or kept him or her away. It is a disruption of the scariest—but also most exciting—kind. I can’t wait to learn who we needed so badly that our life needed to be upended. I can’t wait to know who we would have missed out on if things had gone according to our blessed plans. This baby is already teaching us so much.

So, now we map out the shuffling of space to make room for one more, thankful to have the space to shuffle. We gratefully source and accept lovingly used and offered baby essentials, knowing— this time more than ever—that babies don’t need that many things; they just need love. And, imperfect as we five are, we’ve got that in spades.  Even though I fear how I will manage it all, how I will give everybody what they need, and how I will manage to find what I need in the margins, I watch my growing belly with anticipation, excited to welcome our newest family member. I look around at our loving marriage, our growing children, our mostly happy home. And I feel overwhelmed by the privilege of bringing one more child into the fold this summer. No, we didn’t want another baby. But maybe we needed one.

This year, for me and most people I know, has been unexpected. Personally and collectively, there are changes we thought were coming that didn’t materialize, changes on their way we never saw coming, and meanwhile it feels like the world is burning. In the midst of the swirling, I have been quiet, still. Even before the chaos mounted, I felt mostly like I didn’t have anything to say. Maybe because there is so much to say, so many people talking, and so few apparently listening.
 
This year I’ve listened. I’ve waited. I’ve wondered. I’ve questioned. I’ve prayed. And, honestly, I’ve reeled, raged, lamented and mourned. The injustices at home and abroad, the deep divisions within our country, the fear and hatred of the other, the direction I worry our country is taking, the terror attacks, the utterly evil treatment of civilians in Syria, the baffling behavior of some of my fellow believers—they have left me speechless.
 
In all of it, I have felt confounded and at times wayward, but not alone. I have found camaraderie and friendship. This year, as always, there has been too much good to list and certainly far more than I deserve. I keep reminding myself that, because the twists and turns this year has taken have caught me off guard, that doesn’t mean my God is surprised.

​Last year I sang at my neighbor’s funeral, as I have done at probably a dozen funerals and weddings previously, not to mention hundreds of church services and performances over the last thirty years. But when another neighbor saw me stand, she grabbed my arm; “Christina, what are you doing?” she asked, looking shocked. I just smiled at her and kept walking to the stage. That she didn’t know this about me did not make it a surprise: I knew who I was and was operating within that knowledge. And so it is with God. I didn’t know what this year would hold for our family. I didn’t know what it would hold for our country. But that doesn’t mean anything has actually changed, doesn’t mean God is asleep or caught off guard. Yes, maybe the world is burning. But yes, God is still on the throne.

​As I’ve studied and pondered and listened this year, feeling like I’ve lost my voice, I have also found myself lost in the words of others, and music especially. In October, faced with a day that would decide a lot about the fate of our family and aware that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it, I took myself to the beach and listened to music as I gazed over the waves. My toes in the cool water, hot tears streaming down my cheeks, I ignored the staring onlookers and soaked in The Whistles and the Bells’ “Canary Cage:”

“So long I’ve locked the lion up in my canary cage
Scared of any thought that could not navigate my maze
But cancer feeds and war it bleeds
And sometimes I can barely breathe for the toxicity of my doubt”
 
Yes. I’m not negative or crazy for recognizing the insanity around me. The pain, the fear, the anger, the utter lack of order that appears to have dominated this year—they are all really there. I am not imagining them. You are not imagining them. And yet, if we call ourselves believers, we are to believe anyway. We are to speak truth to power anyway. We are to defend the oppressed anyway. We are to love our neighbors—all of them—anyway. We are—and this one may be the hardest for me to come by this year—to hope anyway.
 
The song goes on:
“But I’ll be damned if I’m a prisoner to my circumstance;
A spineless faithless clown
For you will not let me down
No, you will not let me down”
 
Have you felt let down this year? You’re in good company. Maybe you have been let down. Maybe I have been. But not by my God, and that’s the part I need to reconcile.

This year, for maybe the first time, I can't separate the political from the personal. It’s no secret; I’m not a believer in the new administration. Maybe you are, and if so, I sincerely appreciate you reading anyway. You’ll never hear me say I believe God appointed Trump, just as I wouldn’t have said that about any president, ever. I am skeptical at best. I’m not saying I’m hoping for the best from him; I’m actually not. I am expecting he will continue to be who he has always shown us he is.

But as I would have been no matter who won, I am hopeful good can come anyway.

I’ve never hoped in the president—or any man—so this isn’t a shift for me. It isn’t radical or disrespectful of the office or any such thing. I am placing my faith where it belongs: high above the office of the presidency.

But I don’t feel this hope relieves me of any obligation to be involved in the process of improving our circumstances. This coming year we will continue to prayerfully give to a variety of organizations that we believe advance causes that are near to the heart of God; we are loving and serving the people around us; we pray continually to learn how we can do more with what we have and do it better.
 
Sometimes silence is appropriate, necessary. In the last month, I’ve changed the way and frequency with which I use social media. For me, this has been a very positive thing.  I have been more present with the people around me, more introspective, less angry over things that just don’t matter, more invested in things that do.
 
As we approach Christmas, I find myself absorbing the wonder of it, the sheer, desperate, illogical hope of it. I'm seeing it anew through my tired eyes. And in the new year, I’m hoping I will regain my voice. I feel I have been faithful to the silence, to the waiting. But I feel ready to move through it, and I’m hopeful I’ll get the chance.
 
And you? If you’re calling good riddance to this year over your shoulder, hopeful but bruised, allow me to toss your name in with mine:
 
“Oh, Father I believe,
Oh, help my unbelief.”
 
When that weary, stripped-bare hope is all we can muster, I have to believe it’s hope enough.
 
I wish you and yours rest, peace and hope this Christmas. 
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{Listen to the Whistles and the Bells excellent “Canary Cage,” here.}

Where I grew up, there was a popular bumper sticker that encouraged us to “Choose Civility.” Always it made me laugh: Really? Is civility the best we can do?

I don’t know what I expected the last time I wrote to you and hit publish with a lump in my throat. I figured I would hit a nerve; I knew I would ruffle feathers. And no, that’s not why I did it. But yes, I knew I had to do it anyway. But I didn’t expect to be stopped in Target by a friend whose sharing of my post caused confrontations in her actual life. I wasn’t prepared for the messages from people who worried their comments online had offended me, or those defending me against other people’s comments, or those worried that the disagreement that compelled me to write the piece had cost me a real-life friendship.

I’ll save you the suspense on that one: It hasn’t. But since then, I’ve been scratching my head, wondering, what can we learn here?

For one thing, I fear we have all but forgotten how to disagree with grace. This is me, raising my hand. Me too. Because here’s something I know to be true about politics: About many things that matter, we all see the same problems; we just disagree about the possible causes and solutions. It can be hard when people don’t think like you do. I know it is for me. It is especially frustrating when I really like the person in question, which leads me to Elizabeth.

She is brilliant and kind, sensitive and genuine. She’s the kind of girl about whom my dad quotes While You Were Sleeping and says, “You don’t know whether to hug her or arm wrestle her.” In my experience, you don’t have to wonder what she’s thinking. Maybe she isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. And maybe that’s why she reminds me of me. But the older I get, the deeper my appreciation for real people who tell it to me straight. But honesty isn’t the same as being a jerk. And the difference is what I fear we’ve lost (and what Elizabeth hasn't).

I watched the video, you know the one, and felt outraged, though not at all surprised. I always knew Donald Trump was an insecure sexist just the same way you do. He keeps showing us that. So, it wasn’t those words that undid me, wasn’t those words that made me relive my scariest, most degrading moments. I wasn’t sure why I felt hit so hard.

But then a friend posted what should have been an innocuous meme on Facebook—because what was one more?—and I finally broke. I unleashed my frustration in the form of disagreement that hijacked her post. I chose my words carefully. I was respectful. And I apologized for the way I went about it, but I couldn’t apologize for my words. Here’s what I really meant.

I’m angry about the silent men and the deflecting women. I’m utterly baffled that a self-respecting, well-educated, God-fearing man or woman could meet news of those reprehensible words—themselves an admission of repeated, habitual sexual assault—with, “Yeah, but:”

“Yeah, but Clinton isn’t any better…”

“Yeah, but look at what Hillary did when Bill got caught…”

“Yeah, but they’re just words…”

And two that bothered me the most:

“Yeah, but are we actually sure he ever assaulted anyone? Was there ever any proof?”

And, “Yeah, but how come these same women who are upset about this thought nothing of reading Fifty Shades of Grey?”

So, finally, in my own space, with all the courage I can muster, I say, “YEAH, BUT NOTHING.”

Friends, how can this be something we disagree about? What is there to debate? What he said and the actions they betray are abhorrent. Full stop. 

You want to talk about Hillary or Bill? Let’s do that. You want to talk about porn or terrible fiction? Let’s do that. But let’s not intentionally muddy the waters or detract from something that is an abomination all on its own. The consequences are too dire. Let’s not brush off an admission of guilt and demand proof of something that is always done by cowards, almost always in secret and darkness, that takes more bravery than you can imagine to bring into the light.

And by now you've guessed that this is personal, but shouldn’t my words carry more weight because of that? 

Here is where I take a deep breath and ask you to bear with me. Here is where I tell you that when I was seventeen, I was repeatedly harassed at an internship, but at first it was just words. Then one day, he grabbed me by the arm on the stairs and wouldn’t let me go. Another day soon after, he slammed me up against a wall, pinning my hands and pressing against my hips so hard that it hurt. His face so close to mine that I could feel his breath, he threatened to come to my house if I told.

I wrestled and lost sleep, but eventually I told. My parents and sponsor were enraged, but still, in front of a committee of men and women, I had to relive it all in humiliating detail. And then do you know what they asked me?

“Well, did you ask him to stop?”

Even after they admitted that I wasn’t the first to file a complaint, they explained that this was probably just a cultural misunderstanding, since he was an immigrant from the Caribbean. They moved me to a different assignment. As if I were the problem. They assured me he would be fired. "You're not going to press charges, are you?" they said. And somehow I knew, even at seventeen, there would have been no point.

When I was twenty-one, a man I barely knew entered my room while I was sleeping. No, I didn’t ask him to. No, I didn’t invite him into my bed. Yes, of course, I told him to stop. Thank God he finally did. And I carried the shame of that one for most of my adult life, as if it were mine to carry; as if I were the one who had forcefully tried to take what didn’t belong to me.

When I was twenty-five, after attending a mandatory “sensitivity training” about sexual harassment in the workplace in which a white-haired man said, “This is a waste of time. This isn't even a problem anymore," a man at work leered at me from over the top of my cubicle every day for three months. He commented on my appearance crudely, daily, and asked me out repeatedly, though he knew I was married. He told me it was a shame I hadn’t had the chance to “experience him” before I got married. I was the only woman in the department, let alone the office. I hesitated to say anything, knowing it was my word against his, that I had no proof, and that, likely, I’d have to continue to see him every day and even be alone with him regardless of whether I spoke up. Finally, hesitantly, I told the management.

Again, they needed direct quotes, vivid, humiliating details. They interrogated me. They informed me there was nothing they could do “until something happens.” Until something happens, they said.

“Well, did you ask him to stop?” they asked before moving me—not him—to a different office. Mysteriously, a month or two later, my position was no longer needed and I was let go. As if I were the problem. He wasn’t fired until years later, and even then it wasn’t because of the dozens of women who had reported him for sexual harassment; it was because he had lied on his resume.

This is to speak nothing of the other men who found their ways into my room when I was sleeping, though thankfully I was able to yell them out of there. This is to speak nothing of the hands that found their way onto my butt or breasts while in a crowd.

So, when you casually dismiss Trump’s gloating over habitual sexual assault as “locker room banter,” it may be unwitting, but you are complicit in the problem.

When you detract from the horrific nature of not only his words but what it means he has done by changing the subject to someone else's wrongdoing, you may not even realize it, but you are complicit in the problem.

When you try to compare Trump’s words—about repeatedly touching women without their consent—to a fictional series about a woman involved in BDSM with her consent, you are complicit in the problem. My sexual assaults and harassment had one thing in common: I did not give my consent. I can and did choose not to read Fifty Shades of Grey. I did not have that choice when it came to assault. No one does.

And when someone seeking our country’s highest office can get away with these words, when you give him a pass, though you might never dream of doing so, you are telling me, my daughters and yours that our experience doesn’t matter, that our safety doesn’t matter, that our very humanity doesn’t matter.

I know that’s not what you said. You would never say that; of course you wouldn't. But for me and so many millions of other women who have suffered abuse, that’s what we heard.

Good men and women, for the love of God, please be willing to listen to others whose experiences don’t look like yours; please trust them when they tell you what it was like, even if it is hard for you to hear. I promise you, it’s harder for them to say. Please be willing to consider that your words may not be communicating the way you think they are.

I’m walking away from this week feeling bruised. For every prominent Christian leader or conservative who spoke boldly, there seemed to be many more people I actually know who made excuses or encouraged distractions. I’m choosing to unfollow people I like, for the sake of my heart. I’m choosing to post this, the bravest thing I’ve ever written, instead of participating in debates on Facebook. I’m choosing to remind my children—and especially my daughters—at every opportunity that they are the only bosses of their bodies and they alone can determine how and when and by whom they are touched. I am reminding them it is never, ever rude to tell someone to stop. And I am shifting my focus away from “no means no” and teaching my children—and especially my son—to respect the bodies and wishes of others and to look and ask for consent.

It wasn't my intention to make you feel bad, to call you out or to make you angry. I really don't care who you're voting for. I know your opinion of me may change after reading this. Though my husband holds my hand as I launch this into the world, admittedly, I am risking the humiliation of having my father, grandfather, brothers, uncles and friends read this. I am risking having former and potential future employers read this. I’m laying a lot on the line.

But I know who I am: I am loved, treasured, supported and whole. Any potential risk is worth it to me, because I know there are other women unable to share their stories, women who desperately need you to understand that words matter: his, mine and yours.

Predawn this morning, somehow I knew. Even though I had never marked the date down, I opened my eyes and knew that today marked a year since your passing.

Later, without prompting, a text from your husband confirmed the same.

A whole year. And so much has changed.

Most importantly, you’re getting another grandson any day. You would have been over the moon; I know you would have cherished him exactly the way you always did his big brother.

Your devoted husband—what can I say? Surely you knew about his quiet strength. But did you expect him to fulfill those last wishes you said on a whim? Did you think he would brave that lonely journey to Hawaii to lay you to rest? Probably you knew he would have done anything for you. But did you think he would be able to find so much beauty there, tangled amidst all the memories and pain?

Did you expect him to carry on, following the same path you had always planned, but alone? I wish you could have seen him fixing up the house to sell, the way he cared so deeply about the people who would buy it, how he proudly showed them every detail, like how you carved your initials on the bottom of the first bath tub that was finally yours. I wish you could have seen the way your loss brought him closer to your children. How the neighborhood and family gathered around him before he left, to hug him and send him off with love.

You would be so proud of the way he has taken care of himself this year. Oh, I thought of you often as I fussed over him, making sure he had more to eat than just salad or microwaved burritos. As the weeks went by, he not only accepted help, but he even asked for it when he needed it. He did not allow himself too much time for retreat, but sought community and friendship and support. He began attending church and serving the people there faithfully.

​But please don’t think he just moved on, no way. He has mourned for you; he has grieved you beautifully. Of course it wouldn’t surprise you to know he hasn't shied away from his tears. He hasn't let the fear of them hold him back from sharing memories of you, from wondering aloud about his future, from expressing how much he misses you. I’m sure you knew this deep in your bones, but you were his beloved. His sun rose and set with you, so naturally his world has been darker for your departure. But he has used this great loss to propel him to love, to kindness, to generosity and even to joy. I cried the day I first saw him taking a bike ride. He has taken his time relearning how to live his life, how to do things he enjoyed again despite his steady heartache, but he is learning again.
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Our kids still miss you. You were the first person they loved and lost. You’ve made them wonder about God and Heaven, and they talk about it—and you. They remember how kind you were to them; I remember how your face always lit up when you saw them. I will never forget the gift you gave me in the middle of a particularly hectic afternoon: a dish towel with the words “Pardon the mess, the children are making memories.” You were always quick to remind slow down and see the beauty of this stage of life, and your husband now does the same.

“I just don’t like my husband sometimes,” I confessed. “Sometimes, the ways in which he’s so different from me just seem to block out all the things I love. But I’m learning I can’t trust those feelings. And in those times, I need to make sure I’m investing my energy back into our marriage and not outside of it, and that I just stick it out. Because for all those times, there are also the ones where I lie beside him at night and think I couldn’t possibly love anyone more. There’s truth to both the highs and the lows. One couldn’t exist without the other. So, I enjoy those high times and soak them in without letting myself believe they are meant to stay. I remind myself of them in the lows. And we just keep coming back.”

She waved her scissors as she talked, “I can’t tell you how much better you’re making me feel right now,” she said. “I thought something was wrong with us, that maybe we were going to get a divorce. But what you’re saying makes sense.”

These last couple weeks we’ve seen a lot of progress in one of our children, who has started therapy. But then we hit a few-day snag where things got harder and seemed to regress. Our girls have been emotional, one in tears, the other screaming, and I heard Daniel say to them, “You can’t trust your feelings right now.” I wondered if it seemed odd to them, given how much time we spend talking about recognizing, naming and talking about feelings, but I have to believe that’s true.

In the thick of my daughter’s rage, when she is swinging and spewing venom, my feelings are a liar.

When my other daughter is overtired and in need of attention, when she cries with a turn of the wind, my feelings are a liar.

When my son defiantly, deliberately scrapes his metal fork across my heirloom kitchen table, the one my grandfather gave me, my feelings are a liar.

And when my husband, overworked, stressed, losing sleep and seemingly never home long enough, chooses to relax in the home I have made instead of helping me with that moment’s task, my feelings are a liar.

Never have I known the truth of this more clearly than in this season. I find myself poured out, so many times over, throughout every day. Always thinking ahead of what everyone else will need, making lunches and coffee at night for the morning, muffins when I wake up, dinner in the middle of the day. Filling my blocks of time with tasks to fill drawers and cabinets, not to mention cleaning them, fill backpacks and lunchboxes, shape minds and fill hearts. And if I’m not careful, those feelings creep in like they did this week: There’s nothing that’s yours. No one even appreciates what you’re doing. You are no more than the sum of what you are able to do for others.

These thoughts are always a sign that something needs to adjust. This week hasn’t gone the way I intended. This day isn’t going the way I intended. I thought Deacon would wake up well and we’d head to the campground to surprise our family. And instead, Deacon and I found ourselves still in our jammies at 10:30, watching Sesame Street while he whined. He’s not well enough to go anywhere. And so we stay put.

 And, while I’m grateful to finally be in a stage of life where I have the flexibility to pivot when someone dear to me is in need, sometimes the lack of control over my own days wears on me.

So, earlier this week when Daniel said, “What do you mean you’re fine? Just fine?” and I heard those words creep out, I knew I needed to adjust.