Okay, let’s get right to it and get real because I’m not even good with small talk anyway, haha! The past 17 months have been incredibly hard for me, and my family. It’s just been one of those really pressing, stretching, almost unbearable seasons for us. So many unknowns and disappointments. So. Many. Unknowns. So much waiting. So many things I was hopeful for but then lost it as quick as it came because it didn’t go the way I thought it would…and honestly that’s just life.  Listen, your girl was struggling over here! And when I look back, as hard as those seasons are, that’s where the really good stuff comes from. And I can only say that because I’ve been through my share of those seasons. I can’t say that I’m completely out of this one, but oh I can see glimpses. The majority of the weight has lifted and I’m so thankful for that. I didn’t quite realize how much weight I had been carrying around with me, until it lifted. I’ve learned so much in this time, and one of those things is how differently I carry stress than Jake does. As a woman, I feel things so much differently than he does, and I’ve really had to learn how that dynamic plays into this whole season. My tendency is to isolate. When things get hard, I don’t want to share, I don’t want to create or write or do any of the things I feel called to do. And honestly, that’s where I’ve been for a long time. That’s why I haven’t written anything because it all felt too personal, too raw and too exposed. And honestly that’s shocking for me because I am such an open book. If you sat down on my couch, and we drank coffee together, chances are I would tell you all that I was going through, but there was something keeping me from putting pen to paper, or fingers to a keyboard. This was a new discovery about myself. And it’s something I’ve had to work through and fight to overcome. So here I am, putting my big girl panties on, pushing through because I just know there is someone out there isolating in their own hard season. 

If you’ve read through my other blog posts, you know that we lost a daughter almost six years ago. It was the hardest season we had ever gone through. But we got through it. And somehow we were different. I don’t want to use the word “better” because that implies that maybe we didn’t need her or miss her, but goodness we do every single day. Somehow we came out through it all more whole than before because if you give all of your broken pieces to God, he will put you back together, better than how you were before. I don’t know how anyone can endure such loss and grief without The Father. I hate that I lost her and wish daily that she was here, but I’m not blind to all the lives that were changed because of her short life that was lived, or the change it produced in my husband and me.  And Jake and I had to remember how God got us through  that  season as we walked through  this  season, and honestly are still walking through. When God gave me the scripture in Luke,  “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”  It was a promise. A promise to remember that if he cares for the growing lilies in the field, will he not care for his own child? And in this season, I’ve had to look back on my that season and remember all the ways he cared for me. All the ways he picked me up and literally carried me through those hard days, and if He did it then, would He not do it again? Consider the Lilies. Consider  Lily. Consider how he got us through losing Lily, remember how he did those things?… He will do it again. No matter what you are going through, remember those things that he has already gotten you through and let that be the hope that you hold onto. That he is good in all seasons. Even when it doesn’t turn out like we want it to. He is always good and always faithful and working on our behalf.

Does that mean that things won’t be hard as you walk through that hard season? Nope. Sure doesn’t. It still will be hard. It will be a daily struggle to hand over your anxieties, fears, unknowns to Jesus. But I do know that we weren’t made to carry the weight of them. We are crushed under the pressure. And God uses these seasons, these trials to produce fruit in us. To produce more dependence on Him, and less dependence on ourselves. And it’s all because He knows our nature is to try and carry it all without him. Its a practice that is necessary but incredibly hard to master, at least it is for me. So I just want to encourage you, you do not have to have it all figured out. Those unknowns may stay unknown for a while longer, but I’m here to let you know if you choose to let him have all of that weight, you’ll breathe easier knowing that your future is in the hands of the only One who was ever made to hold it.