2020.

When the sun came up this morning, everything looked the same.

The laundry from yesterday still needs to be folded, dishes need to be washed, and the driveway needs to be plowed again. 

We still have one daughter in heaven and another fighting a nap in the crib meant for her big sister. (4 teeth breaking through at the same time = a heaping pile of nope).

My mother still exists only in picture frames, boxes, and memories.

We haven’t found our way out of the valley just yet and maybe we never will, but this morning something was different.

The arrival of this new year carried no anxious anticipation or deep dread. We walked through the steps of our standard routine, quietly, simply, the air filling our lungs in no special way.

This morning simply ‘was’.

Maybe it’s the consistently adequate amount of sleep I get now (1000 praise hands for this holy miracle), or maybe it’s therapy (1000 more praise hands), but I’m beginning to feel as if I’m coming up for air after being on the verge of drowning for over three years. The tightness that has gripped every cell in my body since 2016 has started to slowly unwind.

For the first time in three years I can look back over the past year and say that beauty outweighed pain. Being able to parent Lora has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Parenting after loss is a heady cocktail of heavy grief and intense joy, but a glimpse of heaven shines through when that little girl smiles. And Norah continues to blow us away with the impact her life has on this world.

If I had to choose one word to describe our 2019, it would be “rest” (sand and sunshine not included).

2019 was like attempting naptime with a toddler during a party after ingesting what should be an illegal amount of sugar and having thrown any hint of routine out the window hours ago.

God carried me to my room, shut the door, and turned the lights off in 2019.  I fought Him tooth and nail for a long time; it took until the end of September for me to even consider loosening my grip. 

I was running on fumes, frantically grasping at an idealized version of life that I had idolized for so long. Grief, parenting after loss, and the impossible game of work/life balance cost me 110%. 

God patiently held me as I flailed about, crying and beating his chest, fully convinced I was capable of doing it all and that rest was for the weak.

As always, He knew better.

Once I finally began to slow down, I saw just how right he was.

This year, I want to relax into the plans God has for our family, faithfully and obediently leaning into the calling He continues to reveal and refine. He isn’t deterred by the valley – He sees it at fertile ground. The same God who took dust and breathed life into it holds this weary soul in His hands like clay in the hands of the potter.

2017 began with the heavy, stressful anticipation of Norah’s birth. 
2018 began with walking the road to Mom’s death.
2019 began with the anxious anticipation of Lora’s birth.

This year began quietly, simply, peacefully.

Take a deep breath.
Revival is in the air.