It was late spring and after 10:00 p.m. when Jake suggested we get out of our apartment and go for a walk. I don’t remember any specifics about this particular night except that we ended up sitting together on a bench while I cried and Jake—wordless and steady—held his arm around my shoulders as they shook with each sob. The next morning we were set to board a plane that would eventually lead us to Africa, and I was completely convinced we were going to die at some point on this trip.

It sounds dramatic, I know, but my skills as a worst-case scenarioist have always been next level. I figured if the plane didn’t go down, something would happen to us on the ground, but if everything proved fine there, well, there was still the flight home to get through. My mind raced, and my chest tightened, and, still, I knew I would go.

A few weeks earlier, I had told a woman at my church I was feeling anxious about the trip and she assured me that I didn’t need to worry. “Everything will be fine,” she said. “You’ll see.” While well-intentioned, this encouragement didn’t actually offer me any peace because I knew two things: She was unable to predict the future, and all the things I was anxious about, while unlikely, could happen. They were actual possibilities.

A.W. Tozer once famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” So, in the midst of my fear and unrest, I took a close look at my feelings, and I asked myself what I thought about God. If the “worst” was to come true, would I still trust him? Would I still believe he is good?

\\\

In John 11, Jesus got word from his friends Mary and Martha that their brother, Lazarus, was sick. Jesus was, at the time, in another town, and he waited there for two days before going to see them in Bethany. By the time he arrived, Lazarus had already died—his body buried in the tomb for four days. Martha greeted Jesus before Mary, but they each said the exact same thing: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” To Martha, Jesus spoke about resurrection and belief, but he didn’t have words for Mary. Instead, when he saw her weeping, “he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” And then when they took him to the tomb, Jesus wept with Mary and the other mourners. A few verses later, Lazarus walked out of the tomb, wrapped in linen burial cloths but very much alive. “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” Jesus had asked Martha. It seems safe to assume that this encounter with Jesus solidified their faith in him.

There’s a small detail I left out of the beginning of the story—a single word I have been thinking about constantly since I read this account last week. Right after Jesus heard Lazarus was sick, he said to his disciples, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Then, John includes these two sentences: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

So. Jesus loved his friends, so he didn’t go to them right away. It’s tempting to want to put a “but” there, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense. When we love others, we try to spare them pain and sorrow, but the “so” remains which means it matters. Lazarus died because Jesus loved them. Even more peculiar, then, is Jesus’ response when he sees Mary. Three times before he gets to the tomb, Jesus says Lazarus will rise again. There is no suspense here for Jesus. He knows Lazarus will live. Yet still when he sees Mary, he is deeply moved by her grief and weeps with her before, moments later, calling Lazarus forth.

This story tells me two things about Jesus.

First, sometimes he allows us to experience temporary, earthly suffering because he loves us. Now I will be the first to admit that this concept is mysterious and complex and hard to swallow especially in the thick of difficult situations, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also be true. Not every prayer ends as Mary and Martha’s did, but Lazarus walking alive from his tomb reminds us that just a short time later, Jesus did the same. His defeat of death is our hope, and anything that solidifies our belief in the resurrection and the glory of God is for our eternal good.

But goodness and difficulty aren’t mutually exclusive, and Jesus also shows us in this story that we can hold both grief and hope at the same time. We are not meant to face our trials while blithely proclaiming, “Everything will be okay!” We can acknowledge pain and sadness while also trusting God’s sovereignty. This is such a kindness to us—a Savior who weeps over brokenness even though he knows everything will be made new in the end.

\\\

I have been keeping a journal for the past few weeks. As soon as I could tell the nature of the coronavirus was ever-changing and unpredictable, I knew all the specifics of this time would blur together if I didn’t take time to write them down. So every morning, I log the events of the day before: News updates, changes to our daily patterns, how we fill our time, and my feelings in the midst of it all which have been frenetic—matched to the nature of this current reality.

Friday’s pages will tell you that the kids and I watched Jake’s car pull out of the driveway, unsure of when we will see it come back toward us again. They will tell you that we decided it would be best if he stays out of our house until after the virus peaks because we know it is inevitable that he will be exposed in the emergency room. They will tell you that I wept on and off for two straight days over the uncertainty of when we’ll all get to touch him again and the fact that while many kids, years from now, will remember this strange time with fond family memories, our kids will remember it as the season when dad had to stay at least six feet away.

Like that spring night in the park eight years ago, this is another significant opportunity to ask myself what I think about God. If my newest worst-case scenarios come true, will I still trust him? Will I still believe he is good even when he allows a global pandemic to completely upend everything around me?

I will. My hope is not tied to my circumstances, and if this experience refocuses my life on the One who is in control, then it is for my ultimate good.

But, still, I will weep because acknowledging my hope doesn’t negate the brokenness of this world. I will weep for those families also separated. For those who are anxious. For those who have lost their jobs. For those who face financial hardship. For those struggling to feed their families. For those who are sick. For those who are dying. For those who will die.

I will grieve over the shattered state of our world. I will sing of the glory of God. I will hold both things in my hand knowing that Jesus does too.

At this exact moment, my computer is sitting on top of a black and yellow Sterilite tote. To my left are two cardboard boxes labeled “Master Bedroom Misc,” and directly below me on a completely different floor are 20 more boxes carefully stacked in the corner of our living room—teasing our kids to come climb on them. Unfortunately for the kids, too many of those boxes are labeled “Fragile,” and, come to think of it, the main place they play probably wasn’t the best storage option for breakable kitchenware.

In a few days, I will watch as our house is emptied of these boxes. I’ll stand in the empty rooms left in the moving wake and feel the fullness of the memories each wall holds. I’ll hear the laughter of our kids, the cries of newborn babies, and sound of Jake’s footsteps coming up the steps in the middle of the night. I’ll breathe all these memories in, and then we’ll load up the van and drive away from this house for the last time.

I’ve been trying to figure out what there even is to say about this chapter as we close and move on to something new. Where do I even begin? How can I possibly sum up everything the past four years has taught me as it’s all about to go in the rearview mirror?

I can’t in this small space, but what I can say is this: Just because something can’t last doesn’t mean it can’t last.

This story, after all, isn’t about me. It’s about God. And, whatever God does endures forever.

Take our living room, for instance, even in its boxed-up state.

A cream-colored carpet square covers most of the floor. It’s not very soft—scratchy to your face if you lay down flat on it. I know this because, when we first moved here, it wasn’t unusual for Jake to come home from a long day at work to find me facedown on the carpet, crying and defeated after another hour-long bedtime battle at the end of another long, lonely day.

The walls are empty now, save for a lone painting in the corner. The textured pink walls we never got around to painting are chipped from nail holes and scuffed from the shelves we recently took down.

Then there is the oversized red leather chair and ottoman which I have claimed as my own. They sit in the corner of the room next to a small, antique side table, stacked tall with books, bibles, and journals. They’re right across from the biggest window in our house and where I sit almost every afternoon during rest time.

We’ll leave all this behind. The carpet. The empty walls. The corner of the living room I claimed as my own. But we’ll carry with us the things that last.

Those first months in our house were filled with long days and lonely nights—made more exhausting by our two-year-old’s bedtime screams reverberating through our house. I’d never choose to go back to that season where I ended many days flat on that scratchy carpet, but I’m forever changed by the way those days pointed me toward God. The ways they taught me to rest in his unchanging nature despite the fact that everything else had changed around me. I found strength in what should have been an unbearable circumstance because I could set my feet firm in that which wouldn’t change. The carpet stays, but the lesson goes.

I’ll never look at the badly painted pink walls again, and I’m sure the nail holes and scuff marks will soon be filled in and painted over by whoever moves in next. But those walls will always remind me of the good that comes when you make the effort to put holes in your walls. Not only did we make this house our home, but we also made Cleveland our home. We’ll leave the empty walls and a lot of good people behind, but the important reminders of community and how much better life is when you let people in will stay with us.

And then there’s the chair. That comes with, but it leaves behind my corner—the place where I learned how to rest. I’ll never read my bible with the same wide open window in front of me, but I’ll carry the habit along, always grateful for the ways Cleveland taught me to lean into God’s word before anything else.

Solomon is the one who says that “whatever God does endures forever” in Ecclesiastes 3, but there’s more to his point. “Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it,” he goes on to say. “God has done it, so that people fear (see: revere, stand in awe) before him.”

This Cleveland chapter isn’t about me. It’s about the work God has done in my life—work that lasts even though the chapter doesn’t—so that people will stand in awe before him.

We are standing on the other side of four particularly challenging years and an eight year journey that very easily could have broken us. I’m so proud of our family for all that we’ve endured—for the choices we’ve made and the hard work we have accomplished. But the credit is not ours. God has done it. God has done it, so that we can stand in awe before him.

I can’t pack that up with the glass kitchenware, but, thankfully, I can carry it with me forever.

It lasts.

Before there was a swing set, there was just an empty backyard.

The first time I planted my feet in the yard was the first day we moved into our house almost four years ago. The air was warm, and the sun was setting to my right. I held a baby on my hip as I moved my eyes around with each exhale of breath. There was a wooden fence on one side and a chain link on the other. The back was lined with four tall pine trees, a fence in their own right. In the corner stood a tall oak.

Jake would hang a baby swing from a branch in the oak a few days later, our first tangible mark on the yard. A few days after that, we would add a pink plastic pool.

But in that moment, it was empty. Untrodden by tiny toddler feet. I heard Jake talking to my mom in the house behind me, and I remembered being in a different room in a different state with her just three months earlier. We had thrown a baby shower for one of my best friends, and as I stood in the corner of the room watching my friends and family mingle that day, I saw all the things I would be leaving behind with the move to Ohio. Sadness washed over me. A sadness which was quickly followed by gratitude.

As I surveyed the room, I realized that my sadness meant Jake and I had done something right. We had put down roots and immersed ourselves in our community. The move felt so hard because we had filled our lives with so much good.

My mom laughed from inside my empty kitchen and brought me back to the present.

I shifted my weight forward to my toes.

“I hope it’s hard to leave here too,” I thought to myself.

///

The second summer we lived in Ohio, Jake decided we needed more than just a baby swing in the corner of our yard.

“I’m going to build the girls a swing set,” he said to me as we sat on our front porch one night after the girls had gone to bed.

I shifted in my rocking chair, seven-months pregnant with our third baby.

“They’re both too big for that baby swing, and it’ll be nice to throw them in the backyard to play once this new baby comes,” he continued.

“That sounds great,” I said.

Not even two days later, a swing set stood tall in our backyard, built piecemeal with wood Jake had found from the actual woods. Two swings hung from the center.

“It’s a little bigger than I was expecting,” I said, craning my neck and wondering if you could see it from the road, “but I love it.” That night I sat on a green lawn chair while I listened to the girls squeal as Jake pushed them on the swings. I pressed my toes into the grass, and our backyard felt full in all the right ways.

///

“I think I’m going to add a slide to the swing set.” The girls, now 4 and 2, were swinging happily while our 9-month-old baby boy sat picking clover leaves in the grass at my feet. It was our third summer.

“It will be great. I’ll just build a platform off to the side and bring up the slide from the basement. We can even put the kiddie pool at the base and use the hose to turn it into a water slide.

The platform took him a morning to assemble, but he ran into problems with the slide.

“They’re going to break the pool unless I can slow them down before they hit it.”

And so, our bonafide water slide was born. For two summers in a row, the girls spent hours climbing up a ladder and sliding down a yellow playground slide onto a flat wooden platform which sent them into a new pink plastic pool—an upgraded version from our first summer.

The second summer of the water slide, I sat in the shade, seven-months pregnant again and noticed the wear in our backyard. There were two dirt spots under the swings where grass once grew, and toys littered the clover all around me. But I didn’t just see marks from our own family. A fire pit sat nearby filled with ashes—a remnant of a gathering of our friends—and a bottle of bubbles was just beyond, emptied at the hands of a three-year-old friend. The fences showed wear too, likely from all the times our kids pressed against them talking to the neighbors who loved us all like family.

I felt the roots we had laid and saw all the beautiful things that had grown from them.

///

The swing set is gone now.

A few weeks ago, on a cold, February afternoon, Jake took a chainsaw to it. We can’t take it with us when we move back to Iowa in a few months, and he was worried the sagging crossbar was going to snap from the weight of the swings.

So, our backyard is empty again. Void of the towering wooden structure that kept our kids entertained for three summers in a row. All that remains are those two patches of dirt.

As I watched the wood and swings collapse that day, my breath fogging up the cold glass while I held the newest baby on my hip, I felt the thankful sadness wash over me again. We built memories for our kids here. Put down roots and erected swing sets and lived these years in Ohio as connected to others as we could.

It will be hard to leave this behind.

psssst! Each month, I send out a newsletter containing a few thoughts about all the things I read, write, love, and think about. If you want to get in on the fun, you can sign up HERE! 

I always feel particularly conflicted at the end of September. On one hand, it is one of my favorite months, but on the other hand, it ushers in the beginning of fall which, I recognize is a funny point to make because the truth of the matter is also this:  I love fall too. It’s just that its official entrance is always marked by a twinge of sad anticipation because I know it will never last as long as I want it to.

That’s right, people. I feel a little sad at the beginning of fall because I’m already thinking about it ending.

My natural inclinations are a bit of a buzzkill sometimes. I’m working on it.

September, nevertheless, is now in the rear view mirror, and I’m happy to report that despite my overall level of exhaustion (sleep when the baby sleeps is so 2013), I’m still reading things over here!

Books I Read

I finished two more of The Chronicles of Narnia this month. While I’m reading, I’ve made a habit of dog-earing the pages I know I’ll want to come back to. As I looked back through those pages today, I realized I had marked two similar passages between these two books.

In the first, the Beavers are trying to explain who Aslan is to the Pevensie children. In the second, Shasta meets Aslan for the first time. In both, a unique sense of awe is beautifully described.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion–the Lion, the great Lion.”

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he–quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.”

The Horse and His Boy 

“I was the lion.” And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.” …

“Who are you?”

“Myself,” said the voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again “Myself,” loud and clear and gay: and then the third time” Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.

Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice belonged to something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too.

Articles I Clicked

Last month was Pandas. This month, turtles. My favorite excerpt from this particular National Geographic article was this:

An absence of turtles would be a “cultural, psychological loss,” to many societies, Gibbons says. We revere their traits of persistence and serenity. They’re the one reptile that just about everyone likes. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Gosh, I hope a turtle doesn’t get into my house,” he says.

Also, if you are a person, like me, whose husband often works weird and/or long weekend hours, I highly recommend the last article on this list: “My Saturday Idol.”

• “What If There Were No More Turtles?” by Liz Langley
• “The ex-Green Beret who inspired Colin Kaepernick to kneel instead of sit during the anthem would like to clear a few things up” by Sam Farmer
• “Throw Your Children’s Art Away” by Mary Townsend
• “How Beth Moore is helping to change the face of evangelical leadership” by Melani McAlister
• “My Saturday Idol” by Abbey Wedgeworth

O Autumn!

Since we’re on the topic of things I like to read, it only seems fitting to send my brain into October with this quote from one of my favorite books, Attachments by Rainbow Rowell:

October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!

I’d just like to add this: October, breathe your crisp air steadily and light your vibrant colors on fire for all your days (and even into November if you’d like to).

At this exact moment, I am sitting on the couch with a snoozy baby on my chest. I’m sipping hot coffee out of an old travel mug while watching Norah get her own baby packed up and ready for a walk in the stroller. I’m typing with a single thumb on my iPhone while we wait for Jake and Sawyer to get home from kindergarten drop off.

Our rhythms have changed in the past 31 days.

As a person who thrives on routine and expected outcomes, the complete upheaval a newborn brings is always the hardest thing for me to adjust to. “Just take it one day at a time” is not a mantra that comes naturally to me. Even on the good days, you can usually find me anticipating the harder ones.

We’ve done this dance four times now. And, each time even the upheaval has looked vastly different. Here’s one thing that hasn’t changed though: My ability to consume a completely random assortment of information and entertainment in the middle of the night. With Lily, it was Friends reruns and Jimmy Fallon clips, and with Norah, I alternated episodes of Chopped and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (that was almost 4 years ago, so I feel pretty ahead of the game on that one). As for Sawyer, I watched a lot of Chicago Cubs game summaries as they inched closer to the World Series.

It has been no different with baby Jude, and I thoroughly enjoyed remembering all the places my brain has been ping-ponging around in the last month.

So, without further ado:

Books I Read

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

I recently finished compiling my personal collection of The Chronicles of Narnia. I decided to reread the series because I can’t remember the last time I read them and, even more alarmingly, can’t remember if I ever actually finished all the books. I love the way Lewis narrates these stories, and I was especially captivated by his description of the World Between the Woods early on in this one:

“It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others–a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive” (32).

Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds by Jen Wilken

I’ve been thinking for some time that, in my reading of the Bible, I’ve been relying too heavily on studies or devotionals to give me insight or understanding. While I like the thematic approach and wisdom of people like Catherine Martin or Beth Moore, I’ve been wondering lately why I feel as though I can’t read my Bible without the guidance of someone else. I started looking into the inductive method of Bible study and then saw this book recommended repeatedly. Wilken’s suggestions and wisdom are practical and added to a thought process I had already begun churning in my brain.

“I cannot truly be a God-worshipper without loving the Bible deeply and reverently. Otherwise, I worship and unknown god” (147).  

Articles I Clicked

This was my favorite list to round up because it is so obviously the work of a person who has been reading articles at literally all hours of the day. I mean, in the past 31 days, I have gained knowledge about Jimmy Carter, millennial evangelicals, AND the lengths one must go to in order to photograph pandas.

Follow-up question: Can you guess which one of those articles I read in the middle of the night?

• The un-celebrity president: Jimmy Carter shuns riches, lives modestly in his Georgia hometown by Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan
• Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle. by David S. Glosser
• Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from Their Parents’ Beliefs by Eliza Griswold
• The Unusual Difficulties of Photographing Pandas by Alexa Keefe
• Definitely Keep Insulting Your Kids With Sarcasm. Great Idea. by Jen Wilken
• ‘All politics is personal’: Biden recalls his bond with McCain in a bipartisan time by Paul Kane

Things I Watched

Speaking of things you do in the middle of the night when you have a newborn, “Watch Happy Things on YouTube” is one of my survival pro-tips. In the past few weeks, I have found some new things I had never seen before and also returned to some old feel-goods. I couldn’t resist passing them along in case you need an end of the month pick-me-up.

• Lin-Manuel Miranda Wedding Surprise: Since I discovered the existence of this video a few weeks ago, I have already watched it five times because it makes me so happy. As if I didn’t already love Lin-Manuel Miranda enough, he surprised his wife with a rendition of “To Life” from Fiddler on the Roof with their entire bridal party. If you haven’t seen this, stop everything you’re doing and watch it immediately.
• Joe Biden on The View: I actually watched this as it aired live last December and was so moved by the humanity of Joe Biden speaking to Meghan McCain about her dad’s cancer that I returned to it this week in light of John McCain’s death.
• Like Real People Do: Sometimes all you need to brighten your spirits at 3:30 in the morning is a classic So You Think You Can Dance routine. (Or, is that just me?) Full disclosure: I couldn’t remember the name of either of these dancers or the song when I wanted to watch it last week, so I just typed “yellow dress sytycd” into Google and came out a winner 0.49 seconds later.
• Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney: Okay, so this one is old news, but given that we just named a baby Jude, Jake and I obviously had to rewatch and sing along with this one.
• The Great British Baking Show: There have been a few nights in which I’ve been up for multiple hours straight, but Paul and Mary kept me company while teaching me about proving and blind baking.
• Journeywomen Podcast: Humor with Holly Mackle and Caroline Saunders: Technically I didn’t watch this one, but I did listen to it the other morning. I didn’t go into it thinking I would take that much away, and, instead, the opposite happened. As someone who tends to get a little too tightly wound about things that don’t really matter, this contained a lot of things I needed to hear, and it also made me laugh.

What I Wrote

NOTHING.

Self-proclaimed maternity leave is FUN and it’s been refreshing to turn my inner taskmaster off.

Continued Upheaval

The baby woke up, so I moved to the floor. Sawyer is back now; Jake dropped him off when he came back for Lily’s forgotten backpack. I finished my coffee and am now typing with two thumbs while Sawyer and Norah play together and ask periodically if it’s “nack time.” Quiet doesn’t keep around here for long.

That’s nothing new though.

The newborn upheaval is expected. It doesn’t catch me off guard like it did the first few times, but it does continue to serve as a reminder that my life is not defined by the circumstances that surround me. It’s nice to have YouTube and my News app to keep me busy in the middle of the night, but those aren’t the things that get me through these long days.

God has continually reminded me in the past few weeks that He is my source of strength and contentment. Everything else might change (see: will change), but He doesn’t.

The same God who created panda bears to be particularly elusive creatures and gave humans a sense of curiosity to try to photograph them is also the same God who is with me every hour of every day. On the hard days. On the good days. On the uneventful ones too.

I’m back on the couch. I can’t tell you how long it’s taken me to write this. The baby is asleep again, my coffee is refilled, and I took a break to play with the two middle kids.

Everything looks different than it did 31 days ago, but also, the things that matter look exactly the same. August has been good to us.