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Here we sit again. Another appointment, another day.
It’s not bad, it’s normal. It is our normal.
In many ways an odd level of comfort is provided in these days. This is familiar. More of motherhood and family life has been spent in this world than a typical one. We have jokes in our family that most people would find shocking or inappropriate. For the 100th day of school my kids took 100 syringes, because, well, why not? We often laugh at inopportune times, because, well....you laugh or you cry. The family joke is 'go big or go home,' because whatever happens we seem to always land in the 3%. We seems to always be the, “this doesn’t typically happen this way.” It’s a constant ebb and flow. One is recovering from surgery, one is having surgery. One is having trouble managing pain while another kid struggles with why her siblings and family are in pain.
I have spent so much time waiting on the slow down. Waiting to not be waiting. Waiting for this to not be my normal.
I wish I could tell you it is easy in the sense that pouring a bowl of cereal is easy, but it’s not. It’s not easy, but it’s good.
Almost every time my heart and head sink into the pit, there is a calming perspective that appears. Amidst the tears and anguish, I can see the hope that comes when I get to hug the neck of another mom. I see the sweet community that loves us, not through pity, but instead still speaks and pours truth into me, even at my darkest moments, even if I don’t want to hear it. I see that I get to hold the hands of my loving, breathing, babies, whether that is guiding them through the pain and challenges of young friendships or on a gurney through hospital hallways.
Hope does not always look like a way out, sometime hope, in its purest form, is a way forward. And hope looks different for each one of us.
My favorite verse is Ephesians 3:20-21.
"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
Let me tell you what I love about that verse. To him who is able. Not will, not does, not might or could if the circumstances are right, but to Him who is able. In that able, hope is found. Hope doesn’t come in guarantees of the future that we have planned; but, in the ability and promise of something more. Something far beyond what we can think or imagine in our brains. My brain is feeble. It is broken and messy, and I don’t know anyone who would want to spend a lot of time hanging out there. My mind, in its greatest musings and wanderings, cannot see what the God who is able can see. My future, if left to my own devices, is limited. But the sweet hope and goodness of my God isn’t.
I have had to learn to stop living in the waiting. To stop hoping for a different future, and instead move into the future in hope. I was never promised a simple life, but I was promised I would never walk alone.
And no matter how many pits I trudge through, there are still sunsets and mountain tops and even flowers in the valley. And in the valley, I get to see the goodness of a God who provides hope and solace that far exceeds the pain of this world.
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