In my heart, I have gone from a place of needing complete knowledge, to a place that is willing to accept the mystery. But each tragedy, each heartache, each time something happens that our hearts cannot grasp, it is okay and it is important to re-ask,

“Are You there? God
”Do you exist?
”What is this all about?”

Each time is an invitation to dive deeper, search harder, ask the questions, feel the hurt and feel the Presence.

For me, I just keep coming back to Love. To a Love that is constant in the change, that is present in the pain, that I do not always understand, but that I choose over nothing at all.

As accept I am not in charge and my prayers are not passports to my plans, I appreciate the strong, constant Evergreen.

This Evergreen Love is ever present and stands with us as the seasons of life that ebb and flow, sometimes fading into the colors of our lives, sometimes standing in contrast. Especially in the contrast. Present, strong and right beside us as we surrender (and re-surrender) to life.

Do you feel like you are living there now, deep in the thick, dense forest? Do you long to see a path forward or out of this space?

Can I make a recommendation? Don’t despise this time. Lean into it. Learn to appreciate the solace, the cool crisp air, the new vistas. Think about embracing this space you never wanted to stay. When you do, I promise you will find others there too. In your space, in your wilderness. Some choose it now because they see the value and the freedom it offers. Some just arrived and they feel so far from home. 

I now find the wilderness to be home. To be a place from which I learn and create in a way I never would otherwise. We are called to embrace the life we have and to create from that space. Yes, I said CREATE. Not just sit or wallow or throw up our hands, but to dig in, figure through and CREATE.  

 I’m not willing to be just one part of my story and I don’t think you should just be one part of yours either. I’m not just my history, I’m also my future. I’m the person I’m growing into. And not just my future either, I’m my history. We should not run from our story, from those defining moments because they can be a springboard from which we create. 

We are all tapestries, colorful conglomerations of the people God has so beautifully created us to be. We need to start embracing all of our gifts, our interests, our talents, our heartache. All of it. We are not one dimensional, we are not just our careers or our interests, or that one defining moment when it all went so wrong. 

I hope you've had a great week and are finding some time to relax and restore this weekend. I so enjoyed writing and creating Mom's School this summer, I've decided to write to you weekly on Sundays. This series is called Sunday Love. Every Sunday I'll be sending some love to your inbox. It may be a blog post about a topic I think you will find meaningful, a review or recommendation on a book I've read, or just some inspiration for your week. I hope to bring some guests into the blog, other women who inspire me and have important messages to share. I'll also occasionally have some special surprises just for you. I have a few things in mind:-)

I'm learning that we all evolve and grow, and that we are not just one part of our story, but rather the totality of it. A few people commented they were surprised by my Mom's School series. They thought it was a departure from what I typically write about, or have written about. My reply is that I am growing and stepping into my bigger story that includes the many facets of who I am. I'll be sharing more about that in the coming weeks. I believe we are all many, beautiful parts and that it's so important to embrace and cultivate them all. 

This idea of opening my heart and cultivating faith have been a winding roads for me. I believe it’s a space that each of us are invited to. It’s a place below the surface of life that gives foundation to all else. Allows for firm footing when life happens, as it always does. We tend to go through the motions, we think of God the way we were taught to, we pray the way we did as kids. We intuitively know and want our kids to have some spiritual life, so we pass along what we’ve known. Or conversely, we reject what we grew up with and steer our kids clear of the spiritual or religious experience that did us wrong. 

Instead of all that, what if you went back to the drawing board and chose to be open to hearing and cultivating that which calls to your heart? 

Life feels unfair, sometimes often. Disappointment feels like a generous term for the really horrible things that happen. We feel downright despair and rage. Those are real, appropriate feelings for the grievous things that happen in our lives. 

What about our kids?
How do we teach our kids to deal with the little disappointments?
We know they are certain to experience the big ones.

Despite what our culture preaches, there are not quick fixes and anything that sustains us involves intense work, struggle and commitment. Here's some steps I'm using with my boys to talk about disappointment. I try to use them for myself too.

The concept of being the student and the teacher at each moment in our life was introduced to me by my friend and author Tom Zuba. It's the idea that life is a classroom and there are opportunities to learn and to teach in each moment. We need to be open to both. 

How do we think about these concepts in a day and age when people are sharing their every thought and meal on social media? How do we encourage our kids to do both? To find their voices, and also to keep learning? How do we learn to sometimes keep our heads down, keep quiet and learn in a world that is shouting their opinions, often unkindly, all around us?

Here's some thoughts that mostly apply to us as adults, but can be used as we direct and love our kids. 

On Tuesday, I was at the pool with my boys, Blake and Chase, for their swimming lessons. Since I had a work trip in the coming days, I told them we’d stay after swim class and swim together. I had Bodey with me too. Bodey is my three-year-old son with Muscular Dystrophy. He doesn’t walk or talk or sufficiently hold his body up on his own (though he’s making slow and steady progress). So for an hour+ I held my 43 pound boy in the water. Bodey loved being in the water and my boys loved showing me their newest swimming skills.

After about 30 minutes my arms started burning. And my attitude sucked. I looked around and saw moms with kids much younger than Bodey sitting playing with water toy with their kids or sitting in the sun as they watched their children play and splash together in the zero-entry pool. I had a little pity party for myself and then the thought crossed my mind:

My attitude goes dark when I’m comparing myself to others. 

So here are six topics I’m going to chat with my boys about over the next six weeks, and I thought I’d share them with you. Feel free to do the same, add in your own ideas or make up some of your own. We have such few years to have our kids tucked inside our homes. I don’t know about you, but I want to share with them what’s on my heart.

Here’s the topics I plan to chat with them about:

1. Listening to yourself: What is your intuition and why should you listen to it?

2. Attitude is Everything.

3. Being a student and a teacher

4. Hard work pays off: Going to practice so you can play the game.

5. The gifts we get when life doesn’t go the way we want.

6. How can we hear from God? What is the point of prayer?

Dear Heart Community,

We are long time, dear friends. You took me in and made me one of your own when I was 29, pregnant with my first child, and scared out of my mind. I thought I’d have healthy children, I never considered I wouldn’t. The moment I learned my son would have HLHS, you came along side of me and let me know I was not alone. When my dreams of bringing my son home from the hospital days after his birth and thinking his biggest “owies” would be his vaccines were dashed, you were there. You shared your stories, your children inspired me and gave me hope for my son Ethan.

When I grasped that my experience of motherhood would not be typical, you reminded me yours was not either. You made me part of something bigger than just my story. I grew up with you. I became a mother amongst you. I learned from you. I leaned on you.

Dear Friends, 

About two years ago I created Restoring a Mother's Heart Retreat for women whose children have died from chronic illness. One day in early 2016 while drying my hair I felt the nudge to create this event. I proceeded and as things so quickly fell into place, I knew it was mean to be.  This retreat is born out of my deepest darkest place. A space were I did not think it was possible for light to enter. I am here to tell you, the light entered and grew. I grew. I blossomed and I'm continuing to grow. 

As I say in this video, Ethan's life and his death have been the greatest invitations I've ever received. The invitation to be my best self (still working on that), to question, to wrestle with God, myself, and the decisions I made for Ethan's care. I had to let everything fall away, so that I could rebuild it. I am still building, but my heart is strong and my mind clear about what I am here to do. 

Though your story feels broken and unworthy.

Though your heart feels trampled upon.

Though life has been cruel and unrelenting.

That spark lives.

It lives in you.

It’s calling to you, “remember me, see me, fan me, I’m here, I’m part of you.”

This season has a way of magnifying our deep pains, and great longings. It has a way of making us feel like we are on the outside. While everyone else is singing and gift-giving, we can easily feel cast aside, since our hearts cannot fully participate in this season.

You see, it is in these spaces of deep emptiness, of arid dryness, that new life can come. With just one spark. You cannot see what that looks like right now. You cannot feel it, or sense it, but I promise you it is there. I only tell you this because I have walked this path.

Let your deepest darkness be a space for light and life to be born.

Here’s what I’ve come to-

Christmas is a miraculous event of the intersection of spirit and matter,
of heaven and earth,
of the seen and unseen,
of the now and not yet,
of the certain and uncertain.

And this is the place I sit. It’s the only place I can be. It gives me comfort and calls me to more, I find love and the challenge to love bigger. I find a call to the present and a pull for the future.

It’s our first responders that bring us through the disorder to the transformation. It’s their love and the light that allow us to take the next step. They help us take a deep breath and realize we are not alone. We learn we can clean up the mess, rebuild, and finally rebirth ourselves into a new space.

But here’s the thing, once we’ve been helped by a first responder, the love and energy we receive calls us to be a first responder. We too can show up in the mess, and destruction,  grab a shovel and get to work.

And we are called to do just that.

Experienced first responders are those who have been rebirthed. Ones that have allowed the tumultuous winds and waves to refine them. Ones who are wide awake to the gritty beauty of life. Who walk the balance beam of joy and pain, of laughter and tears.

Today I want to give you one of the sweetest, most liberating gifts I’ve been given during the past five years as I’ve learned to live with the death of Ethan, the hardships that arose from his journey and now the acceptance of my son Bodey’s rare muscular dystrophy and many, many things in between. This gift has taken me from bitter to peaceful; from imprisoned to free. I want to give you permission to wrestle with your faith. Whatever deep, burdensome questions plague your heart, today you have the liberty to ask them.

Our children who have died love us deeply. They are saturated in the presence of God’s all encompassing love, which is bigger and wider than our human minds can comprehend. Because of this Big Love, they want us to be the fullest expression of who we are and of what we are created to be. They want us to become all that our stories invite us to become. They want us to stop hitting the snooze button, and to begin cultivating our best selves.

We cannot do this when we are waging war with life.
We cannot do this when we are focused on waging war with disease or circumstance.
Yes, we can make change and we should. That is part of the invitation.
But if we see making external change in the world the totality of our work, and miss the inner change we are being invited to, we miss the scope of the invitation.

As his personality developed and blossomed, I met a fiery, joyful, curious child. I met a boy who thrived despite great challenge.

Ethan’s identity was certainly not his heart disease.
Ethan’s identity was Ethan.
He defined himself, he lived on his terms.

He pulled me into a big life. It’s as if he said “mom, go this way, I want you to see this part of life”. His mesmerizing joy captured my heart and gave me strength to do anything. He blossomed me, he stretched me, he grew me. 

You wonder if your life will be a narrative of sadness, or heaviness. You wonder if there is room for hope, for goodness, for your hearts’ desires. You wonder if you will ever feel a swell of joy, a swagger of confidence, a flow of peace. You desire freedom. You want your life to feel purposeful. You want to feel free. To dance in the light of love, to twirl in the open space. In the breezy place where you can breathe with ease.

Here’s what I want to tell you today. You, my dear, beautiful friend are full of beauty, full of hope, full of purpose. You are loved. You are cherished. Your story is hard and your story is painful. But through this story of pain can blossom trees of life, flowers of beauty, branches of help and hope.

Because YOU are made to love.

Teach me God about your goodness. Show me an open space. Bring breath to my lungs and energy to my being. Show me that I can hope again. That I can see goodness. That my life is not a narrative of disappointment. Not a narrative of sickness. Help me to breathe easy. Just for a bit. I'm a weary traveler. I know how to find beauty in the damp dark forrest. I've seen the gifts in the darkness. But I'm looking for gifts in the light. Show me your light. Show me the fulfillment of my hearts desires. The ones that can be realized on this earth. Bring breath to my lungs. Uphold me. See me. Let me feel your presence. Let me feel free.