One.

One.

It’s hard to know where to start. I’ve always been slow to warm up and struggle with opening up to people. I’ve been criticized for it in the past, I’ve even lost friends over it. But, being private doesn’t mean I lack authenticity or don’t have anything to say.   

I’ve loved writing since I was young and have journaled for most of my life, but in the last few years I’ve stopped and I’ve missed it deeply. So, with the encouragement of my husband, I am going to attempt to write more regularly. This need to write is in part because this last year can be categorized by one thing...heartbreak. It’s been one of our very hardest. We’ve experienced the excitement of a job promotion and then the disappointment of no available openings. So, we sit in the in-between. We felt the joy of finding amazing friends and then sorrow at watching that friendship end. So, we sit in the loneliness. We’ve felt pure gratitude at two little pink lines on a pregnancy test to the horrible heartache of a miscarriage 11 weeks later. So, we sit in the sadness.  We had our first foster to adopt placement that we prayed would end in a forever family for 2 little boys but instead ended horribly ugly due to a broken system. So, we sit in the heartache. 

Our hearts were broken, over and over. But, in the in-between, the loneliness, the sadness, and the heartache He was there.  Even when thing after thing was stripped away He was and is good. He is the Giver of beauty from ashes. In every season He is worthy. In every moment He is wonderful. We are holding on to those truths as our broken hearts heal. 

We’ve had a lot of change this year, mostly painful, but there’s still one more major change waiting for our family. After much prayer, and a few tears, we’ve decided to leave our comfortable suburbia life for a more rural lifestyle on a beautiful piece of land. It’s been a desire of my heart since I was a girl to raise my kids wild and free so this is one of the few changes from this year that I am actually grateful for! We will close out 2018 in a new home with a fresh start. 

This move isn’t a problem solver, or a pain eraser, but the timing of it all has God’s hand all over it. You see, my due date for our miscarriage would have been the exact day escrow closes. Only a loving orchestrator could pull that off. As we approach this last big change of the year (hopefully!) we will seek Him and surrender. After all,  “Can't go back to the beginning. Can't control what tomorrow will bring. But, I know here in the middle is the place where you promise to be”