It's Been A While...

Musings from the last couple of months

I’ve sat down to write to you quite a few times now. I am looking at my sidebar, seeing the beginning of a bunch of letters that will likely never see the light of day. I last wrote to you on the day of my 45th birthday. It was a hopeful letter—at least, that was the goal. It was then February, and the first signs of spring emerged from the ground in the form of beautiful yellow daffodils delightfully named “February Golds.” Since then, I have had a case of writer’s block. So much of my writing is reflecting, and I’m realizing that I haven’t had the space to do that nearly as much this past year.

It’s now the end of May, and we have officially passed through the blossoming of all things, the allergies that can often come with that, and are currently in the middle of the great cicada invasion of 2024. It’s been a particularly stormy season in the literal sense, with one tornado that came through our city too close for comfort and hail the size of baseballs that shrunk down to the size of a quarter by the time it reached us. Even still, there is no accurate comparison to the beauty of spring and summer skies in Tennessee—especially the ones littered with cumulus clouds that seem to come out of nowhere and form, stretch, and grow right in front of our eyes. Sometimes, they feel so low you can reach out and touch them. They often grow so big that they eventually drop lightning, thunder, rain, and sometimes things that are scarier but usually not. If you’re lucky, you get to fly through them a couple of times a year or witness them at sunset as the sun illuminates their grandeur. Sometimes, we get a rainbow. In those moments, when we look up in awe, I am reminded of He, who holds all things together and often in tension.

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Since February, we have celebrated my husband’s birthday, my dad’s, and my son’s. It’s still weird to say I have a son. There was Mother’s Day in there, too, and today is our eighteenth wedding anniversary. School let out last week, and although not by the calendar, summer officially kicked off this weekend. Neighborhood pools are now open, our kids (and myself) will linger longer in our pajamas, and plans start filling up with camps, play dates, and barefoot days on the golf course. We will all fall into bed a bit later because, as my daughter pointed out last night and their regular bedtime, “we should not be allowed to go to bed when it is still light out!” She has a point.

Though there is much to celebrate this time of year, it also reminds me of loss. I spent Mother’s Day a few years ago carrying a baby, hoping we may see that baby earthside. That did not come to pass, and to make matters a little more painful, we lost the baby on Father’s Day. Like many of you, I’m guessing Mother’s Day is complicated. On one hand, my mom, who is also my best friend, is still alive and lives nearby. I have two beautiful kids through adoption that I love more than ever thought was possible. On the other hand, I’m reminded of loss around this time of year—my loss and the loss that comes with adoption.

Sandwiched in between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is our wedding anniversary. This weekend, we were serendipitously in the same area as the SEC baseball tournament, which is only significant enough to write about because our friend and mentor who married us now has a son who plays on the University of Tennessee’s baseball team. We got to sit in the stands and watch their son, who is now a grown man, live out his dream. Afterward, we stayed after that game and got a picture with them, commiserating over the fact that their son was just a baby when we first met. Right then and there, it was as if our whole married life flashed before my eyes.

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On the way home, I couldn’t help but think about how fast it has all gone and how our kids would be leaving home to start their own lives in no time. How I’m watching so many friends adjust to empty nests and how I am somehow forty-five raising and three and a seven-year-old. In the span of about fifty minutes, I surveyed in mind all of the lives we have lived in eighteen years. All the places we have lived. All the jobs we have had. All the friends we have made. Some of the friends we have lost touch with.

I thought about the ways in which we are a really good match. How first and foremost, we both know that we are image bearers of God, fully beloved, even in our shadows. I thought about how our values align and, for the most part, how we agree on most of the “big things.” I thought about how we enjoy so many of the same things, how we have found golf in the most recent years to be something that has helped us slow down and savor life together. I thought about our vows on the day late in May—a quintessential May Day—you know, the one where cumulus clouds grew enough to dump a big storm on us just before our ceremony was about to begin. We heard the rain in the distance as we said our vows. It appeared as if it was raining all around us, a story I don’t know to be fully true, but we managed to stay dry either way.

I thought about how we have changed and grown and, on the other hand, how we have held on to patterns that are holding us back from thriving. How have we become comfortable operating from our broken places in times of conflict, mostly without even knowing, and why that is anyway? Of course, the answer is pride and ego and the fact that living in total freedom can be scarier than leaning on the familiar crutches of our pain points.

I thought about the fact that as long as we live, we can grow. There’s nothing quite like marriage and parenting that holds up the proverbial mirror. Blemished as we may be, they are signs that we are not yet where we want to be but aren’t where we used to be either. Those blemishes aren’t for our shame, but they certainly can point us to the glory that looks like this—“Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—to be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.” (Colossians 3:15-17 The Message). Lord willing, in next eighteen years, let it be so.

The past eighteen years have had their fair share of storms. They have been filled with heartache, grief, and times of deep satisfaction and joy. Looking back, I can see vividly the hand of God in all of it. He ordained moments, sent people, and revealed Himself to us in ways that have brought me to my knees. How quickly we can forget, and how I long to continue to remember. I’ll leave here, to my knowledge, the first picture we ever took together—just a couple of kids back then.

As I finish this letter, I glance out the window of the coffee shop I am in. I drove in this morning to the tune of a perfect bluebird sky. It is now littered with whimsical white fluffy clouds—the kind that could turn into a storm. Anything can happen in late May in Tennessee. In all of it, we remember, and we give thanks.