To Stand in Awe

Because my heart has broken many times— I am profoundly aware of hidden hurt in hearts around me.

So I falter and the words I ache to share shrink up inside me.

I don’t want to hold up happy moments and highlights when I know how easy it is to scroll and see what you don’t have— or what you lost.

But.

Because I know how hard life is— I care about making life brighter and maybe just a smidge better for someone in need of hope or a reassuring word that it gets better.

I share because I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and glory for a God who has worked miracles in my life.

One year ago (today) I met Christian.

How I feel about my life since meeting & marrying Christian, blending our families

gaining three children, navigating special needs parenting together, losing my brother, walking with the grief of the daughter I lost, and stepping into a new season of growing another tiny life inside me—

It’s hard to even put into words except that I feel total reverence— the root meaning “to stand in awe”.

And (almost with my mouth actually gaping open from time to time)— I’ve stood in awe of God’s goodness working in my life.

I feel like Sarah or Hannah or Job from the Bible.

Out of nothing— He has given me overflowing abundance.

Out of divorce— true companionship, friendship, and love and I could not be happier.

Out of the ashes of death— new life springing forth.

Out of my “barrenness”— children & blessings I never thought I would have.

Have you felt barren?

When every direction is green, blooming, and prospering and your field remains brown, empty, and scorched by set backs and trials?

I’ve been there.

Correction— I’ve lived there.

I’ve stood in that field for years wondering why I was excluded from receiving the blessings I so desperately needed.

And now years later God has mended what was broken, redeemed my suffering, and restored my losses and I stand in awe of blessings beyond my capacity to receive.

This “second marriage” is not second best.

This blended family does not fall beneath the ideal— it IS the ideal.

Being a step mom is not a step beneath mother— it is the full, unrestrained act of mothering with all its warmth, tenderness, and glory.

It’s not plan B. It’s not second to what “could have been” in my life if everything had gone the way I thought it would.

It what I was created for and what my entire life has led to— and I embrace it fully.

It is my absolute best case scenario and  the strongest confirmation I have that God is intimately involved in my life.

I’m happier now than I would be had I been spared the loss and tragedy that has dominated my twenties.

I’m amazed by what God has done for me.

And I just want to tell you—

God is real.

And it gets better.

There is no loss He cannot restore— no field too barren— and no heart He cannot mend.

It gets better.