At the turn of the last decade, I had thrown myself months of birthday parties celebrating my 30th. I was pregnant with two girl babies and I knew all the seeds that had been planted in my 20s were going to bear fruit in the coming years. It would be a decade of harvest.
My harvest looked like:
Double portions of blessing- like twin girls being born healthy, Marwa and Jessica then later Tamar supporting our family as beloved ‘sister wives’ (though not sharing a husband), beautiful beach travel, Barcelona without kids, significant career & financial success for my husband in his corporate career, radical generosity that catapulted relationship and faith maturity, and so many roommates through our 100 year old craftsman bungalow.
But there was also struggle. I experienced a persistent depression rooted in old wounds and childhood pain- it was the Lord inviting to experience healing there. My marriage was gutted and passing exit 2 on I-71 south on a cold day, I foresaw my divorce in a lawyer’s conference room five year in the future, passing signature papers over a mahogany table, which prompted a change in our marriage, and a repentant apology from me that night. It was that year my marriage really began. I’m thankful for the happy hormone fueled beginning years of our life together. I still revisit the memories we made like a mothers of a smelly disrespectful teenagers would return to the heart filling remembrance of a powder scented sleeping infant on their chest. It elicits an dopamine buzz and if I dwell there long enough I can generate the emotional euphoria of that naive love. But once the emotions were supplanted by midnight feedings and roof leaks, we saw each other as we were, not as we hoped to be on our best of days some time in the future when we were more evolved. We were broken. Our relationship was bankrupt. There were no reserves to draw from.
We saw our marriage restored and a new vision of our life and family birthed.
Darrin started a new business. It failed.
I sold my business. I thought it was my life’s work. I promptly entered into a career crisis. Isn’t that what you do when you thought you had achieved your life’s work and hand it off to be someone else’s life’s work?
We began foster parenting. Our first little guy is now adopted and thriving. He said he made Santa’s Nice List this year. We took in a teenager, growing our family to 5 kids for a year. She is safe and happily living independently where no one tells her what to do. I am coming into a new normal where I release what I think is best for her so that I can love her freely. I am still learning. It still hurts.
Darrin started a new business. He raised millions of dollars in venture capital. It’s been the leanest financial years of our family.
I ponder what the coming decade may hold with such optimism. I grind my teeth over what the coming year has. I am still turning over the ideas in my mind and pushing them onto an altar in surrender to a plan that’s greater than mine.
As I anxiously await to to plan for and what to ask of the Father for what’s ahead, I am dwelling in the Truth that it’s something worthy of my hope. It’s fruitful. And as I seek Him, I’ll discover Him. Maybe I’ll even stop grinding my teeth.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:11-13
Practicing Yes 