120IMG_1150 copyToday is the day the movers are coming to move Steve’s personal belongings to the Middle East. We’ve just emptied out his side of the closet, organized all his gear (which amounts to, like, six tons), and returned his car to the dealer.

Today is also the day when we are supposed to find out if we will be able to accompany him on this tour. As you know, we’ve been waiting, for what feels like a lifetime, to find out our fate. Will we spend the next year here in San Diego without Steve, or will we be packing up our home and heading to the Middle East for the next two years? I still don’t know. I’m hoping to get the email any minute.

Today is also a Monday. Five Mondays ago, I had the miscarriage. And every time Monday rolls around again, I think of that morning—exactly five weeks ago—when I started bleeding and I knew, in the pit of my stomach, what was about to happen. I wonder if Mondays will always hold a bit of sadness. Or if they will ever feel normal again?

Today, in the midst of all of this turmoil, Luke says to me, “Mommy, look, a rainbow. I want to hold it.” And I felt like I got injected with love and hope right there in that very moment, like life opened up a bit, just at the thought of my precious little boy reaching out toward the rainbow coming through his bedroom window.

Today—with all that it holds, with all that it doesn’t hold—makes me think of Ecclesiastes 3, which by now has become my life mantra. “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity . . . He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (3:1,11, NIV).

Today, I’m trying to believe that some sort of beauty will emerge from this moment in my story. I’m trying to trust that waiting and grieving, while difficult, are the raw materials of transformation. I’m trying to accept that there may be art-in-the-making, whether I can see it perfectly right now or not. I’m trying to hold in tension the reality that, as Ecclesiastes says, I cannot fathom what God does from beginning to end and yet, I am willing to wait and see.

In 1917, a guy in New York took a urinal and turned it on its side and called it “Fountain.” This is the kind of vision I need for today. The kind of eyes that see past the urinal to the fountain. The kind of perspective that allows for beauty to be present even when it is not readily visible on first glance.

I don’t know what you’re up against today. Perhaps you’re facing loss. Maybe transition. Saying goodbye. Re-entry. Trauma. Uncertainty. Waiting. Whatever it is, I just want you to know that you’re not alone. There’s a sisterhood all over this world, and there’s one sister here in San Diego, who understands.

Today, I will be praying that God will work some of his magic and produce a bit of beauty, a rainbow or a fountain, where all we are seeing is ashes. And while we’re waiting for the beauty to arrive, I will be praying that each and every one of us can just keep breathing.

Today.

Tomorrow.

And the day after that.

What is one difficult thing in your life right now? What is one beautiful thing?

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