07/30/2026
This past March, Blake & I dropped the older 5 off with the grandparents, & we drove to Virginia for a week long trip in a yurt to celebrate 10 years of covenant. I was supposed to have a couple of DSM sessions before we left that got rescheduled due to a blizzard. We pivoted our travel times & we decided to hop on the road a little earlier. A couple of hours into our drive, Blake woke me up & asked if we could visit his grandparents that were nearby. We pulled up to their home, seeing ambulances surrounding it. We sat downstairs waiting to hear word of what was happening not realizing that in those moments, our Grandma was taking her final breath. She was an incredibly special woman that loved in such a fun & generous way- if she knew you & especially if you loved one of her own, she was going to roll out the red carpet for you & find ways to make you feel loved & remembered, too. It was quite unique & beautiful! She had a gift closet filled with gifts that she had ordered & were waiting to be delivered to the right person. Because of her, I have a special place in my towel closet that I store gifts for people & I think of her every time I reach in my Aldi bag to put together a gift for someone I love. Following all of that, we were stunned to say the least. We decided after staying for a while to hop back on the road & continue our trip. It felt so confusing. We questioned why we were the ones that were there in that moment & yet at the same time, we felt in awe of how if our travel plans hadn’t changed, we would have missed the opportunity to be there with our Grandpa in HIS first moments without her. Even now, I struggle to put into words what that week felt like. I used to believe that everything had to be tied up with a nice bow in order to show that I had faith & was a faithful person that could handle a lot (I wanted God to proud of me!) What I didn’t realize & what our time in Chicago & our community around us has taught us is that there is room for all of it. You don’t have to have a timeline or a plan for how to get from point A to point B in your grief, it doesn’t even have to be a big traumatic event in order to call it grief, you don’t have to have words for all of it, you can laugh with your best friend without feeling guilt believing that there’s room for the wide range all of it. We can hold space for all of the jumbled pieces recognizing that not only can God handle it, but it’s an act of faith believing that He can. Learning to manage this tension of joy & grief has been bookmarked in my soul forever. These past two years have been full of it, & not just in our lives, but in the lives of those around us where it physically hurts to watch people you love hurt, & you wish you could rush in & fix it all but you just simply can’t, so you pick up the ingredients, make the casserole, send the text, & beg God to intervene even though you know that He is in all of it with them & with us. Last year, I studied the book of Psalm for the first time with a group of ladies & the thing that struck me is that David brought it all to God. & at first, when I read through it, I couldn’t help thinking that David was a mess. I would raise my eyebrows & question why it was this guy that God had called “a man after his own heart” when it seemed like there was always something going on with him. I watched him time & time again question God & be frustrated that things were as they were, but as Psalm continued, I watched the time it would take David to “walk himself off the ledge” begin to shorten before he returned, once again, placing His trust in God. It wasn’t even this big grandiose moment, but rather a hundred little moments, where the Lord grew David’s trust in Him each time. The thing that I found amazing was that he didn’t stuff it down, but be brought it up & out, raw & messy, & God cared for Him in that. He wasn’t put off by it or shocked that David had questioned Him, but instead, He *moves* toward David because He can’t help but to be moved in compassion towards David. As a mom, I get it. When my kids have been caught hiding something, my instinct in their sadness is to move towards them, not away. Because of God’s kindness & gentle care in our grief & in David’s grief, David once again returned to the Lord because where else *can* we go? Attaching a handful of pictures from our trip, because in grief, there’s still room for wonder, there’s still closeness to be felt, there’s still 10 years of covenant to celebrate & thank God for. Also, one of our favorite songs lately. ❤️
