This Time Last Year

This time last year I was round bellied with unborn baby Aiden. We still lived in that little icky house on Fairfax. I still had a job. Josiah was in church daycare 3 days a week, at a daycare that is no longer in business, in a church that I no longer call home.

This time last year my Wednesday morning discipleship group was still going. My Wednesday night recovery group hadn't ended yet either.

This time last year, as my belly grew, so did confusion, resentment, and discomfort in relationships I didn't realize were about to abruptly end.

I didn't know an earthquake was coming, though there were tremors. There were a lot of tremors.

So this time last year, my legs were being trained to stand in the tremors before a big one hit. The earth was going to shift, and people I loved were going to end up over there, while I was over here. From where I stood, I was about to watch my safe haven crumble. I also was about to turn and see that a safe haven had been growing around me during all these tremors.

This time last year, in the painful confusion of the moment, and the moments still to come, I was being cared for. It was as if the physical distance that a pregnant belly creates between two people became emotional distance, spiritual distance. And it kept me from bleeding out when the earth cracked and our minds were stunned and our hearts broke.

This time last year I couldn't have known that the place I would land would be just where I wanted to be. Or that I would be grateful for the betrayal and loss because I am learning how to love now. I am learning how to open this heart to the sweet, tender, and beautiful people who can also be unfaithful, disappointing, and crushing. Both. We are all, always both. We are wonderful. We are not good. We are never enough. And He always is.

He's always enough. More than enough. Where He could have let me fall, or offered a slab of concrete to land on, instead He grew soft grass and expanding fields and mountains and oceans and exquisite flowers and birds and reminders that He delights in my delight and He is not afraid of the quaking earth because He owns it, and he owns me, and He is Love.