“How is your writing coming?” My friend asked. 

“It’s not.” I laughed, out of embarrassment. I had started a blog and a Youtube channel with the aim of posting on both each week. I felt called to share our special needs/church planting/city living story, hoping it would reach just one person who needed to know they were not alone. Personally, I felt strengthened, encouraged, validated and inspired when I read the words of someone’s authentic story that related to mine even a little bit. I know that not everyone has a special needs child and not everyone lives in a big city and not everyone moved to that big city to start a church, but that was our story and in February 2020 I had an experience with God where it became quite clear that I needed to tell that story. I found that it was so good for me to write the words of our story, it was powerful to look back and see the hard and the good, to deeply feel the pain and sorrow and compassion and comfort that we had experienced over the last thirteen years. Fast forward to August 2021 and my writing and Youtube efforts had vanished and now it was January 2022.  

You know the thing that you know you need to do, the thing you want to do, but you don’t do and feel embarrassed over…that is where I was at on this particular day, sitting on my friend’s sofa, with a hot drink in hand. 

“I am stuck. I don’t know if it is the buildup of all that we as a world have gone through in the last twenty months, or if it is the buildup of all that Matt and I have faced in the last twenty months on top of the last seven years of entering the special needs world….it’s probably all of it, but I feel totally stuck and uninspired.”

Maybe I was emotionally constipated. Maybe I was tired of living with this deep emotional pain that has touched every human life during the COVID 19 pandemic. Maybe it was all the goodbyes we have had to say. Maybe it was all the change, all the upheaval, all the uncertainty, all the unrest, all the ones we held dear who never said goodbye or explained why they were going. Maybe writing felt too vulnerable in a time that felt like all we had fought for was unraveling and all that we had given our lives to (outside of our family) felt like ash being blown away in the wind. Maybe I was tired of standing firm when all around us seemed to be chaos. Maybe it had all caught up with me. 

“What are you doing instead of writing?” My friend probed as my emotions whirled and swirled inside my stomach. 

“I find myself needing to do things that give me life, like spending time with you. This is so helpful and fights the discouragement that I face on a daily basis.”

“What can you do to make time for writing?” She wasn’t going to let me get away from what I felt called to. The mark of a good friend-loving accountability.

“Weeeellll… I don’t know…I did just sign up for my cousin’s “21 Day Habits” coaching course. I am super excited about it. My uncle actually recommended I give it a try when I reached out to him about getting “unstuck” with writing. I think it is perfect timing. I need something to get me going, something to keep me accountable. We have already had one call and one assignment and it has me seeing areas I would like to grow in AND the program has not officially started yet.” 

“That sounds really good. When do you actually start?”

“January 15th.” 

“You will have to let me know how it goes.” 

“I will.” 

Even on good days it can be challenging to do what I want to do, be the person I want to be. Some days it can take all of the energy I have just to do the basics. I am becoming more aware that left to myself, I flounder and flail and fall into discouragement.  Add on top of that the troubles of life and any of us can get stuck. 

Recently, on a day I was feeling particularly stuck, I went for a walk. Our home is a seven minute walk to Lake Michigan and I often take long walks along its shoreline. As I walked I listened to one of my favorite podcasts,“The Leader’s Journey Podcast.” The episode was called, “Reflecting on 2021.” My brain hesitated before pushing play.  We have all faced more trouble than we thought we would in the last twenty months. We have all lost someone in some way, shape or form. I knew I wasn’t alone in feeling stuck and I knew that the episode would speak straight to the heart of that pain. ‘Do I want to be crying and walking today?’ I had thought. I took the leap and pushed play. Jim Herrington and Trisha Taylor said this:

Jim: “…I’ve been inspired by, in spite of how hard it is, the way people are taking this on…doing the things that they have to do and not just to survive but to thrive.”

Trisha:   “And even if you are not to the thriving part yet…I want to just say to so many of the people I see that are struggling who say, ‘Well I’m surviving’ like that’s a bad thing…you have gotten through 2021 and you are still here emotionally, spiritually, in any kind of way, I want to affirm that, I want to say it is a worthy goal to get through a time like this and survive. And if you can see the thriving…that is even better but even if you can’t see the thriving, you are here and you’ve invested in things that mattered and whether you can see the fruit of that or not, I just want to say to people all the time…Surviving is a worthy goal. We don’t always have to be at the top of our game.”

These words were a drink to my soul. I listened and walked and cried.  I was in survival mode and I was viewing that as bad, as  failure. I was not writing, my time with Jesus each morning was in maintenance mode, I was eating more gluten than my body could handle, motivation was lacking, I felt up to my ears in discouragement and grief over our special needs life had slowly crept back in over the Christmas season. The question, “what am I doing? Is this all really worth it? It seems that in the end, almost everyone leaves and we are left starting over again. A special needs life is more than enough to tackle, let alone leading a church, let alone living in a big city.” Even though I knew we were called to Chicago, these were the thoughts I was contending with daily. To hear someone say, “surviving is a worthy goal,” rocked my world and reframed all the tormenting thoughts I was plagued by. 

At the end of the podcast Trisha recommended listening to “Your Labor is Not in Vain” by Porter’s Gate. I stood on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, watching the waves roar and crash on a snow covered beach, soaking in the simple, beautiful melody of that song, tears pouring down my face, thankful for the giant hood on my coat, giving me a tiny private room to cry freely, letting.  

I wanted to start seeing surviving as a time where God was doing a deep work, a foundational work, uprooting and replanting. I wanted to remember that God promised to walk with me, with you, wherever we are, whatever we face, whether we are doing the thing that we are passionate about, or we  have lost our way all together-he is there. He sees the way where there is no way. He knows where we are going. My calling is not to know what will happen or how it will happen or what life will look like in a year or in thirty years…my calling is to love him and love others one day at a time for the rest of my life, knowing when I don’t, his grace is there to welcome me back. With God, it is not three strikes and we are out…it is “come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” It is, “In your weakness I am made strong.’ it is “in the dark places I will give you treasures.’ Nothing is wasted. I’m learning that surviving adds strength and maturity that we otherwise would not have found. 

I want to be a joyful old woman someday. The mindsets that I choose today and everyday will determine what kind of old lady I will be. I love the quote, “ Every decision points us in a direction.” Surviving points us in the direction of standing firm, of strength, of determination to not be undone by what is going on around us. We will have seasons of feeling undone, of losing it, of not loving our choices, but we come back again and again to standing firm, to clinging to Jesus “who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” 2 Corinthians 1:4-5 Our affliction, our surviving has purpose. Our labor is not in vain. We may not understand it, but I believe that we will look back and be able to see the beautiful garden that God is planting and growing in the most unlikely of places, in the mountains and in the deserts, in the dry and weary parts of our hearts and in dark caverns and caves, in the hidden and in the forgotten, in the small and in the timid, in the humble and the meek. I believe that in the surviving God is “doing something in our day that we would not believe even if we were told.” (Habakkuk 1:5) 

“Your labor is not in vain.”

“Surviving is a worthy cause.”

Be blessed, dear friend.