Saving the open document on my computer, I close my door with intention, mentally leaving the worries of work inside my office. I wish my co-workers a good evening and check in with myself as I walk to daycare to get my littlest one. We drive to school to pick up the big three while I review the evening’s supper plan. My oldest is finally big enough to sit in the front seat and we chat about our days while the small three connect in the back. The days blend together and I am keeping my heart fixed on Barbara Brown Taylor’s question: “What is saving your life right now?”

Awkward floated to my lips a few times last week before I saw the pattern. The stumbling and crashing of growing children and adolescents finding themselves in bigger bodies than the days before. Constant adjustments during mask practice sessions. Remembering the diapers and the keys and the shoes, only to forget to pack lunch in a new season’s morning routine. We are making it through, but it is painfully awkward.

Falling is on my list of least favourite things.

Honest is hard. There is nothing like a season of physical distancing to remind me of that truth.

Space is not a word I associated with love for most of my life. I grew up longing for the freedom of stretching further away from the intimacy of my family and small Saskatchewan town. I sat in the farmhouse window sill in my bedroom, staring up at the expansive, prairie sky of stars, full of wonder at all the space in the universe for all of us.

Feelings are constantly swirling in my world — in health care and in my home and in my heart. The myriad of messages coming from every direction are little help in sorting through the emotional tremors.

Staying the course is an ironic metaphor for an asthmatic whose longest race ever was 3,000 metres.

Beauty surprised me last week when I walked out to the car with a small hand in mine: “Mommy, the road is sparkling!” 

Resistance is an old friend of mine. She knows the arc of my back and places a comforting hand on my shoulder to let me know I am not alone. But three times in the same week, I heard familiar words from Deuteronomy: “See, I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity. Choose life.” 

I have been thinking a lot over the last couple of years about how God comes to us. In tragedy and grief, in deep joy and hope, in confusion and in waiting. In all these places, I am deeply convinced that He comes. Still, I often struggle to recognize Him.