Sunday, November 5, was a difficult day. It was the birthday of a sweet young family member born only four months before our youngest, but who left this world without warning two weeks before our little one entered it. It was the day we received news of 26 strangers, though bound to us by the blood of Christ, who attended church one morning and never returned home. It was the day a young man in our own church family, a husband and father of three young boys, who has spent his life battling for his own health, went home to be with His heavenly Father.

It was a very difficult day. A reminder that life is more precious than we ever fully grasp and could be lost before we even realize what’s happening. Not one of us is immune, or “safe,” or untouchable.

Yet, more than ever, we cling to the knowledge that He is good. When it doesn’t make sense. When it looks like the world is winning. When He’s answered our fervent prayers with a “No.” He. is. good.

Today, November 7, is my Daddy’s 60th Birthday (Happy Birthday, Dad!), but it’s also the day I was due to celebrate another birth-day. It was in these weeks one year ago that we were beginning this crazy, unexpected (but somehow expected) journey of carrying and caring for someone else’s child. It was been such a process in this past year. And I know, really, we were late to the party, because for these precious parents, it has been a process years in the making. And as I’ve been approaching this due date – what should have been a time to celebrate the closing of this chapter,  the one where I carry a child in my womb and have the privilege of watching it embraced in its parents arms – I haven’t been able to help this feeling that I should have been done by now.

And I don’t say that in a resentful way. But it truly feels I’ve been pregnant for a year now. Because it’s been a year of anticipation, emotional weariness, physical exhaustion, and pain – more emotionally than physically, but a little of both, still. It’s been a year I wouldn’t have imagined – a mixture of fear, and hope, and joy, and frustration, and confusion. And I’m not even finished yet. This body still has at least five months left to go.

I’m worn out. And then I’m even more worn out thinking of the road ahead.

And, given our current history, we all continue to ride the line between hope and fear – a feeling that adds to the fatigue.

But what I’ve recognized over this past weekend, is that it’s a line not simply reserved for us. But it’s the line we all ride on, as the human race, particularly as children of God.

There is much to be fearful of in this world.

But there is much to hope for.

And we get to choose to which of these we’ll cling – which side of the line we’ll live on.

And I know I sound like a broken record, but it really is a daily choice, and so, today, I am again choosing hope. And remembering, as always, that He is good.

These precious booties were purchased by this little guy’s mom. He is so loved.

We recently learned this little one taking up a temporary home in my belly is a boy. And I pray continually for this little man, that he, too, will be wrapped in hope and will be a beacon of joy to all who know his story.

I thank God, once again, for this privilege to participate in what He is doing through this little life. It’s not been an easy journey. But it continues to be worth it all.