To live within God’s design is to be blessed.

The Bible calls this way of living the fear of the Lord. Psalm 128 says, “blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways.”

To fear God is to trust that His ways lead to flourishing, even when they conflict with our instincts or the values of the surrounding culture.

And few areas of modern life are more clouded by confusion than womanhood itself.

Young women today are constantly being discipled into competing visions of what it means to flourish. The world offers one picture of the “good life,” while even many Christian conversations have reduced biblical womanhood into narrow caricatures that miss the heart of God’s design entirely.

If you are a young wife and mother like me—in the early years of building a home, shaping the culture of your family, and laying foundations that will bear fruit for decades to come—you probably carry dreams in your heart that extend beyond the duties directly in front of you.

And those desires are not always wrong. If you are in Christ, allowing His Word to shape your desires, they may very well be part of what He is calling you into.

Your role as wife and mother is not your identity, but your assignment. And with every assignment, there are seasons that require more of you than others.

Those desires in your heart may be the testing ground of your willingness to wait on His time—to trust that the season you are in now is forming you for what’s to come.

The season before you is not wasted in the hands of God. The choices made here—what we prioritize, what we neglect, what we cultivate, and what we sacrifice—do not remain isolated to the present moment; they pave the way for the future.

Often, faithfulness in these years looks like tending those dreams in the margins—learning, growing, practicing, preparing—while still remaining deeply attentive to the people and responsibilities directly in front of us.

There will come a day when the children who once needed our constant presence grow more independent, when the home we spent years building becomes steadier beneath our feet, and when the very gifts we cultivated through hidden years are able to flourish more fully.

But if that season comes, it will not be because your years at home held you back. It will often be because those years formed something within you first.

Because these years matter so deeply, we must be careful what vision of the good life is shaping us—whether it is based in Truth or lies.

Being a wife and mother is a great privilege, a gift. Embedded within every gift the Lord entrusts to us is also a responsibility: to steward it faithfully until His return.

The difficulty is that God’s design often appears less desirable than the alternatives being offered to us.

This week, I was reminded of that while shopping with my son.

The Gifts We Would Not Choose

I took my three-year-old to the store to pick out a toy as a reward for officially graduating to “big boy pants” at night after a week of no bed-wetting. He and his big brother walked through the aisles side by side, examining the shelves layered with toys of all kinds, until his eyes landed on the toy. A huge, plastic police car, with numerous buttons that made the lights flash, sirens blare and wheels move.

“This one!” he exclaimed, reaching for the car he had to wrap both arms around to carry. “Are you sure?” I gently asked. “There might be other toys you’d enjoy more—” my words were suddenly cut off by the little boy tossing the car into our cart. “This is what I want, mama! I’m sure!”

He walked out of the store elated about his new toy, but I knew the excitement would be short-lived. The flashy ones always are. But this was his choice, not mine. If it were up to me, I would have chosen the toy that seemed less exciting on the surface—the one that was well-built, open-ended for imagination, and able to grow with him over time. The kind of toy that challenges a child, not merely amuses him.

These are the kinds of gifts we choose for our children because we know they are the ones that will serve them well for years to come. But they are often not what they would choose for themselves.

And so it is with the gifts our heavenly Father gives to us.

Many of us are drawn toward lives that promise immediate fulfillment, recognition, or freedom from sacrifice. But God often gives His daughters gifts that require sacrifice in the present, yet yield a far deeper reward in time.

The life He calls us to may not always appear glamorous on the surface. But over time, we discover that His design was not meant merely to entertain us for a moment, but to shape us into women capable of love, wisdom, fruitfulness, and endurance in all of life’s assignments.

A Helper, Not a Competitor

The first truth revealed in Scripture for the role of a woman is that of a helper (Genesis 2:18). Proverbs 31 expands on what that role looks like practically.

From the beginning of the chapter, we are given a picture of a precious wife—one whom her husband trusts deeply because she has committed herself to seeking his good alongside her own.

Later on in the chapter, you see the fruit of making this her priority:

“Her husband is known in the gates
when he sits among the elders of the land.”

Consider what this verse is saying. The wisdom, diligence, and faithfulness of a wife do not remain isolated to herself; they strengthen the entire household.

Her husband is respected in part because the life they have built together bears good fruit. His work flourishes. Their home is stable. Their children are nurtured. The order and wisdom of the household become visible to the community around them.

The beauty of God’s design is that when we help our husband flourish in his role, we will flourish in ours.

More often, the world appeals to us to put our desires first and compete with our husband’s role. We are told that if we do not invest in ourselves in these years, we will miss our opportunity to prosper later. The temptation for many of us is to spend these years primarily building ourselves—our reputations, our success, our sense of accomplishment—fearing that if we do not seize every opportunity now, we will somehow fall behind.

And yet Scripture continually calls us to trust that a life poured out in love and faithfulness is never wasted.

Listen to what God’s word says about the woman who chooses to live according to His design instead, laying down her life in these years to build her husband, children and home:

“Her children rise up and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her . . .

Give her of the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the gates.”

Do not miss this, sisters. There is always reward in obedience to the Word of the Lord. Yes, the fullness of that reward will be realized in eternity. But even now, we are often given glimpses of its fruit.

Think about some of the most godly women you know—women who have spent years faithfully serving their families, often setting aside certain ambitions or comforts for a season out of love and obedience to Christ.

Over time, the fruit of that faithfulness often begins to appear around them: deep relationships with their children, strong and fruitful households, marriages marked by trust and endurance, and lives that bless entire communities. And not because their lives were easy or free from suffering, but because faithful love, over many years, tends to bear beautiful fruit.

The Center of Her Industry

At this point, some women may hear all of this language about sacrifice, service, and laying down one’s life and assume that God’s vision for womanhood is small, restrictive, or devoid of meaningful work outside the walls of the home.

But when we actually look carefully at Proverbs 31, we find something surprisingly different. The virtuous woman described there is remarkably industrious.

She plants vineyards. She purchases fields. She makes goods and sells them. She considers opportunities wisely and works diligently with her hands. This is not a passive woman— she is productive, capable, disciplined, and economically fruitful.

And yet, what makes her life beautiful is not merely that she works, but that her work is rightly ordered.

Her home remains the center of her industry.

The issue, then, is not whether a woman is productive, gifted, or economically fruitful. Proverbs 31 clearly presents a woman who is all of those things.

The question is whether she remains attentive to the work God has actually given her to do.

Because Scripture repeatedly warns women against both idleness and neglect—a temptation addressed not only in Proverbs, but also in 1 Timothy 5 and Titus 2.

The reality is, we can commit these sins whether we are stay-at-home moms or working within and outside the home. A woman may remain physically present in her home and still neglect it, just as another may labor diligently both within and beyond it while remaining deeply attentive to the people entrusted to her care.

Scripture warns us that idleness often becomes fertile ground for comparison, gossip, entitlement, and discontentment. When these things begin taking root in us, it is worth asking whether our attention has drifted from the work God has actually placed before us.

A godly woman does not drift through her days. She learns to redeem the time (Ephesians 5), giving herself diligently to the work God has placed before her.

Different Homes, Same Faithfulness

For my mom, who mothered twelve children and homeschooled all of us, her financial contribution was one of resourcefulness. My dad had a steady job that supported our family’s needs, and she stewarded his provision by being thrifty, making meals from scratch, mending our clothes, etc.

My mother-in-law mothered two children who went to school from kindergarten up, so her contribution to the home looked different. From the time her children were in school, she began helping my father-in-law in his business. She kept the books for their farm and got her license to help with their real estate business.

Do you see how two women can walk very different paths and still live faithfully within God’s design?

Their lives did not look identical, yet both remained attentive to the people and responsibilities God had entrusted to them. The needs of their household were not obstacles to their flourishing, but part of the very work God had called them into.

Neither woman was idle with the season she had been given. One expressed her diligence through resourcefulness within the home; the other through supporting and building alongside her husband’s work. But both understood the same deeper truth: their home remained the center of their industry.

And perhaps this is what so much of the modern conversation around womanhood misses.

The question is not simply whether a woman works inside or outside the home, contributes financially or serves in quieter ways. The deeper question is what vision of flourishing is shaping her life.

The world tells women to build themselves first. Scripture calls us to lay our lives down in love—to trust that the God who designed us knows where true fruitfulness is found.

And though His gifts may not always appear glamorous at first, over time their reward begins to reveal itself. Slowly, through years of faithfulness, the fruit ripens.

The world offers women many visions of the good life. But the fear of the Lord teaches us to trust that God’s design is better than what initially dazzles us.

To live within God’s design is to be blessed.

I have noticed a shift lately in interior design: the return of rooms.

After decades of open-concept living — kitchens bleeding into dining spaces, living rooms dissolving into one long expanse — people are craving walls again. Doors. Defined spaces that ask to be entered rather than drifted through.

To be clear, this is not an argument for one layout over another. Homes are lived in differently, and families shape spaces as much as spaces shape families. We even opened up our own 1960s ranch, and for this season of raising young children, it fits us well.

But alongside the design shift is something deeper — a longing for homes that feel storied. Layered. Rooted in something older than the last renovation cycle.

And that is what catches my attention.

There is something comforting about the thought of a room with corners. A space that has held the same table for years. A wall that has witnessed conversations, arguments, celebrations — and kept them all.

But here is the irony: many of the same people longing for history want it installed in a matter of months.

We want the feeling of tradition without the years required to form it. We want depth — but we want it quickly.

And that longing is not really about paint colors or floor plans.

It reveals something about us.

The Pull of What’s Next

If we are honest, we can see it in more than our homes.

We are drawn toward what is new, often without realizing it — the next destination, the next purchase, the next show, the next project, even the next version of ourselves.

Reinvention carries a certain optimism. Movement can feel like progress. And over time, remaining in the same place — geographically, relationally, vocationally — can begin to feel less like faithfulness and more like stagnation.

Even where we live has become part of that rhythm. Fewer people remain in the same home or city for long. Opportunities arise, doors open, circumstances shift. Many of those moves are good and even necessary.

And yet, somewhere along the way, movement itself has come to symbolize growth.

Staying rarely receives that same admiration.

It requires living with what is already in front of us — the people who are difficult but unavoidable, the work that stretches us in ordinary ways, the homes and churches that need patient care rather than dramatic overhaul, the children who do not fit tidy expectations.

None of that looks impressive. Much of it feels repetitive.

But depth is usually formed there — not in reinvention, but in sustained presence over time.

I am not immune to the pull toward something new.

Still, I am learning that what feels slow is often what shapes us most.

What the Longing Reveals

From the beginning of time, the temptation has been the same: that something better waits just beyond what God has given you.

Sometimes it feels as small as a single bite. Sometimes it feels as large as a move, a reinvention, a different version of life.

But it is always the same whisper — that fulfillment lies somewhere else.

And it has always been a lie.

As long as we believe it, we remain near the surface, unrooted and unsettled, convinced that depth is waiting for us in the next chapter rather than here.

In his book, The Familiar Stranger, Tyler Staton identifies this draw toward novelty today:

"What if our greatest obstacle is the one the culture and the church jointly celebrate—wanderlust? We are a future-oriented society addicted to the next and the new. . . We try to form character by running from one set of circumstances to another. But Jesus says character is shaped when we abide, remain, stay.”

We keep trying to form depth through movement, when depth is most often formed through remaining.

The Beauty and the Blind Spot of Staying

My husband is the third generation to steward the farm where we live. His parents have been up the road for nearly thirty years. His grandparents lived in the house we now call home for decades before us.

I married into a family deeply rooted in place. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

But remaining has its own tensions.

We have built friendships only to say goodbye as they began to flourish. I have hugged siblings and friends as they moved away to begin again somewhere else.

Even long-standing relationships can feel fragile in a culture accustomed to movement.

Rootedness does not make us superior. Nor is movement always wanderlust.

But constant transience reshapes how we form community.

And staying reshapes us too.

Living near extended family can be one of life’s greatest gifts. It can also tempt us toward complacency — toward keeping our world small.

Family can become the foundation from which we love others well, or the boundary that quietly keeps everyone else out.

In the small town where we now live — and the one where I was raised — that pattern is common. Tight-knit families. Deep history. Strong roots. And sometimes, unintentional walls.

But both Christian and I were shown a better way.

Our parents kept us grounded in home and connected to one another, yet they refused to let family become a fortress. They opened the doors outward. They exposed us to people whose stories were nothing like ours — people who needed our presence as much as we needed theirs.

I will never forget the summer of 2005.

Hurricane Katrina had torn across the South, leaving devastation in its wake. Roofs ripped off. Entire communities displaced. Families scattering to wherever they could find shelter.

Our own home had suffered damage. We were without power for weeks. The air hung heavy and still in the Mississippi heat.

And yet, even in the middle of our own inconvenience, my parents welcomed a single mother and her two daughters from the Gulf Coast to live with us.

Their rhythms were different from ours. Their experiences unfamiliar. Their grief heavy.

I remember watching the strain it placed on my mom — caring for her own children while extending hospitality to others, holding sorrow that was not originally her own.

It was inconvenient, stretching, and it required sacrifice.

But it also opened my eyes.

That experience and many others taught me that rootedness can pave the way to interdependence.

Family was never meant to be a bubble we retreat into, but a base from which we extend strength outward.

But staying, by itself, is not the virtue.

Roots can grow deep and still refuse to bear fruit. Familiarity can slowly harden into comfort. And comfort, left unchecked, can disguise itself as faithfulness while silently insulating us from the needs around us.

Remaining becomes formative only when it is marked by intention — by hospitality that stretches us, by perseverance that costs us something, by love that moves outward rather than folding inward.

Without that posture, staying is not depth.

It is simply stillness.

And in that way, rootedness and transiency are not as different as they appear.

Both can be driven by the same instinct: self-preservation.

One withdraws inward and calls it stability.
The other moves outward and calls it growth.

Neither, on its own, produces depth.

When Movement Becomes Distance

If stagnant rootedness is one danger, restless movement is another.

It can elevate chosen community while loosening inherited ties.

Since 2020 especially, family estrangement has been normalized as self-protection. Personal peace has become a governing value.

Sometimes boundaries are necessary. Critical even. But when peace is pursued at the expense of perseverance, something essential thins. We become practiced at distance rather than devotion.

Whether or not you are close with your extended family, relationships with those who were a part of your childhood — the good, the bad, and the ugly — are rarely simple.

Family relationships are often the most refining precisely because we did not choose them.

God did.

That includes the difficult ones — the ones we have little in common with, the ones we struggle to understand, the ones who press against our preferences and expose our impatience.

Within family, there is little room for facades. History resurfaces. Patterns repeat. Old wounds linger. And walking away carries weight.

Friendships, on the other hand, allow for choice. We can gather around us those who agree with us, share our interests, mirror our stage of life. And if things grow tense or inconvenient, there is often an easier exit.

That freedom is not wrong. It is a gift. But it can also allow us to curate lives that shield us from the very friction that shapes us.

Depth rarely forms in spaces where nothing is required of us.

It forms when we remain present through conflict, when we bear one another’s burdens over time, when we stay long enough to see God soften what once felt immovable — in them and in us.

This kind of formation unfolds slowly. It requires time and perseverance, and few things shape us more deeply than staying present through seasons we would rather avoid.

The Courage to Remain

Perhaps the return of rooms is more than a design shift.

Perhaps it’s a confession.

We are weary of wide, undefined lives. We long for walls that hold history—spaces that have been inhabited long enough to matter.

Deep down, we desire to belong to something greater than ourselves. That desire is God-given.

But walls are not built in a weekend. Neither is character. Or community.

The life we are longing for cannot be hurried into existence.

It is formed slowly—through repetition, through friction, through the quiet decision to remain when leaving would be easier.

And remaining, by itself, is not the virtue. Staying only shapes us when it is marked by intention—when we resist the pull toward self-preservation and allow ourselves to be stretched by the people and responsibilities in front of us.

Depth will cost us novelty. It will cost us convenience. It may even cost us the comforting illusion that something better is waiting just beyond what we have been given.

But the reward is something trends can never manufacture: a life thick with history, relationships that have weathered seasons instead of being replaced by them, and a faith that has been formed not through escape, but through endurance.

Perhaps the most radical thing we can do in a culture addicted to the next and the new is simply to remain.

Not as retreat or stagnation, but as deliberate, outward-facing faithfulness.

To stay where He has placed us long enough to be shaped — and long enough to shape others in return.

With love,

Laura

I blame my mom for the habit. She was always refreshing spaces in our home by repurposing what she already had. Somewhere along the way, I developed a love for doing the same.

But on this January afternoon, what began as a few small tweaks in our living room quickly snowballed into a complete overhaul of the furniture placement.

And no, I did not consult my husband. I snapped a photo of the new arrangement and sent him a text that read, “thank me or forgive me.” Eesh.

When Christian got home that evening, I greeted him with a smile tinged with insecurity and quickly ushered him toward the living room.

“Before you say anything, let me explain why this works better…” I blurted out as he stood there in silence.

He listened patiently as I launched into a lengthy monologue outlining precisely why he should agree with my decision. And then I stopped talking (thank goodness).

“Honey,” he said gently, “I really loved the way it was before. We chose that arrangement intentionally while renovating. We bought this furniture to make it work. I just wish you had talked to me first.”

My heart dropped.

I went to get ready for bed feeling defeated, rehearsing all the ways he was being close-minded to something new. But as soon as my pride softened, I knew he was right.

There was nothing wrong with the arrangement we had chosen together. And I could have saved myself a great deal of time and effort if I had simply brought him into the process from the start.

The next morning, I moved everything back to its original place. Peace restored.

Why am I sharing this rather embarrassing glimpse into my month? Because surface-level moments often carry deeper lessons, if we are willing to listen. And this was no exception.

The following week, Christian and I found ourselves driving along the California coastline. No children in the backseat—just the two of us, wind whipping through the car and waves crashing against the shore below towering cliffs.

We were there for a farm conference, but our schedule left room to explore, and we did.

We walked rugged shorelines, savoring the quiet of a landscape so different from home. We ate incredible food, admired breathtaking works of art, and learned about filmmaking throughout modern history. We stood at the bow of a boat, staring out over the vast blue ocean, Christian’s arms wrapped around me to keep me warm. I cried as dolphin families—hundreds of them—swam and leapt freely around us.

After a full holiday season and mounting responsibilities waiting back home, this time away felt like a gift. But greater than the experiences themselves was the reconnection it offered us.

In this season of raising small children, where uninterrupted conversation is rare, it is easy to forget how to simply sit in one another’s presence.

Time away like this resets our marriage. What remains buried beneath the noise of everyday life has space to rise when we are alone.

I believe this is one reason we stay so busy as a culture. We are afraid of the quiet. What if, when everything slows down, there is nothing there?

What we forget is that light cannot enter what remains shut. At some point, we must stop hiding and allow it in.

That moment came for me on our drive from Laguna Beach the first evening of the trip.

I had been wrestling with a decision I had prayed over for months—one that seemed met with silence from God. As I finally spoke it aloud to Christian, tears followed. Confusion and frustration surfaced as I struggled to understand what the Lord was asking of me.

Why won’t You make this clear? I prayed. People are waiting. I need direction.

Christian, wrestling through his own thoughts, entered the conversation. One thing led to another—as it often does when emotions and jet lag collide—and suddenly we were back in our rearranged living room.

“Laura,” he said, “you decide what you want to do and then ask for my approval. You don’t invite me into the process from the beginning.”

As his words landed, another voice became unmistakable—the voice of the Holy Spirit, speaking quietly but clearly within me.

This is what you do with Me.

Tears came again. Not from confusion this time, but conviction.

I felt it instantly. My grip loosened. My resistance softened. I stopped striving to control the outcome.

Then clarity rushed in—not all at once, but like waves reaching dry land.

“When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will make you in accordance with the vision He has given you if you will wait His time. Never try to help God fulfill His word.”

The words I’d read from Oswald Chambers’ lingered in my mind.

Waiting has never been my strength.

I am a feeler-doer. Passion ignites, momentum follows, and reflection comes later—if at all. The living room bears witness.

But the issue is not my wiring. The solution is not suppressing emotion or becoming passive. It is learning to resist the urge to move before God speaks.

When I chose to follow Jesus, I surrendered the right to self-direction. That decision was made once, but it is lived out daily. Much like my marriage vows, it requires continual choosing—opening my heart again and again, allowing the relationship to deepen into true oneness.

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.”

My heart, renewed by Christ, longs for communion. My flesh still craves autonomy. My way.

And yet, here is the beauty I return to again and again:

My life is no longer my own. The One who was, and is, and is to come lives within me.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

This means my thoughts, my will, my emotions—nothing is off-limits to Him.

Not only does God plant visions that align with His will, but He also supplies the power to carry them out—by His Spirit, in His time.

Do you see it?

Our uniqueness is not the obstacle. Our resistance is.

God has always been the vision-giver. Every true, good, and beautiful idea originates with Him. And every vision He gives is an invitation into deeper partnership.

Abraham. Joseph. Moses. Samuel. David. Mary. Paul.

Still, like so many before us, we often take the vision and run ahead, attempting to accomplish it in our own strength instead of walking with Him from the start.

We begin moving—perhaps even in the right direction. The path is clear. Our steps feel light.

Then comes the hesitation. The fork. The dimming. Weariness sets in.

Doubt follows. Was this really from God, or did I imagine it?

And rather than returning to our Guide, we choose our own way.

What began in obedience slowly unravels.

If only we had waited. If only we had trusted His timing.

Yet here is our hope: just as we did not author the vision, we cannot undo God’s faithfulness. No misstep places us beyond His reach. It is never too late to step back and make room for His presence again.

Our insistence on control reveals not confidence, but fear—that God may not answer us at all.

After returning home, bags unpacked and routines restored, I found myself standing in our living room once more.

It still needs refreshing, I thought.

I shifted small items—moving pieces between the mantel, the coffee table, the dining room, the piano in the corner. Nothing settled.

Then my eyes caught the empty vases scattered throughout the room.

I had planned to fill them once everything else was in place. But suddenly the thought struck me: nothing else works until you start there.

So I laid everything aside and stepped outside, gathering winter branches from the yard.

I brought them in, arranged them carefully, and stepped back.

Only then did the rest of the room fall into place.

Just like that, everything felt right again.

Every ordinary moment carries a deeper invitation if we are willing to listen.

God works through our personalities—our passions, our tendencies, our weaknesses—not to shame us, but to sanctify us. To draw us back into awareness of His presence.

He speaks through decisions and through daily rhythms. Through spouses and through living rooms.

The question is not whether He is speaking.

It is whether we are listening.

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This is an article released in 2020 after losing our first son and becoming pregnant with our second.

I am releasing these writings from those early days in the valley on this platform as we honor our son’s sixth year in glory at the end of October.

My prayer is that they can bring light into another’s dark night of the soul.

We are nearly 36 weeks pregnant with our second baby boy. This time last year, we were unknowingly spending our final hours with our first.

I didn’t know if I would write this final chapter of our pregnancy with Caleb.

The month of October has been filled with waves of emotion—mostly reserved for my private prayers and quiet journaling with Jesus.

Until yesterday, I assumed they would remain that way.

. . . Then I received a card in the mail.

It was a birthday card for Levi from my brother and sister-in-law.

When I first looked over the beautifully painted cotton fields and the Psalm beneath, God whispered to my heart that there was more for me to write here.

First, let me take you back to October of last year, when we were 38 weeks pregnant with Levi.

I pulled out my camera for the last time and walked out to the cotton fields behind our house, capturing those final moments while Levi’s heart still beat in my belly.

Christian and I spent the hour that followed walking and praying over Levi and his birth.

We asked the Lord to bless him and to give us the grace we would need as parents in the days ahead.

Looking back, I can see that many things we did while pregnant with Levi were by providence.

We wrote letters to him during each trimester. Only Jesus knew those nine months would be all we had—and that those letters would later be read at his funeral.

We documented so much of him in my belly—photos we treasure deeply, as they are all we have of him while he was still alive.

The cotton fields where we stood to capture those final days with Levi were harvested just days after he was born.

All too soon, like his life, the ground stood bare once again.

Tomorrow will mark one year since we said goodbye—until we meet him again in glory.

This year has been a walk through the valley, a time when our own ground has felt stripped bare.

But when God blessed us with another precious life, we chose to document each trimester in the same cotton field where we spent our final hours praying with Levi.

Because when we look into our rainbow baby’s eyes in just a few weeks, we never want to forget in this new season of light what God so graciously taught us in the dark.

I used to be afraid of the valley. I would desperately try to control the outcome of my life to avoid that low and barren place.

But Levi’s life has taught me that it is in the valley that the Lord plants His seeds.

It is in the valley that we see the depths of His love for us.

It is in the valley that we truly learn His “peace that surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).

It is in the valley that we experience how powerfully He sustains (Psalm 55:22).

And only when we walk through the valley can we behold the beautiful harvest waiting on the other side—the seeds sown in tears that bring forth new, abundant life in Christ.

As we celebrate Levi’s first birthday tomorrow, we know there will still be tears.

But interwoven with sorrow is the sweetness of redemption—a quiet joy that hums beneath the ache.

Because our God does not waste a single seed.

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.” — Psalm 126:5

A joyful harvest awaits.

This is an article released in 2020 after losing our first son and becoming pregnant with our second.

I am releasing these writings from those early days in the valley on this platform as we honor our son’s sixth year in glory at the end of October.

My prayer is that they can bring light into another’s dark night of the soul.

I took the final sip of my morning coffee as the sunrise began leaking through the curtains into the living room.

The candle faithfully lit each morning still flickered as the gentle rhythm of chimes sang with the wind outside – Levi’s song.

Hanging beneath the chimes are the words we sang at his funeral:

“Your grace is sufficient for me; Your strength is made perfect when I am weak.

All that I cling to, I lay at Your feet.

Your grace is sufficient for me.”

I closed my journal filled with prayers and pondered those words in my heart, reflecting on all the ways He has sustained us since that day.

A little kick jolted my attention toward the blessing inside of me.

Looking down with a smile I whispered into the light, “good morning, my sweet boy.”

While the first trimester with our rainbow baby was a battle between fear and surrender of another son to Jesus, the second trimester overflows with grace.

Finding out we are pregnant with another boy is a precious gift.

But if I’m being honest, when we became open to another pregnancy, the thought that it could be another boy had us questioning if we could handle it emotionally.

And yet, each time I prayed Holy Spirit reminded me that the Lord knows exactly what we need.

Oh, how He knew.

We began discussing name possibilities not long after finding out we were pregnant.

It’s always been a decision we desire to approach with prayer and intention because we believe that names are significant to the Lord and they hold a sacred part of our identity.

We already had a girl name chosen, but it was difficult to think through boy names again.

The week before our ultrasound appointment to find out the gender, we sat down for dinner and discussed names again.

“We are getting really close and we still haven’t chosen a name if it’s a boy” I said to Christian across the table. “Is there one that has stood out to you?”

Christian proceeded to share the name Caleb, expressing that it has stayed forefront of his mind.

Caleb was never a name we previously considered. But when Christian began sharing the biblical story and what the name means, my eyes immediately welled up with tears.

I knew Holy Spirit was speaking directly to my heart: Caleb is who is in my belly.

Caleb means “devoted to God,” and the story surrounding Caleb in the Bible is exactly what Christian and I have consistently prayed over him – that he would be purely devoted to Christ, even in the midst of adversity, and even if he is the only one doing so.

Days later, we got the confirmation that we are, indeed, expecting another baby boy.

Levi’s little brother and our redeeming gift from God.

We were grateful to have a time of honoring Levi’s identity before he was born by hosting a “gender reveal” gathering, and so we held to the tradition with Caleb.

This is a time that Christian and I are able to share our child’s name along with the meaning behind it, then spend time in prayer and celebration over a new life.

Jesus continued demonstrating His redeeming grace in the weeks following, including the day Levi’s headstone was placed over his grave.

I was dreading the day and the grief I must face all over again.

Christian was working when I got the call that it was about to be installed, so I headed to the cemetery alone.

Worship music played softly as I drove, tears streaming down my face and the familiar heaviness filling my heart.

“God, give me strength” I whispered under my breath.

When I pulled into the cemetery, two men were unloading the stone.

I let my fingers feel the words engraved:

“Born into Heaven

Levi Christian Good

October 31, 2019

Psalm 55:22”

The younger of the two asked, “is this a relative of yours?”

I looked over at him with a smile then proudly responded, “he is my son.”

The gentleman slowly looked away as if reflecting on his own sorrow, then softly responded.

“I lost my son too. Just two hours after he was born.”

Silently I thanked God for His timing, knowing He orchestrated this moment.

I don’t know if this man knew Jesus, but I got to talk about Him and the peace He’s given us through our mutually painful circumstances.

Once again, God allows Levi’s life to be used for His glory.

I drove to the cemetery with a heavy heart, but I left with renewed hope.

Not only did God provide an encounter with a man who had experienced the same loss as us, but in His beautiful timing, Levi’s headstone came with his little brother growing inside of me.

This is God’s sufficient grace.

Psalm 55:22 is the verse that was displayed on the hospital wall when we found out Levi’s heart was no longer beating.

And it is the verse we engraved on his headstone.

As we approach the third trimester with another miracle, we can proclaim from personal testimony that these words are true.

He has sustained us through loss, and He continues to sustain us through life after loss.

The weeks ahead could fill us with fear — for they were all we had left with Levi.

While we expect it to come, we refuse to let fear be our final resting place.

Instead, we proclaim with restored hearts:

“All that I cling to, I lay at Your feet. Your grace is sufficient for me.”

This is an article released in 2020 after losing our first son and becoming pregnant with our second.

I am releasing these writings from those early days in the valley on this platform as we honor our son’s sixth year in glory at the end of October.

My prayer is that they can bring light into another’s dark night of the soul.

The second line was so faint we scarcely dared to hope. But after taking a second, and then a third test, we knew it was true.

We are pregnant.

“How are you feeling about being here again?” I asked Christian as we walked past tiny rows of corn beginning to sprout.

“A mix of emotions,” he responded. “The same well that has drawn intense pain also holds immense hope, and that makes it difficult to face.”

These were some of the first and most raw emotions that came when we found out about our rainbow baby — they were not the last.

Let’s go back to the months leading up to this new season of hope, because I want to give you a glimpse into how God was working in our hearts.

The quiet places where the Lord does His refining is always the precursor to the breakthroughs we experience on the other side.

I remember the afternoon vividly.

I stood in our living room, staring out into our fields where crops usually grow by this time, and I began to cry.

I kept pleading with God to allow life to grow again around me, believing it could give me hope again.

But as I looked over the brown, lifeless ground, I found myself questioning if He was listening.

It felt as though the most mundane things as crops growing — which we could expect year after year — were taken from us.

The rain didn’t stop for months; the fields remained unplanted.

Then COVID came.

Slowly and reluctantly, I realized this unusual world that we’d found ourselves in wasn’t going away anytime soon

God gave me the book of Job in that season of early March 2020.

I found myself grieving along with him and questioning with him, too.

Why was God allowing the enemy to attack him this way?

And why did He allow it to go on for so long?

At last, the final chapters came – God answers.

When He spoke, everything seemed to tremble at His voice.

I trembled as I read: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? . . . Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” (38:2,4)

Suddenly, my questions that mirrored Job’s were put into perspective when reading the words of Almighty God.

Who am I to question the Author of the universe, who possesses all knowledge and wisdom of eternity?

I resonated with Job. I was put in my rightful place, and mournfully expressing:

“I am unworthy – how can I reply to You? (40:4) . . . Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know (42:3b) . . . My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (42:5-6)

This I learned and was greatly convicted:

Clarity about God always leads to humility before Him.

The months leading up to the conception of this new little one was, indeed, humbling.

Looking back now, I realize how much I was trying to take control back into my own hands after a long season of God teaching me surrender.

And yet, because He is a merciful, compassionate Father, He didn’t allow me enter into motherhood again without surrender being my final resting place.

Even if it meant a season that looked lifeless and harsh on the outside.

God was teaching me that hope is about trusting His perfect plan, not about seeing mine come to fruition.

Our first time back into our OBGYN’S office being pregnant again came with anticipation and anxiety.

We expected to hear a heartbeat that day, but instead, we only saw a growing uterus.

Our doctor assured us everything was as it should be so early on, but our disappointment remained.

Two weeks went by before our next appointment, during which I experienced some of the greatest spiritual warfare of my life.

The enemy threw every fear and doubt possible into my mind until it sank into my heart.

By the end of those two weeks, I was exhausted from fighting.

After watching the inner turmoil unfold, Christian finally confronted me in love.

“Laura,” he gently said as we walked along a grassy trail on the farm. “If we do not learn to combat these fears now, they will not disappear upon hearing a heartbeat. And they won’t go away after we have a healthy baby in our arms.

They will eventually take root until they have robbed us of our hope, turning us into anxious, controlling parents who distrust the sovereignty of God and never experience the peace of surrender.”

I knew he was right.

The day before our second appointment I sat on the couch with my Bible in my lap, pouring over every verse I could find on fear.

I prayed as I read, asking Holy Spirit to write them on my heart as a sword to combat the lies.

That evening, I received a call from Christian.

“Go look outside right now!” he exclaimed.

I ran out the front door and was stopped in my tracks at the sight.

One of the most beautiful, vibrant rainbows I had ever seen spread across the sky and landed right into our nursery!

I felt the Lord immediately whisper to my heart: “I remember you, My child.”

I have nothing to fear.

The following day, we heard the most beautiful sound in the world:

The heartbeat of new life.

Christian squeezed my hand, glancing over with a knowing look.

God had given us new hope.

Hope is the word I would use for this new season; redeeming is another.

The first trimester did not come without challenges, and what I have shared are just pieces.

What I want to impart to anyone who reads this is not the details of our earthly suffering, but the depth of how God works through it.

This has and continues to be our journey with Jesus.

This is our story – we are the farmers.

We watched the storm continue with no end in sight,

mourning what our eyes conceived as lost.

We longed for purpose in a season that felt lifeless.

We, too, questioned God’s mercy in our agony.

But in the midst of waiting, we got to witness God’s plan unfold before us

in His time.

We have looked back on our own “fields that lay bare” and have come to grasp what would have drowned had we not abided in His way.

So, here’s to growing another life.

And as we do, letting the Lord grow within us trust, surrender and submission to

His way to the harvest.

This is an article released in 2020 — five months after losing our firstborn son, Levi.

I am releasing these writings from those early days in the valley on this platform as we honor our son’s sixth year in glory at the end of October.

My prayer is that they can bring light into another’s dark night of the soul.

I looked over at the faint glow of my clock resting beside the bed. 2:00 a.m.

How am I still awake?

I slide my hands over my belly that still bares marks of him. Sometimes I can almost still feel his little kicks inside of me, and I let my fingers imagine them again for a moment.

October 29^th was an ordinary Tuesday evening. Christian and I shared big bowls of Blue Bell ice cream and sweet conversation about what was going to be. I held my belly as I always did, dreaming about the day I would hold him. We were just four short days away from our son’s due date. Four days from what we knew would change our lives forever.

What we didn’t know that Tuesday evening is how different God’s story for us would be than the one we envisioned.

That night I went to bed with contractions that continued until wee hours of the morning. By 3 a.m., Christian insisted we go to the hospital. We excitedly got dressed as I pushed through the contractions, smiling in-between, because this was it. We were finally going to meet our sweet Levi.

It was pouring rain outside, but it only fueled the adrenaline rushing through us; it felt like a movie, and we were about to experience our happy ending.

Christian reached over the console, laid his hand on my belly, and said with anticipating eyes, “it’s happening, Laura. Can you really believe it’s happening? You are going to make the best mom. I love you.”

When we pulled into the hospital, a woman sat me in a wheelchair and pushed me into a delivery room. Two nurses appeared moments later with a heart monitor. They placed it on my belly as my doctor had done countless times before.

I looked over at Christian sitting in a chair across the room with a knowing smile. Only a little while now.

The nurses continued to slide the monitor over me for several minutes without hearing a heartbeat, and that’s when I knew something was wrong. I looked over at Christian again, but this time with concern. He tried to assure me that everything was okay, as any loving husband would do, but he couldn’t have known it wasn’t.

After what felt like an eternity of searching, the nurses finally had an ultrasound machine brought into the room. The woman who operated the ultrasound could not tell us anything. It felt like torture. We looked at each other, both silently asking the same question: “what is going on?”

When she walked out of the room, I said to Christian, “something is wrong and I’m so scared.” He took my hand in his and gently tried to reassure me again, but I could see the truth in his eyes. He knew it too.

Finally, the doctor quietly came in with a sober expression that immediately confirmed our fears. Softly, he began, “I am so sorry to have to tell you this, but we cannot find a heartbeat. I’m going to give you both time and then we are going to talk about where to go from here.”

The doctor walked out of the room, and when the door closed behind him, so did our world.

In a moment, everything that we thought would be came crashing into the reality of what is. This baby boy that I had carried for nine months was no longer with us, and I could hardly breathe.

Christian walked over to me, limply laying in the hospital bed with remains of cold gel on my abdomen from trying to find a heartbeat. We embraced tighter than ever before, then cried intensely in each other’s arms.

Grief came knocking as it always does — promptly, but uninvited. It crashed over us like cruel, merciless waves, unaware of the lives they were drowning.

When the doctor came back into the room he was gentle and compassionate. He explained to us what he knew: Levi had grown full term. He doesn’t understand what happened, but he is hoping when he’s is delivered there will be answers. He recommended starting an induction process since I was not dilated enough to get him here as soon as possible. We tried to nod in understanding of his words, but we couldn’t wrap our heads around them.

Suddenly, the contractions were no longer an exciting challenge of what was to be, but a harsh reminder of our current reality.

The hours following felt much like a nightmare. Christian called our parents, and in-between sobbing breaths, told them their grandson was gone. He sent out messages to our close friends and family begging for prayer.

I will not sugarcoat this time. It was the hardest, most painful moments of our entire life and it felt as though everything was broken. We did not think we would be able to go on. Our entire world felt shattered.

But this is when Jesus steps in, as He always does.

Only in our brokenness can we witness His healing.

Something happened in our hospital room that was rather unexplainable in our present circumstances; something that those of us who witnessed can never leave unchanged. Holy Spirit happened.

A calm, inconceivable peace covered the room. Joy and sorrow that were once assumed enemies quickly became close companions — for sorrow gives joy its validity and its ability to be trustworthy.

Family began trickling in and praying over us. We prayed with them. We felt God’s presence like never before.

We knew He hurt with us, but in a different way. He hurts for what we cannot see yet, while we hurt for all we can see now. For God, too, gave up his only son; only He gave Him willingly — to save us. And this son, Jesus, who experienced every kind of suffering that we do, still had to ask God the question: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42).

For many of us in our questioning, it may be expressed this way: “Is there any way that I can experience Your purpose without the pain?”

The induction process began. As the Pitocin filled my body and mountains began climbing across a contraction monitor, we began praising.

We played worship music and let the words of Hope overtake the disappointment. We read Psalms aloud and replaced fear with Truth.

Before you think for a moment that we were so “strong” to have that kind of response in the face of this, know that it was only by the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of Christ in that moment. Our strength did not exist. It drowned with the waves of grief.

The only strength left was God’s, and we witnessed its power that day.

Early Thursday morning, the doctor broke my water and the delivery of our son began. Suddenly, I felt afraid again — so incapable.

I requested to see my mom and she quietly came in with a smile on her face. She put her comforting, reassuring hands on me and whispered, “you are going to get through this because God will give you the strength. We are all praying for you outside that door.”

I felt a new determination when Christian came back into the room.

I may be exhausted emotionally, mentally, and physically, but God is not. He is ready to carry me in this, and I am only moments away from seeing my son.

Christian held my hand, kissed my forehead, and said, “are you ready for this?” to which I replied with a new sense of purpose, “yes.”

By God’s grace, our boy came quickly.

On October 31^st, 2019, Levi Christian Good was born in body, though his spirit was already in heaven. All 8 pounds and 4 precious ounces of him.

When we saw him for the first time we cried tears of joy and sorrow equally.

All of those kicks and hiccups and fist bumps in my belly were finally given a face, and he was absolutely beautiful.

We felt all of the emotions we imagine other parents experience when seeing their child for the first time — overwhelming pride, joy, and a keen awareness of the miracle we held in our arms. Only those feelings were joined by immense sorrow.

Our family came in to meet their grandson and nephew, surrounding us with support. One by one, they hugged us and looked at him, expressing what is too deep for words. They felt it too.

The most painful moment of that day was letting Levi go. We knew when the time was right, but it did not make it any easier to face. I cried bitterly as I held my son for the last time on this side of heaven.

The postpartum room that I was transferred to was so quiet. A silence that held the longing and the heartbreak for the cries of a baby we would never hear.

And that is when it began: the letting go of dreams.

Taking him on a walk in the stroller, putting him in his crib at night, riding in the tractor with dad, reading bedtime stories, teaching him how to ride a bike, watching him make friends, dancing with him at his wedding, together loving on his wife, witnessing him grow.

Every vision that we had over the past nine months floated away into the silence that now filled the room, ruthlessly empty of the life we had hoped for.

And then came the funeral arrangements, which no young parent ever expects to make. But there we were — pondering questions of where to bury him, our vision for his service — all of it.

God’s grace presented itself in many forms over those days, one being our family and funeral directors stepping in to make the process simple for us. Truly, we can never thank them enough.

When we left the hospital the following day and stepped into our vehicle where an empty car seat and full diaper bag lay, we wept. When we reached our road lined with fields stretching across our farm, knowing we would never get to show them to Levi, we cried again.

We let the pain come, and every reminder of the story we envisioned for our lives was laid at the feet of Jesus, followed by a desperate attempt to accept the story He had for us.

We were blessed with family and friends who brought meals, cards, and support of every form to encourage us. If I didn’t know the impact such support made before, I know now. God used our community in ways they will never know to comfort us in that time.

All at once, it was time for the funeral. It was a powerful day. We prayed for Holy Spirit to be present, and He was. We lifted our hands in praise as we sang “It Is Well with My Soul” and “Your Grace Is Sufficient for Me.”

With every soul in that church, we proclaimed together: and if not, He is still good.

The days, weeks, and months that followed were incredibly hard.

We knew there was no way around this valley, only through it.

And we are still walking through it. If there is one thing we have learned about grief in the light Hope is that there are moments of questioning, followed by moments of trusting, and healing comes when we embrace them both.

As Charles Spurgeon put it:

“I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me against the Rock of ages.”

We never did get answers about why Levi died so soon; science and medicine couldn’t make sense of it.

But we did receive an answer from God that fills us with peace:

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” — Psalm 139:16

Our days are numbered, according to God’s purpose.

Though Levi’s tiny feet never touched the ground, the Lord had a greater purpose for his short days — an eternal one. We are witnesses to it every single day.

The Lord used Levi’s life to change us and our perspective — to see God for the compassionate, merciful, loving Father He is. Not in spite of suffering, but because of it.

Few things reveal our desperate need of Jesus as suffering.

Few things teach us how to love our neighbors as suffering.

And few things serve as a more vivid reminder that this is not our home as suffering.

I want to leave you with a poem that Holy Spirit put words to in the early days of this year that truly encapsulate what we have learned through our son’s life.

My hope is that wherever you are today — whether living in blissful normalcy or in the agonies of grief — you will see God in it.

For He’s there if you will notice, working out an eternal purpose for our good. And He is patiently waiting for you to open your hands in surrender so that He can close them again with His promises.

He cares for you.

“I Trust Him Anyway”

Oh, what a merciful Savior!

Who gives and takes away.

I cannot grasp His purpose

But I trust Him anyway.

His will, who can know it?

Only eternity comprehends.

Our hearts on earth are broken

Wounds only He can mend.

A life so short and fleeting

I dare not waste the time.

So while my heart is beating

I’ll let His glory shine.

Oh, what a merciful Savior!

Who gives and takes away.

I cannot grasp His purpose

But I choose to trust Him anyway.

We didn’t expect to be moved to tears multiple times as we watched the memorial of a man we’d never met, but there we were: laying in bed on a Sunday afternoon with my laptop open, watching a memorial that will go down as one of the most impactful spiritual moments of our time.

The Holy Spirit’s presence was palpable, even in a room thousands of miles away from the service honoring the life of Charlie Kirk. We felt Him every time the gospel was shared (which happened continuously), every time the name of Jesus was proclaimed (more times than I can count), and during the beautiful songs of worship that filled that room and our laptop speakers.

And we felt the Holy Spirit acutely in the words that came out of Erika Kirk’s mouth to her husband’s killer, just eleven days after his death:

“I forgive you.”

All of this happened with the president of the United States and his entire cabinet as witnesses, along with the thousands of others in attendance and the millions of us watching online.

Was this the biggest stage for the gospel in history? Perhaps.

It was powerful. And it represented the revival that Charlie’s death has sparked across the world. A revival that cannot and should not be understated.

“God didn’t have to let us witness this moment.” Christian said as we sat in the living room, processing the memorial after putting our children to bed. “He is sovereign. He’s bringing His eternal plan to fruition, no matter what we see. But He gave us a great gift today; one that is lighting a fire in Christians to fight the good fight — to press on in our faith, no matter the cost.”

He’s right. By God’s grace, we are witnesses.

By historical evidence, it seems that the Lord gives each generation the opportunity to witness an outpouring of His Spirit through revival. The last one experienced by generations before us was the Jesus movement of the 70’s — just over fifty years ago.

And now, we are witnessing the Jesus movement of our generation unfold before our very eyes.

Over the past two weeks, we have watched unbelievers seek Truth and go to church for the first time. The gospel being talked about on platforms we never could have imagined. People purchasing their first Bible and others picking up the dusty one on their shelf. Everyone feeling the shift in our nation after we all watched a man be persecuted to the point of death for sharing Truth to the world.

But I think the thing that has surprised me the most as a witness to revival is the varying responses by those already following Jesus.

You would assume that every Christian would be elated to see Christ proclaimed like never before across their social media pages and in the news. One would think there would be nothing but fanning the flame by those who have spent years praying for the fire to come.

But this is not the case.

While many Christians are feeling emboldened, there are others who are feeling suspicious. And I can’t help but think this is the tale as old as time.

When the Spirit moves, there is power. And where there is power, there is fear.

I believe the heart of most Christians who are standing hesitantly in the background of this moment is a genuine desire for Truth to reign. For God not to be mocked by performance, by those seizing a moment for their own self-interest, or ever-changing trends that are gone as soon as the algorithm changes.

Dear Christian, if that is you, please know God cannot be mocked (Galatians 6:7). There will be those who are adding to the proclamations from selfish ambition, and their fruit will show. But it is not up to us to control the responses of people — unbelievers and believers alike — to the move of the Spirit. Every time the church has done this, it ends in a separation of Spirit and Truth. And The Bible says these cannot be separated for true worship to take place (John 4:24).

Some of the most pivotal spiritual movements in history included those already in the fold who resisted them out of fear or discomfort that came out in the form of cynicism.

But our mission in a moment like this is not to judge the outcome, but to join the outpour of the Holy Spirit. His Spirit dwells in us, and we are commanded not to quench Him (1 Thessalonians 5:19).

And remember the words of Paul in Philippians:

“What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”

We don’t have to be afraid of God being misrepresented, of people being allured into the church by the moment rather than sincere faith, of a flame dying as quickly as it starts. We don’t have to be afraid because we are not in control — God is.

And no matter how you thought a revival would break out, it is undeniable that it is here. We either rejoice and join in, or critique while sitting idly by.

But please hear me when I say that the move of God is not a trend. What may fade in the headlines of news outlets and social media reels will not fade on the mark of eternity.

We should be champions of our faith when it’s loud and when it’s quiet, but champions all the same.

This is our moment. This is the gift God has given our generation.

How will we steward it?

With love,

Laura

No matter how many times I experience bringing a child into the world, it never loses its magnitude; in the hours that follow, I feel like I can fly, even as my body is depleted.

In birth, a mysterious event takes place:

As a mother surrenders to her contractions, new life follows.

As her body empties, another one emerges.

In the hours that follow, the parents are completely enamored by this eternal soul before them.

Time slows. The world becomes small. Everything that matters is clear.

Then they go back to the life they left when the labor began, attempt to merge this new life into the old one until, slowly but surely. . .

Time speeds back up. The world becomes enormous. And everything that matters is fuzzy again.

They loved those hours after birth, but what led them there is forgotten:

an emptying of self.

The pain of birth is that it requires all of you.

The beauty of it is that you get the fullness of life in return.

The problem comes when we return to life as we knew it and fall prey to the lie that we no longer need to surrender, or that we can continue on as though nothing has changed when everything has.

Christian and I found ourselves here five months ago when we crossed the threshold with arms full of new life again, stepping out of the miraculous experience of birth and back into the familiar mundane of daily life.

Those first weeks the miraculous spills over into the mundane. The exhilaration we felt holding our daughter for the first time lingered on as we watched her brothers hold her; and there is no greater joy than knowing the footprint of our home was filling with the footprints of children.

But as the weeks tick by, the newness wears off, and the community meal train ends. . .

Life begins filling back up with all its demands, and our eyes lose sight of what is important.

And this is when most parents begin looking for relief.

A Longing for Relief

Within the first couple of weeks of our daughter’s birth, I found myself in a dangerous cycle I’d been in many times before with a newborn: meaningless scrolling.

The frequent nursing sessions during that stage thrust me into forced stillness — and I am not good at being still.

Instead of seeing these regular pauses in my day as an invitation to find refreshment in Jesus during a time I needed it most, I mindlessly turned to my phone for distraction instead.

Webster’s dictionary defines distraction as “a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.”

Or someone else.

It fills me with sadness when I think about how much joy the Lord had for me in those moments I squandered on something that drained me in the end.

However, I am grateful He woke me up quickly, not allowing the cycle to go on for long; God used Sarah Clarkson’s beautiful book, Reclaiming Quiet, to get my attention.

Sarah reflects with honesty in a way I can relate:

"I began to wonder if at times my smart phone had become my replacement for the Holy Spirit, the ever-present comforter I turned to in times of fear.”

The irony is that our phones present themselves as comfort, but increase our fear. They look like an escape, but become a prison. They promise relief, but only increase discomfort.

But the real problem isn’t an object, or the virtual world it leads us into; it’s the Person it leads us away from.

And the more we turn to our phones over God when we want a little relief, the harder it becomes to choose Him when we need so much more.

Consider this powerful truth from John Eldridge in his book, Experience Jesus. Really:

“The sin of Esau at its core is choosing relief over God. . .

It’s not that we don’t seek relief; it’s where we seek it. . . If you do not choose to turn your back on the world, you will find your intimacy with Jesus slipping away.”

The Deception of Comfort

Many months ago, I was studying a book with two of my sisters.

There was a question raised in one of the chapters that we all answered:

“What word would you describe your relationship with God right now?”

My response? “Comfortable.”

Comfortable. The word pricked my heart; it revealed my relationship with Jesus in a way that I hadn’t acknowledged.

It was comfortable. I loved God with all my heart and wanted to know Him; I poured over His word as often as I could, and sought Him in prayer throughout the day.

My relationship with Him was growing, but was it deepening?

I was getting to know more of God, but was I making myself fully known by Him?

The Holy Spirit revealed something in my heart that day, and it opened a door that I had subconsciously kept locked.

I was still holding back in my devotion to Jesus. I wasn't loving Him with everything that I am: mind, heart, body, and spirit.

I had not fully surrendered myself to true intimacy with Him that uproots any intimacy with the world.

And the root of my fear? The real reason why I hadn’t let Jesus into that door of my heart? I was afraid of it — true, vulnerable intimacy.

Somewhere deep within I still believed that fully surrendering myself to oneness with Christ cost too much; and at the core of this belief is the lie that He won’t be enough to satisfy.

A lie that the enemy has resurfaced in my life again and again.

But it is just that: a lie. Once it is acknowledged, and I ask the Holy Spirit to break any ties with its power over me, I am then free to experience a satisfaction like no other:

Intimacy with Jesus.

I love how Timothy D. Willard expresses oneness with God in his book, The Beauty Chasers:

“The price of intimacy looks like a constant emptying; like pouring water from a bucket that never runs out. Intimacy’s invitation asks for confession but in turn gives grace; it desires repentance while granting mercy.”

Remaining comfortable in any relationship feels like the safe choice at the time, but anyone who has done this in a marriage or friendship knows that comfort is what slowly erodes intimacy.

We must move past comfort if we are to grow at all in relationship.

We Were Made for More

When David says these words in Psalm 42:1, he is expressing a longing for the Lord that only one who is truly intimate with Him can experience:

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.”

I think most believers are experiencing a mere glimmer of this kind of oneness with Jesus. I have to believe this to be the case when it is so rare to hear Christians describe the lived experience of relationship with Jesus at all, outside of what we do for Him, or what we know about Him.

But this is never how we were intended to live as followers of Christ.

Romans 8:11 says “the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.”

We were made to walk by the Spirit who lives in us, and only in doing so can we experience His presence and the “fullness of joy” as described in Psalm 16:11.

But we have become such functional materialist in so many of our western churches, claiming to live by Truth but forsaking Spirit, that we are like wanderers who have lost their way home.

Christians are often warriors for the Bible (and we should be), and yet we are losing the battle in the very thing it points us to — what Jesus sacrificed His life to give:

Restored relationship with God.

Francis Chan, in his book, Forgotten God, pinpoints this place we find ourselves:

"If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God's kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit. The degree to which this has happened (and I would argue that it is a prolific disease in the body of Christ) is directly connected to the dissatisfaction most of us feel with and in the church. We understand something very important is missing. . .

Many of us don't need more knowledge about the Spirit from a cerebral vantage point -- what we need is experiential knowledge of His presence.”

What tore at the death of Jesus Christ? The veil that separated us from His presence.

God made a way through Jesus to have unrestricted fellowship with Him in any place, at any time.

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

We became His temple.

And this means that we can “approach the throne of grace with confidence” and “receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

Even before Adam and Eve separated themselves (and the rest of mankind) from God’s presence in the garden through sin, He had a plan for restoring it again.

Jesus wants relationship with us; He gave His life for it.

To think a Christian’s relationship with God would be less intimate, joy-filled, and experiential as the relationships we have with each other when He is the only one who lives in us is completely contrary to the Truth revealed in Scripture.

We were made to live continually in His presence.

“If we only knew”

“There is no sweeter manner of living in the world than continuous communion with God. Only those who have experienced it can understand. . .

If we only knew how much we need God’s grace, we would never lose touch with Him.”

— Brother Lawrence: The Practice of the Presence of God

If we only knew.

Emptying is where we must start — pouring ourselves out completely and totally at the foot of the cross.

Then, a miracle happens: a new life is born.

God in His incomprehensible mercy and grace fills us back up with the fullness of Himself.

But as we step over the threshold into a new life with Jesus, we cannot forget that there is still a war happening outside; an enemy that is constantly trying to fill our world with distraction to keep us from awareness of Him and communion with Him.

The weapons of the enemy look more like something to ease the pain than deepen it; but deepen it, he will.

The kingdom of darkness empties us, but leaves us desolate.

The kingdom of Light empties us so that we can be restored.

The question is always: which kingdom is holding our attention?

Are we willing to accept short-lived relief that merely distracts us from our pain? Or, will we surrender to the long-term restoration that invites Jesus into it?

The choice is ours.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” — Matthew 7:7

“We are content with too little” brother Lawrence said, and I agree.

We are too easily pleased by the pleasures of this world that we are are missing the greatest pleasure of all: the presence of Jesus.

For this reason, I am currently memorizing the sixteenth chapter of Psalms.

I am so easily distracted by things that keep my attention away from Him that I need a constant reminder of this truth:

“In your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

May we live continually in Him.

With love,

Laura

It is the quiet part of the afternoon, the stretch of time that is a great grace in this season of caring for little ones at home. Often, only a “quiet time” in his bedroom with a small collection of toys and books are what I can count on for my four-year-old during these hours. But today, both Caleb and Peter surrendered to a nap, and I breathe a prayer of gratitude to the Lord for such a small and mighty gift.

As someone who is replenished by time alone, I have always looked forward to this portion of the day since becoming a mother. Within it I may tend to house or business work that requires uninterrupted focus, read another chapter from my ever-evolving stack of books, bring order within a space, or create beauty there. I also may write, as I do now.

The last four weeks, however, the afternoons are no longer an empty space for only myself to occupy. Instead, they have become the time I can quietly savor the sweetness of the tiny life I carried inside of my womb for nine months that now lies outside of it in this very moment.

The gentle rhythm of her chest rising and falling on mine. The warmth of her head against my lips, soft hair tickling my skin as I memorize the scent that famously marks newborns, yet is uniquely her. The weight of her body that overwhelms my own with a lightness that can only be described as peace.

—

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives...”

The words of Jesus echo in my mind. Then, the Psalm I read this morning blows in like a song:

“Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.”

Peace and children. Two things culture says do not live in harmony.

And yet. . . In the kingdom of God that is paradoxical to the kingdom of this world, my children are the very ones he uses to teach me about peace.

Ah, but too often I make the mistake of seeing peace as something external to be grasped. It is not. Peace is deeply internal, and it overflows into my responses to the external circumstances of my life. No amount of leisure-filled days or quiet moments alone in nature will give me peace if I am not at peace inside the interior walls of my soul.

How do I have peace in my soul? Through complete trust and surrender to Jesus.

And how do I learn trust and surrender? By letting Him lead me through the fire.

There is a song that my family sang often growing up. It is called “Rejoice in the Lord,” and it’s message is profound. When I was a new mother, standing in the middle of an empty nursery desperate to find a reason to rejoice, these words imprinted on my heart as a girl came flowing back into my mind:

“I could not see through the shadows ahead; So I looked at the cross of my Savior instead. I bowed to the will of the Master that day; Then peace came and tears fled away.”

Peace did not seem possible in the chaos of loss, disappointment and pain that surrounded me. And yet, it swept in and over everything that was touched by brokenness in that moment.

Just as grief can open the door to deeper joy when we give it to God, so can trials — the fire of our lives — be the threshold to deeper peace.

“Peace I leave with you. . . Not as the world gives. .” Jesus says.

“In darkness He gives us a song.” the words of Rejoice in the Lord testify.

This is my story.

Four children later, I can attest that growing a family will bring its own share of trials. Marriage, and especially children, expose the darkest parts of ourselves we can easily keep hidden. They chip away at our pretenses and hold up a mirror to our true selves, full of brokenness.

But they are the “fruit of the womb” that God has lovingly used to grow the fruits of the Spirit in my life — the fruit He gives to redeem my brokenness, to taste His perfection.

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.

These are sweeter than any bitterness I experience in trials.

—

“Children are a heritage from the Lord. . .”

While a divine gift rests on me, surrendered and secure in my love for her, I rest on the Divine. And in this resting, I know a peace which “passes all understanding.”

These days of raising three under four are beautiful, exhilarating, hard, meaningful, painful and absolutely precious. They carry moments of absolute chaos and absolute serenity. And all of these can overflow with peace.

As Elisabeth Elliot wisely penned many years ago:

“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”

With love,

Laura

In a dream, I hear the soft chimes ringing in another room. My mind slowly wakes to the reality of my alarm going off from the bathroom vanity, but my body begs to stay in the comfort of the dream.

My mind wins — determination to have quiet before my family is awake overruling the temporary pleasure of a few more moments of rest.

With one hand on my growing belly for support and the other feeling around the dark room for the bathroom doorway, I find my way to the dim light of the phone alarm, and the morning begins.

My movements are slower as I walk into the kitchen to prepare coffee for the day. Millie’s arrival is quickly approaching, I reflect quietly.

Each day, I can feel the increasing heaviness of a growing womb forcing me to walk at a slower pace. I know it is all preparation for the months ahead with a helpless newborn and a healing body requiring slowness from me.

There is always a part of me that fears the unknown of a future with another life to steward in our home.

Will having three children be like what I’ve heard others’ say? “The most overwhelming family size leap because you are officially outnumbered.” What if she is a colicky baby, or doesn’t nurse or sleep well? What if my body doesn’t labor as it should or heal properly?

At its root, it’s always the fear that I won’t have the strength or capacity to handle with grace what is coming.

And perhaps that is always where He wants me to be.

It is never my competence, my security, or my strength, but Jesus Himself bridging the gap for all I can never be. And all I have to do is look at our history to remember His faithfulness in this.

My fear is not from Him — never from Him. So from what ground, then, does fear spring forth?

I only know three: my flesh, the world, and the enemy.

My flesh fears the sacrifice it must make for another life. The time it will ask me to give. The change it will require of my body. The strain it will cause in my mind and heart from the growth that is happening underneath it all. My flesh hates sacrifice and loves comfort.

The world has taught me to fear growing a family. The messages of encouragement are few, and the discouragement abundant. “Kids are expensive.” “You will lose yourself in motherhood.” “You will never sleep again.” And the ever present questions riddled with disapproving undertones, “is this going to be your last?” The world hates family and loves self.

And finally, the enemy seeks to only deepen all of the fears already present, always tempting me to cling to control over surrender. The enemy hates what God loves, and he feeds on fear.

Oh, but the beauty of my Father, Who always seeks to give me everything I need.

To my flesh, God gives His Spirit Who provides the power to choose what will ultimately bring lasting joy, even if it requires temporary sacrifice.

To the world, God gives His Son, Jesus, as a living example of how to live and what to love as I live between this broken earth and an eternity made whole.

And to satan, He is the King of kings, Lord of lords, and He will have the final victory over all the present darkness.

Psalm 27:1 is like balm on my lips as I say it aloud in the quiet of the morning, curled up in the lamp-lit corner of the living room:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

I gently close my Bible, shifting my eyes to the horizon through the window glass. The dawn of light meets the low hanging clouds still swallowed by darkness, and I see Him there. My enduring Hope.

I turn my gaze to the fire before me, roaring in all its fury and majesty, and I see Him there. My glorious Strength.

And the soft wool blanket that covers and warms me as I ease into a new day, I feel Him there. My never ending Comfort.

The unknown awaits, but He is already there, waiting to give me everything I need.

I have nothing to fear.

Laura

“I don’t know how I would celebrate Christmas without you,” he said to me as he looked around at the flurry of Christmas decorations I had begun putting up. “If something ever happened to you…” Christian stopped, then looked up at me with gentle eyes, softly taking my hands in his. “What you bring to our home matters more than you know.”

At this point in time, he was preparing to leave the country as an ambassador for American agriculture with a group of other important individuals. Just weeks prior, he had helped close one of his greatest business deals to date.

The primary roles Christian carries are

impressive, diverse, complex.

And how he stewards his part will have a generational impact.

Meanwhile, I've been home, nourishing bodies three times a day, washing dishes and putting them away. Changing diapers, helping small feet into small boots, reminding them to say “please” and “thank you” until it takes root. Wiping tears, sharing laughs, binding wounds, drawing baths.

The primary roles I carry are

mundane, repetitive, simple.

And yet… how I steward my part will have a generational impact.

There is always a temptation to belittle the role of the keeper of home as small and insignificant, or to idolize the role of the provisionary as glamorous and more important. But what I know about the the grander story of God’s design for marriage and family is that every part we play within it is extraordinary.

The beauty of marriage is that while Christian and I are given different notes to play, we are bringing to life the same song. We are one in God’s glorious symphony.

You see, Christ is the foundation of our home; it is built on Him. Christian is the walls and roof, giving provision and stability to all who live inside. And myself? I get to bring beauty and order to it all; a maker of home, a homemaker.

It is not one, but all, that matters.

—

Christian arrived home late from his trip. When he walked through the door, his eyes were heavy, and I could see the exhaustion that covered his body. The next morning, he still woke early as he prepared to resume work on the farm. As if sensing his presence, we heard footsteps of a little boy coming down the hall shortly thereafter. Upon meeting his father’s gaze, Caleb threw himself into Christian’s open arms. As I watched them embrace, I noticed how his little body seemed at ease for the first time since Christian left.

“What you bring to our home matters more than you know” I whispered to Christian as he put on his boots and headed out the door.

Whether outside or inside the home, we both went about our work that day knowing we were making an impact, and it matters.

With love,

Laura