Lights Along the Path

I sit on my front porch step, the brick still warm even though the sun is long gone. Oklahoma nights are neither cool nor quiet. I listen to the soundtrack of summer: cicadas (locusts) perform loud enough to drown out my reverie and then recede into the background. 

I am 16-years-old. I feel nostalgic and romantic as I watch the moonlight filter through the branches of the oak tree. My future husband is somewhere under this moon, I think.   

I picture my future: engaged, married, my first baby. My daydreams get me no further than being married with a couple of little kids. 

In my actual life, once I had my third baby, I was in unimagined, uncharted territory. No familiar light posts along the path. 

By the time I was 34, I had newborn twins, and 3 elementary-age school children.

It was at this point in my mothering that I was talking to a friend, who was a decade ahead of me on the path. I wondered when things would get back to normal. She said something that served as a guide for me: You’ll never get BACK to normal; you will create a NEW normal.

I’ve discovered the truth in those words over and over.

My friend carried a lantern. I could see her light up ahead. It gave me something to follow, to trust. Although my mom was a guidepost, she was too far along the mothering path for me to see her in action. 

I find myself at another uncharted point on the trail. But I remember my mom here. Her parents had passed early in her marriage. I remember her with married children and kids in college. I remember when she was a new grandmother. 

Even though I didn’t spend much, if any time imagining myself here, I’ve seen lots of good women on the path I’m walking. My choices will be a combination of what I’ve seen and what I’ve figured out. And trial and error. 

Sometimes we need a faithful woman who is a light, a friend. Someone who is non-judgmental, who is patient with our questions and worries. Someone who has navigated the path that’s sometimes steep and lonely. A cheerleader, coach and former player to say it’s okay.

Everything will be alright. It won’t be easy; let go of your idea of perfection. I know you feel inadequate. I felt the same way. 

You know, life is full of transitions, times we haven’t pictured and plain hard stuff. I’m here, just ahead. See my light? 

Let me remind you of something you already know. You were never meant to be enough, not alone, but you are worthy of love and belonging, right now as you are. You were always meant to look up and take hold of His hand. Because He is enough and more.