a letter to myself at 21.

Dear 21 Year Old Me- 

You think you have a lot figured out. You think you're a pretty wise old soul. You still have a lot to learn. 

Especially about love. At 21, you've been with R long enough to be taken seriously but not long enough to relax and stop white-knuckling your way through love. It's a common theme for you and in ten years you'll still be trying to master the art of just letting that man be and learning to love him right where he's at. You will, somewhere along the way, figure out though, to stop grasping for the grandiose love story from the movies and somewhere in the failures and stumbles and the mundane, you'll find a love that feels solid to stand on. It won't be perfect, not in ten years and maybe not ever, but it will feel more and more like home with every new season. 

Guess what else? Your life is not going to look anything like what you think it will in ten years. You think you are going to be changing the world at a non-profit, maybe working with kids in the inner city or feeding the homeless, but that's not how it shakes down. In fact, your career which will barely advance in fits and starts, will feel like the most unfair lot in life, At 21, you have big hopes for the kind of career and life that people will look at and be impressed with. You've written it in your journals and whispered it in your prayers, "Let me be someone important." And you are, just not the way you imagined. In ten years, instead of being someone who people ooh and ahh over, you're going to be changing the world by changing diapers and no one is going to see it but you and Jesus. And in ten years, you'll only just be starting to come around to the great mystery that somehow the things no one sees are the most important things there are. 

Do you want to hear something really good? At 21, you're still in Milwaukee and your world hasn't expanded too much yet. Your crew is still the same girls you skipped class with in high school and your dilemmas are still pretty minor league. A decade later, those girls are still your crew. And the ten years of marriages and  births and deaths and distance between you all has only made those friendships sweeter and more priceless than you could have ever imagined. You grew up together and you're still around to cheer each other on. And there's even better news? In the ten years between your 21st and your 31st birthday, you add even more girls to your tribe. College friends and Navy wives, co-workers and mama friends- you do a good job of choosing quality over quantity and they make every tough season sweeter. 

Here's some advice from someone who knows you better than you know yourself. 

Stop worrying so much. Stop caring so much what other people think. Stop striving for things that don't matter. And stop buying cheap trendy clothes from Forever 21. 

You're going to be just fine.

Happy Birthday!

Love, 31 Year Old Me

to the mama who is praying.

This post is close to my heart.

My mother, Patti, is a woman of audacious faith. She has been praying for me and my three siblings since before we were even born. Every morning, even this morning, you can find my Mom sitting on the couch in her living room, talking to God like an old friend. As I have become a mother, and as I wade into the mystery of prayer myself, I've seen my Mom's morning prayer time with new eyes.

I wrote this first as a letter to her, but as I wrote it, I thought of myself and all the moms who are praying for their children. Whether in quiet hours before they wake, or in the car during your commute home from work, or in journals or on iPads, if you've been praying for your sons and daughters, this one is for you.  

Being a mama is hard work, isn’t it?

Maybe you've been at this gig for just a few months. Maybe you've been at it so long that your babies have babies. No matter how long you've been mothering, you've done some hard work.  Your heart has swelled and broken and been kicked and then dusted off and loved deeply as only a child can do.

You are doing the hard work today.

You've nurtured your kids moment by moment, day by day, from the moment you knew their little hearts were beating, nestled deep down inside you, to this very day. You've nursed and diapered, cleaned up messes and washed bodies; you've fed meals and listened to stories, swept the floors and washed the sheets, creating homes and safe places for your kids to grow. The unseen work of mothering, day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after year until suddenly there are decades behind you.

But you have done more than this, if it's possible.

You've been praying.

You've whispered their names in the hours before dawn to a listening God. You've sat on your couch, your scribbled-in Bible on your lap, and spoken ancient Scriptures over them, with hope in your heart and faith on your lips. You have offered each of them up in earnest prayers of protection and safety and blessing. You have surrendered in faith these people who you love more than you love yourself to the Father.

And it is making all the difference.

Mama, listen closely to what I know is true- these children we pray for? They are the arrows in the hand of the warrior that the Psalmistis writing about. You aren't just speaking to the ceiling in those hours before the house is awake.

You are sharpening arrows.

Prayer by prayer, year by year, you are filing, grinding, sharpening. Affixing them to the arrow with prayers still.

Arrows to be thrown out in to the world to pierce the darkness, to lay bare the liar. Your prayers, thought in silence, written in journals, whispered like a song to El Roi, the God Who Sees, have been heard and they are being answered.

And don't believe for a second the liar who tells you that these prayers are useless. Don't fool yourself by thinking you could be doing more, should be doing more. What a gift you are giving them! What a love you are showing them. To pray for your children, ask for the most intimate of requests, spoken in such humility at the foot of the throne of the God of the Stars and Sun and Moon. "Who am I to ask you of these things?" We often think when we pray. "Who am I that you would hear me and listen?" But we are Mothers, wearing the crown and the robe that we received as royal daughters of God, can walk boldly to him to ask that he usher in heaven on earth by way of our children. And make no mistake, he will.

Oh Mama, how pleased God must be with you. How he must delight when he hears your footsteps approaching. "Do you see her? This is a daughter after my own heart! Look how she takes after me in her love for her children! See how she understands me when she lays down her life for them! Oh, how she makes me proud when she sees them as I see them. Look at my daughter, mothering hard. Who is like her in all the earth?"

So go on, Mama. Keep praying.

You are doing the hard work, the kingdom work, the eternal work. I know it is breaking your heart wide open. But please, keep sharpening those arrows. And in it, in the quiet sacrifice of prayer and in the hard work of mothering, I hope you are filled up and fed well by the knowledge that it matters.

The hard work isn't over yet, but it's making all the difference.