Our bodies are so smart. It knows how to conserve energy, anticipate our habits; what time we will extend energy and how hard we will push ourselves. So, the change in workout, in movement, in duration, and in weight confuses the body, keeps it on its toes, frees it from boredom and deters plateaus.

May I encourage you to resist the desire to find your family identity in someone else’s life? Their life is theirs and I challenge you to fiercely find yours. Own it, nurture it, and pursue it. Getting caught up in someone else’s greener grass is a trap for the discontent.

I have heard that the way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice. Talk about pressure! And although I think there is a lot of my mess ups that get covered by grace, this saying spurs me to accountability. I can either choose to crumble under the pressure of my immense impact or I can shift and restore as things come up. The way that I react or respond will build up or it will break down. I am not saying that I can control the way my child feels or doesn’t feel, but what I can control is myself, as their mom. I get to either speak life and encouragement and blessing or not. And although I like to think that my motherhood is rainbows and butterflies, the reality is this; It’s not. It is hard, it pushes and pulls, it requires me to shift and to not exasperate. And the other day, the need for a shift was clear: I was breaking down my son.

That wall was the place I had come in the heat of those two weeks, it was a place of safety for me, for our family. I would be in the living room, suddenly overcome by despair and cathartic weeping, and Steve would physically walk me to that wall, and have me verbally read aloud what I saw before me. It was our hope wall.

I don’t want to miss her. I want to be in it with her. I want to notice, and see and listen to her sweet words. I want to sit and color and pretend and run next to her. I clumped all the kids needs into a single one, and then that change, those moments in this season, passed me by. She grew, she changed, and I missed that one. But I know in that moment as I looked across the room at her that I could choose one of two things: the wallowing in it or the grace. I chose grace. Here is what grace looked like for us as her parents:

She thought about that “bad” word for weeks. She felt the tug at her heart, her conscience was working, and the Holy Spirit was working in her heart to be free from it and to start thinking about the pure things instead.

The NICU: "It’s where mountains are moved, miracles are witnessed, and some of the deepest grief is felt."

The comparison of the day to day details is not where the hurt and bitterness and death lies. No. It’s self. It’s the human condition that says “I” matter. And not just matter, but matter more. My day was harder, I need more, I deserve, I want, I’m losing, I, I, I, I.