God is rewriting our story again. As much as I would love to feel blissfully happy, excited and super-spiritual right now, the truth is, I'm not.

I'm sad.

I'm tired.

I liked my story. It was filled with my dreams and hopes. Good dreams. Dreams that involved nurturing my daughters by nursing them, staying home to raise them, exploring our world together, home-educating them. It was important to me. It gave me a little feeling of stability. Stability that comes from planning and hoping for something...something that I thought might work out. After all, I look around and lots of people get to make plans and have them work out. He whispers "...you, follow me". And I drag my feet. I don't feel excited. The enemy whispers, "This is probably going to be hard. This will probably hurt." And I can't disagree. But then, we've had nearly six years to see his faiththfulness in the hard and hurting times.

The root of my hesitation is that His faithfulness doesn't always make our life easy. God doesn't always swoop in like we think He should. He keeps our feet from slipping, but He doesn't always smooth the path. And then sometimes our feet do slip, and He catches us when we fall.

The mercy in this moment is that in spite of everything, we know in our core that God is good. He is faithfully weaving His plans for our lives and no matter what, no matter where, He will be present, and His grace will be sufficient. But there is and will no doubt still be pain, and sorrow and loss. Our only hope is in His assurance that somehow that too will be used for His glory. Slowly, moment by moment, that becomes the aim...His Glory.

These lives we offered up and He really took us at our word. We're His...no matter the cost.

Many of you write and share your stories saying, "But that's nothing compared to what you're going through"...and while that's natural, it's not true! It's everything! Matt always says, "Your biggest thing, is the biggest thing." It's your opportunity to take your hurt, your disappointment and offer it up to God, refusing to attack His character and His heart, choosing instead to believe.

Matt and I are choosing to see this pain as a gift, either sifted through or directly from the hand of a loving Father. It presses us into Him, frees us from idolizing our comfort, and forces loose our stranglehold on our script, so He can take the pen and write a new storyline, with HIM at the center. We choose to yield to it, let it accomplish its work in us and bless His name.