I wake up and immediately feel it – the emptiness of my daughter’s room.

I begin the morning routine of making sure teenagers and a preteen are getting ready for school, knocking on 3 bedroom doors, hearing 3 sleepy voices. When I walk past the empty room, I close the door.

I’d peeked in last night, just to face it. There are a few pieces of furniture she didn’t want, some things for her siblings to pick through, and her high school graduation gown hanging in the closet, but no bed, no clothes on the floor, no makeup on the dresser. And it isn’t just her empty room, it’s that her contacts are no longer on her bathroom sink. Her car keys aren’t on the foyer table, and when I pack lunches, I notice her prescriptions and vitamins are no longer in front of the peanut butter. Her shoes aren’t by the door, and I’m choking back tears because even though the pile of shoes used to drive me a bit crazy, I’ve been patiently reminding myself the past few months that seeing her shoes meant she still lived here.

I’d adjusted to sharing space and time with another adult to whom I’m not married, often postponing workouts to see her before she left for work and getting laundry done during the week so she could wash clothes on weekends. We had our rhythm. Sometimes our paths never crossed. She’d come home to a sleeping house and the rest of us would wake and leave before she got rolling, and this would go on several days in a row until she’d come through the door while we sat at dinner, and we’d all enjoy the surprise of eating together as 6. She’d grown into her own life more than her own rhythm, and all of us tried to believe it might not be so hard when she made a place of her own.

Last night, we did what families do and helped her situate, feeling happy for her and happy for a chance to be depended on. We waved from the foot of her stairs and she smiled behind her new door – proud, happy, ready – and we drove home, where only 5 people live.

Her shoes are no doubt sitting by her new door, where her dream of independence is being fulfilled. And I’m happy and I’m sad, and I’ve got plenty of happy-sad moments under my belt already, but I didn’t cry on first days of kindergarten. I didn’t cry when toys were willingly stuffed into donation bags, when I was no longer needed or wanted for reading books aloud, or when I could no longer help with math homework surpassing my intellect. I didn’t cry at elementary, middle, or high school graduations. And even this morning, when I carried my youngest and laid her in bed because she was too stuffy for school and too dizzy for stairs, I didn’t cry that my baby is nowhere near the size of a baby.

I’ve sent children off to camp and watched them disappear down airport hallways for their first flight alone. I raised them to grow, want more, and need me less, so they could dream and try and become. I’m raising them to fly, but it feels different when they do, and I realize the choosing of motherhood and extravagant love is also the choosing of inevitable empty places. This is life – mine, theirs, hers – and life feels different when it’s no longer neatly framed in the ‘ours’ of the same house. Love feels different. That’s reason to cry, I suppose.

A friend asks how I’m doing and since she knows about empty rooms, I tell her I usually know little about feelings, but I can’t unfeel the empty places, I can’t make sense of an emptier house when my heart is so absolutely full. And I know it will be ok, just not today.

“Yep,” she answers back. And that’s good enough for me.

 

March is here, and with it, the happy promise of spring. Wearing the same rotation of sweaters for a few months is what desert dwellers refer to as ‘winter’, and while I know this version is desperately distorted compared to many places in the world, it still requires great personal discipline not to grumble about the cold come the end of February. Most of the Phoenix calendar is varying degrees of summer – July’s variation being very close to hell – so when I’m tempted to complain about space heaters and heavy coats, I remind myself summer will be here soon enough and will stay for a very long time. Then I pull on a hoodie and snuggle into happy memories of the beach.

I think I was made for the beach. The waves, salt air, people watching, and swimming with creatures I cannot see – I love it all. But beach trips cost money and when the warm waters of the Atlantic are all you’ve ever known, it’s a struggle to accept California’s hotel prices knowing the best they can offer is the chilly Pacific. This reasoning kept our family from the beach for 6 years, but last summer, about the time temperatures peak and the city goes post-apocalyptically desolate, we booked a spontaneous weekend getaway.

We had the best time. Sure, the six of us uncomfortably filled every square inch of our tiny hotel room, but I rather enjoyed waking to the sight of my sprawling, slumbering children. We tripped over each other, ate more junk food than necessary, and regardless of how well we hung our wet bathing suits from every bathroom fixture, we never had a dry suit by morning. But did it matter? We were at the beach, scooping up buckets of sand dollars, basking in sunshine, and mellowing with the sound of the surf.

But there was another sound crashing with the waves. It was a grumbling sound, the noise of complaining. The affliction wasn’t the cramped room or the wiggling into damp suits – it was the sand. Specifically sand’s shocking ability to radiate fire on bare feet, its persistence in discovering every nook and cranny of a person’s being, and its endless victories in making a person look and feel like the slowest, clumsiest walker in the world. Sand was an insufferable tragedy and the laments surged in eulogy of all things wonderful. My children hung their heads above sandy towels, preparing to forfeit all happiness to the perils of sand, and I had no solution for ridding the beach of innumerable tiny grains, but I knew sand wasn’t the problem. The problem was discontent and its pervasive way of creeping into soul nooks, sucking every cranny clean of joy, and ridding the heart of thankfulness. I had a solution – an honest redirect.

“There are seagulls flapping, foamy tides pounding, and treasures being washed into salty pools. Babies’ toes are being kissed by the ocean for the very first time and their laughter is floating through swaying palms. The sun feels 30 degrees cooler here than at home, and its rays are rousing a shimmer from the shoreline as if it’s covered in diamonds. There’s nothing but brilliance and blue as far as the eye can see, and you’re telling me the luxury of enjoying all this isn’t worth the troubling cost of little sand? A day at the beach has its sand, but it’s still a day at the beach. Be thankful, and make the most of it.”

No indignation, no disdain, just a matter-of-fact reality check, not to silence or shame my children, but to redirect them from the miserable path of grumbling toward the better way of gratitude.

Truth is, sometimes I’m the kid on the beach, glaring away at small problems while missing the bigger joy all around me. Sometimes a loved one offers wisdom that redirects me from lifeless discontent. Sometimes my complaints are secrets of the heart and God’s Spirit nudges me with truth, back to the path of full life. But here’s what I’m learning every time I’m pointed back to Jesus: only a thankful heart can follow Him.

Thankfulness is the real and sobering difference between life and death.

The sun set behind the water and each of us gathered our things and trudged through sandy heaps. Smaller heaps of sand were shifting in our suits, causing some to stride longer while the short-legged fell behind. I heard a little voice behind me. “Mom, I found a better way through the sand. I’m stepping in your footprints.”

Lord Jesus, help me. May I always follow You with a thankful heart, leading others in finding their way closer to You.

 

It’s 7:23 and the chill of asphalt is traveling quickly through my flimsy flip flops. I lean my bike against my body, the cold metal causing my legs to protest, and now my torso is chiming in about the coat I left at home, but I’m not about to go get it. I look out over the desert. The mountains are hiding the sun, but its fire can’t be hidden, and electric clouds light the horizon. It won’t be long.

Within seconds, the sun pops from valley folds, and slightly blinded, I breathe in sunshine for as long as I can before my veins turn to ice and I can’t pedal home. I never once question if witnessing this every day happening is worth standing in the cold.

It’s worth it.

For years I enjoyed watching day break, but sometime last winter, I stopped making the time. It was probably too cold, too inconvenient, too common. Another rotation of the earth, another sunrise. No big deal. The sunrise alarm would jingle my phone and I’d silence it, get back to tasks consuming my attention, and that was the daily routine – jingle, swipe, back to life. Routine had absorbed my soul.

This went on for quite a while, until one day – unable to recall when I’d last seen the sunrise – I deleted the alarm altogether. And part of me was really sad about it. Not sad about the absent alarm (less noise is always welcome) but sad that God was throwing color on waking skies and I’d lost delight in it all. I didn’t want to forget, but I apparently didn’t care to remember either.

The funny thing about the soul is, it remembers. Its cravings can’t be silenced with distractions or the petty sustenance that quiets mind and body. There came a morning when gold leaked through my kitchen windows and not a task or duty could hold me indoors. I ran the few minutes to my familiar spot, and as light filled the sky, delight filled my bones, and I stood in awe once again. Next morning, same thing; then the next, and the next, until I’d established a better routine of go, see, delight. I’d snap a picture for my sisters, sometimes send it with a verse or encouraging word – a little good news to break the monotony and monotone that soon fill a day – and it’d be back to life, just like before. But unlike before, now I had fire in my bones.

God is called the ‘Father of Light‘ only once in the Bible, but I think it’s my favorite name. It fits Him, and it explains why I need Him so much: His light wakes every facet of my being. The world’s darkness lulls my soul to sleep with bleak news and dull talk from dim minds. It’s a cynical forecast of gloomy attitudes telling me it’s just another day of drudgery. But God invites me to come and see His graces. If I silence His reminder, I’ll forget to delight in who He is. And when I forget Who God is, I forget who I am – a soul with a purpose, not a human with a routine.

Which is why I keep going out, watching melon clouds and violet stripes as the sun carves its path across the mountains. Nature’s beauty is a rhythm of thanks to its Creator – a song of gratitude – reminding me it’s another day to recognize God’s wonder and reflect His splendor with gladness.

 

“Mom, do you know what I was thinking about last weekend?”

My youngest daughter and I were driving to who knows where, but it was just the two of us. The backseat empty of siblings, just mom and child side by side – there’s something magical about these conditions. The deep insights they share in that passenger’s seat! My son once confessed he’d been observing whether or not male drivers were smiling on their commute, and after many months of visual research, he’d assessed that men were almost unanimously smiling if behind the wheel of a truck, and nearly never smiling if driving a car. When I pressed him as to why he thought this might be, he had a ready conclusion. “I think it’s because men with trucks work with their hands and that makes them happy.”

It’s during drives like these and conversations like these when my gaze is pulled toward the passenger’s seat, toward the child and their quiet thoughts revealed, and my own silent thought is nothing less than, ‘Who is this beside me, really?’ So no, I didn’t know what my daughter was thinking last weekend, but I could hardly wait to hear what she had to say.

“I was just talking to God out loud, like praying, and I was thinking about how sometimes you pray for something and He works things out differently than what you’d hoped and it’s not what you wanted exactly, but it’s still good. Do you know what I mean?”

I nodded and she continued. “Like maybe someone asks God for a dog, but their parents won’t let them get one, and then someone asks them to watch their dog a lot and so it’s almost like they did get a dog. God still worked it out, just a different way.”

“So when we trust God knows what’s best, it’s easier to see His goodness in our situation, even if it’s not how we expected to see it?”

“Yep.” Her head was comfortably tilted toward soft desert landscapes and although I couldn’t see her expression, I sensed her contentment. “I couldn’t wait to tell you. I knew you’d love it.”

And I did love it. I loved that she shared her thoughts with me and I loved her understanding of God’s goodness, because what she didn’t say – what we both knew – is that in eleven years of living, she’s experienced her share of disappointment. She’s experienced loss, prayed for things she didn’t receive, and in several areas of her life, she’s still waiting to see God’s goodness revealed, but she’s looking. She continues hoping, and just as God promises, He continues filling her with joy and peace while she waits.

And for all these reasons, I’m glad it was my daughter explaining hope to me instead of the other way around. I, too, have had my share of storms, failures, and heartbreak, and I’ve come to equate hope with dreams unrealized and needs unmet, and honestly – sadly – I’d rather have the good life kind of faith where I tell God what I want and He gives it to me, and life is effortless and nothing but blessing and I can tuck hope in my Christian back pocket and never need it all.

Thoughts from the driver’s seat revealed. My faith is childish, not child-like.

But faith’s vitality is rooted in my ability to hope in Christ. Without hope, disappointment quickly becomes a crisis of faith. With Jesus as my hope, I have the hustle and sweat necessary to remain faithful. I have the courage to wrestle doubt and discouragement. I have the joy to ask, “Lord, give me today”, no matter how many sleepless nights. And when the smell of smoke is thick, hope keeps me breathing deep and steady, never wavering in belief that beauty is somewhere in those ashes.

Tuck hope in my back pocket? I can’t. I won’t have the endurance to make it through a single day.

I laid my hand on my daughter’s arm, glanced her direction as best I could, and asked, “What’d you say to God after He helped you understand all of this?”

“I told Him I was glad He’s with me and I never have to be alone.”

Simple goodness and truth from the passenger’s seat. I get it now. Hope doesn’t endure alone. God is with me, and when He is close, His goodness is, too.

——————

It’s been a few months since this conversation, and in that time, I’ve had some good practice with hope. I’ve asked some hard questions. There were quiet days and trying days, and sometimes God was asking me the hard questions. In all of it though, He was there. As the New Year approaches, I’m looking for God’s goodness, and I’m hoping with expectation. I’m praying you are, too.