I'm so glad I wrote it down

a third birthday reflection for just enough brave

On the bottom of our six-level bookshelf, a dozen journals are stacked and cozied up against the left hand corner. That’s my childhood, I think whenever I see them there. And not just my childhood, but my angsty teen years and thought-I-knew-it-all college years, and even the combination of lonely + intense + amazing graduate school years.  Every now and then, I pull out these journals that I have kept for a few decades now, and I read through some of the entries. Allow me to entertain you for a moment with a few highlights:

November 5, 2001

Dear Journal - Well, I don’t know where to start; my life’s been crazy lately with school, soccer and a boyfriend. It’s almost too much stress for me to handle. I seriously can’t get anything done.

December 5, 2001

Dear Journal - Guess what, I made All-American! Pretty cool huh? Oh, and Chris left yesterday for the Marines! He left so quickly! I’m really gonna miss him! My mom is really sad about it! 

December 26, 2001

Dear Journal - It’s the day after X-mas and winter break is going on right now! It’s so awesome. I’m still doing ok on my diet, but I’ve cheated a few times! Brian and I are still 2together. He got me some really pretty earrings and a Bop It for X-mas. Our 2-month anniversary was last Thursday! Wow, huh?

December 18, 2002

Dear Journal - Well here it’s been a whole year and I haven’t written! I’m so sorry! But I’m not gonna forget for a while now, I promise! Here’s what’s happened: Broke up with Brian (he was so dumb and I had absolutely no regrets), went to Homecoming with Kevin Madsen and it was fun. I didn’t go to my Junior Prom because I was coming home from Florida with the National Team that day, but it was totally ok ‘cuz I didn’t really want to go. Hard to explain but I really didn’t. I played really bad in Florida, and I know it was because I screwed myself over by not eating enough. But I won’t let that happen again! Rage finally beat the Blues in the semis at Regionals. It was so awesome! Then we won the whole thing. But the week before Nationals I tore my ACL at Regional Camp. But I’ll be back on that National Team, I will! And one of the coolest things happened: I’m going to Arizona State! I absolutely love it there and couldn’t be happier about my decision. Gosh a lot has happened that I can’t believe I never told you about. But I promise more details later. This was just a quick recap! I’ll write tomorrow, but it is 12:17 and I have to wake up in 6 hours! Bye!

A few reflections:

*Almost too much stress for me to handle. Oh my. Tell me about it, fifteen-year-old Katie.

*Brian, if you ever read this, you were not dumb. You were a very sweet first boyfriend to me.

*I remember the day my older brother left for the Marines, just three months after 9/11 and with everyone thinking war would be imminent at some point soon. My mom wasn’t just sad about it, she was devastated. I can still picture that day so well, and I remember that I had never seen her like that, with swollen eyes from crying and so few words to even talk about it. I could not have understood that feeling as a teenager, but with three of my own now, I think get it.

*The diet stuff. Ugh. What I see as I read it now is the start of almost a decade of stronghold for me; almost ten years of starving, bingeing, purging, writing down every single calorie that I put in my mouth and now a lifetime of stomach issues that are very likely a result of the way I treated my poor body for too long. All because a fifteen-year-old really wanted a six pack.

*The people in my life as a teenager helped define it. I think I’ll be holding on to that thought quite a bit.

Of course my journal entries got deeper as my faith and maturity did. I wrote through the next decade in much the same way: highlight by highlight - more soccer and more injuries, more food issues, more boy issues. In fact, that last topic took over around 2008, because I had been in about six weddings at that point and had never had a date to bring to one, and a clear sense of longing seemed to accost my words for the next few years. Then children came in to the picture, and it wasn’t so much a place of longing I was writing from, but a place of desperation, with Lord, please help me! sentiments of all kinds.

And that emotion is usually where I still write from.

Three years ago, just enough brave was born. After four years of blogging with my best friend, I had planned on putting the words—at least the ones for the internet—to rest for a while. But when a friend asked me over breakfast one morning why I wasn’t writing, I realized I didn’t have a good answer, and I definitely did not have a God answer. (Side note: these kind of friends are good ones. Keep them around). So I started again from the most honest place I could think of, and that was the desire to be brave. Just enough brave.

Life and motherhood have taken a hard turn off the map I had spent a few decades of life plotting and following, walking me and Alex straight into unknown and fairly scary territory. But I kept writing, and this tiny space on the internet has safely held some of the most vulnerable words that have ever come out of my heart. I have always, always loved this about writing: it helps me see what is true about me in ways I could not have seen before I wrote it all down. And still, the best part comes a few years (sometimes decades) later, when you can look back and laugh at the things you thought were stressful, cry at the hard lessons you thought you understood but had to really learn the hard way, and mostly see how far God has brought you - how his provision has never wavered, and how he has been good enough to not give us what we want, but what we need. My words have truly become an anthology of getting what I needed.

For that reason alone, I’m so glad I wrote it all down.

Here’s the truth: writing for my own heart and writing for an audience are two very different things, and I have found that I am not very good at doing both. But I have also found that when I do the former, the later seems to happen organically. Unforced rhythms are the most sustainable rhythms, and I think that is true in every area of life, but certainly in writing.

Writing has taught me so much; more than I know how to sum up and wrap a bow around, because the lessons never stop. It has taught me to be honest and to be brave. It has shown me my pride and my tendency to compare myself to others. It has been the friend that has never kept score but welcomed me with open arms when I returned after a long break. And it has been what God has used to lift my eyes back up to him. I have loved words my whole life, but now I need them.

An anthology of getting what I needed. Thank you, Jesus.

on hope

The sun was falling slowly to the west, lighting up the tops of the wheat and the scattered wildflowers just gently enough to paint a layer of gold around them. I will never get over the way the world looks right before the sun sets; like it is at peace, content with itself for having given its best, ready for the rest it well deserves.

We had driven to the north side of town to meet our family at the orchard, dressed in corresponding colors for the yearly pictures. “I forgot the lollipops,” I said out loud.

“We will be fine,” Alex responded. “It will be quick.” Always hopeful, that one.

Cannon fell asleep on the drive, so when we pulled up we decided to just let him rest until we were ready to go take our pictures. It is easy now to see where we started to go sideways on this endeavor, and the decision to not wake him right then was the beginning.

After a few minutes the photographer arrived, and we made our way toward the blooming sunflowers for the big group shot first. Alex unbuckled Cannon and gently picked him up, whispering in his ear that it was time for pictures. He was out of sorts right away, I could tell. He woke up in an unfamiliar place with a lot of expectations, and then we started asking him to look at a camera and say cheese, which makes the list of the ‘hardest things’ for his mind to execute.

Even if I had remembered the lollipops, I’m sure this would have gone the way it did.

We tried. I tickled him and kissed his cheeks and let him hang the full weight of his body on mine, but this boy wanted no part of family pictures in that moment. So, after a few minutes, I told the group to keep on without us, and Cannon and I headed back toward the car.

That’s when I really noticed the sunset, and the visceral peace hovering all around. Everything I saw looked, well, perfect. The blemishes that cannot hide under the midday sun disappear under the filter of dusk, reminding me that Instagram has nothing on nature. The cooler air and the softer surroundings, all of it announcing the end of its work for the day. Then I noticed my heart, and even against the weight of a struggling boy, who was exceptionally difficult to carry while walking through the dirt in wedges, it was totally at peace.

No tears. No frustration. No embarrassment. No compelling draw to explain anything to the rest of the family or the photographer. In that moment I was just a mom doing what her son needed.

I’ve come a long way from the mom who needed her son to do what I wanted.

*****

It has been just over a year since we knew Cannon was autistic. I remember this time a year ago, at the end of a long summer, texting a friend who is a bit further ahead of us on a similar journey. She responded with such sweet empathy, and told me the first year was the hardest, but that her little one was improving all the time, that he has so many incredible strengths, and that it’s not easy but it’s going to be ok.

She was exactly right.

The first year was really, really hard. I did not know what to do with my son, I did not know what to do with all the opinions on why he is autistic, and I did not have the first idea how to internalize the comments and stories of others. I had no bandwidth for any one of the books a well-intentioned friend had heard was a good read, but I’d send a “thank you so much, I’ll look in to it” response anyway. I could not have named it at the time, but I spent much of the first year unraveling. I had put together a whole narrative on both God and myself as a mom, and thread by thread it was all being pulled apart.

What I can tell you now is this: I was looking at the world and trying to make sense of God. And I was looking at my children and trying to make sense of myself as a mom. When you get those things backwards, nothing really seems to fit. But when God graciously takes apart the story you believe you are narrating and puts it back together as the only fitting Author, it makes a lot more sense.

When I started with God, with his character, his story, his purposes, and all of the realities of life in a broken world, then everything else had so much meaning. But this did not happen for me overnight. In fact, I didn’t really notice how far we have come until the sunset over the orchard reminded me that just as the world makes its way around the sun every day and not the other way around, so does God need his rightful place at the center of each of our days, and not the other way around. As John Piper so beautifully says, "The healing of the soul begins by restoring the glory of God to its flaming, all-attracting place at the center."

So much of life comes down to hope, doesn’t it? And when it comes to autism—perhaps even parenting in general—the first thing you lose when your child is not doing something they are supposed to be doing is hope. I can look back at last summer and realize that what I had always believed about life, the story I had weaved together, was written around a lifetime of accomplishments, good reputation, “blessings” and other renditions of the beautiful American Dream. The foundation of my whole narrative was hope, but hope that was in those good things. I have had to learn that hope is only as unshakable as its object. 

So a year ago, God took it all apart and re-wrote the beginning. It is still hope, but it is in Him.

And when my hope is really in Jesus, all of a sudden my heart is bursting at the seems to have real hope for Cannon, too. Not just in progress, but in the story God will tell with his precious life, and the glory a little boy who sees the world so differently could bring to Him.  

*****

Once Cannon and I made it back to the cars, I found his juice cup and sat down with him at a picnic table. Together we waited for a moment, looking out at the horizon and breathing in the peace all around us. In just a few minutes, he smiled up at me and then got down off my lap—his physical indication that he was fine now. We went and found the rest of the family, and while I don’t think we got one picture with all the cousins that night, or even one where all of us were looking, we drove away with smiles on our faces. Alex reached over and grabbed my hand, and we laughed a little bit wondering why on earth we didn’t wake him up and give him a few minutes to run around in the place before throwing a chorus of resounding “say cheese!” at him.

This is our beautiful life. Not one day of it has taken God by surprise, and not one of them will be wasted.

The other night, Cannon joined his siblings and me in a game of tag— he has never done that before. He turns when we call his name now, he asks for what he wants with words and not pictures. He sleeps all night. He hugs his siblings. In life we tend to measure progress by big things or in big moments—like family pictures. He didn’t do so well in that moment, but he has had a thousand amazing little moments before and after that one.  

So, I hope. And I’ll keep hoping. Because this progress, these everyday miracles, is in its rightful place on the periphery, like the stars and the moon lighting up our lives. They are no longer at the center. Our life, and our hope, moves around the Son.

what I wish I would have said

“Cannon, stop please!”

He keeps running, hard and fast down the dirt row lined with blueberry bushes.

“Cannon,” I raise my voice, “stop now!”

His little legs pick up their pace, as if my words are sideline encouragement from a proud mama rather than the desperate plea of a weary one that I mean them to be. But I follow up with one last effort: “Cannon Lee, STOP!”

At this point, I realize the futility and start running after him, leaving my other two children behind with my mom and friend, and hoping I can catch him before I can’t see what row his little head turned down. As soon as I turn the corner there he is, totally still and turned to face me with a big smile on his face. He had stopped, just like I told him to. 

“Cannon, mommy needs you to stay near me while we pick blueberries, ok?”

He tilts his head with his precious grin still beaming, his acknowledgement of my words even though we both know they were not understood. He was playing a game: a clear dirt path signaled to him the freedom to make his way down it the only way he knows how—running. He grabbed my hand and walked back to the group with me.

We got in line to grab our fruit picking baskets, and as we waited our turn I held tightly to his little hand as he pulled and pulled, willing us both back to the dirt path. This is fairly standard in unfamiliar places; Cannon’s little body is overcome with the urge to explore and understand and run around in every inch of new territory, and his little ears seem deaf to anything his own little mind is not telling him to do.

When it was our turn for the farm’s director to tell us how to properly secure our blueberries from the bush, she looked down at Cannon, who was reaching down for handfuls of bark with his free hand.

“Is this the one who was running?”

“Yes, this is him,” I replied with a smile. “He gets excited.”

“Hmm. Well, he’s not a very good listener is he? Young man, don’t pick that up.”

Cannon grabbed another handful.

“Young man, don’t touch that. We don’t do that.”

He continues to look at the ground, spotting his next grab.

“Excuse me,” she responded with irritation in her voice, “do you need to go inside the farm and learn to be obedient, young man?”

In moments like these, I usually just focus on Cannon, try to distract him from the behavior that he shouldn’t be doing and give him a positive one instead. I was short on options for those in the moment, so I did something I rarely do.

“Ma’am, he is autistic. I am not sure how much sense this all makes to him. Don’t worry, I will watch him very closely out here.”

“Oh.” A pause. “There was an 18-year-old like that out here yesterday. Her mother couldn’t do anything with her.”

'Like that?' Deep breath, mama, deep breath. Adding this to the list of unhelpful things people tend to say without really thinking about them.

A year ago, that comment would have made me break out in a sob right then and there. Six months ago, I would have been frustrated, stomped my way through the rest of our time and then vented about it to a few trusted friends, toying with the idea of writing a pithy “open letter to the rude farm owner,” but my husband would have talked me down from that place. But last week, I just smiled back, emotionally numb to her insensitivity because that’s really all it was, an insensitive comment from someone who doesn’t understand.

But today, a week later, what I wish I would have said is this:

A mom came out here with her 18 year old autistic daughter? Wow, how cool! You know, she’s a brave mama. Autism is so unpredictable and all we want for our kids is to be able to participate in great things like this, like picking blueberries on a beautiful summer day, so the fact that she came out here and tried, that’s amazing, and I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her. Yes, brave mama indeed. If you see her or anyone like her again, you should tell her that. Sounds like she’s doing a great job.

I missed the chance to say that last week, but I won’t next time.

Cannon has a defender much great than me, and that’s God. But God made me his mama and therefore his advocate, and I think I am finally strong enough to be just that. I don’t plan on arguing and I certainly don’t plan on crying; most comments come from ignorance, not maliciousness, and they are simply part of the journey of special needs—I think in particular a special need that on the outside doesn’t look like a special need. But I am so very ready to tell the next person who just doesn’t understand what she is seeing one very true thing:  we, special needs mamas, are a brave, brave crew.

*****

We brought home almost 4 pounds of blueberries that day, and even though the owner told me not to I kept sneaking Cannon a few as we picked. I believe in that boy, and I believe in the story God is writing in all of us, because His stories are always heading toward what is good, toward our forever home. They are not always easy, but always good. Moments like that just remind to not be afraid to tell it. 

gluing the cracks

It was somewhere in the summer 2004, I think. Memory gets hazy with three children so don’t hold me to that. But I know I was home from college, browsing clothes I did not need and bathing suits that would not flatter at my hometown Target. I heard a young girl fussing near the door, I’m still not sure why. I don’t know if they were coming in to the store or trying to leave, but I honestly was not paying too much attention. Kids throw fits, it happens. But then it got a little louder, and a little more difficult for her mama. The young girl was having a full blown meltdown by the time my eyes found the commotion.

And what happened next caused the whole front of the store to turn their attention to the door.

Another woman, who appeared to be just slightly older than the struggling mom, came through the front doors, obviously appalled at the poor parenting she was witnessing. In a callous and unsympathetic manner and loud enough for anyone within 50 feet to hear, with disgust in her voice she said, “Control your child!” Then kept walking.

And then, in an instant, the mom cracked. Each of us onlookers heard a screeching, “What did you say?!” And then saw the mom take the ten quick and angry steps to get in front of the crass commenter and stop two inches from her face. “You B____! She is autistic! Do you want to come over here and tell me that again, as if I can do something about it!” More swearing ensued. There was never any physical fight but I sure thought there would be. I could not see the commenter’s face, I have no idea if she had any remorse. I just watched her keep walking, trying to get away from the angry mom in front of her.

It all lasted no more than ten seconds. The middle-aged woman returning to her shopping, the mama returning to her inconsolable child. And with a heart beating slightly faster than the minute before, I tried to keep shopping. It was a short incident. No security, no handcuffs, a frustrating misunderstanding really; hardly worth talking about any further.

But thirteen years later, the whole scene is still burned in my memory.

And so are the feelings I had as I left that day: I would never, ever, be that judgmental. When I am a mom, I will show tons of grace and do nothing but encourage the moms who need it.

I would have no idea that God was actually going to ask me to be the mom begging not to be judged.

*****

We pulled up to the park on Father’s Day anxious for some sunshine and a picnic lunch. As usual, Cannon had his very favorite Cars slippers on and was excited to take off running toward the swings. I turned from the front seat and said, “Ok buddy, let’s put your shoes on.”

He quickly lifted his right leg toward me and I took off his slipper and replaced it with a gray slip-on shoe. And then it all went downhill.

“Ok bud, other foot.” He didn’t move.

“Cannon, let’s put your other shoe on.” He pulled away, protective over the Car slipper still on his left foot.

I forced the issue a bit more. “Cannon Lee, you need two shoes on. The slippers aren’t safe to climb in.” He started getting angry as I kept reaching for his left foot. Tired of asking, I forcefully took off his slipper, put his other shoe on and unbuckled him from his seat. He went from smiling to inconsolable in under ten seconds.

I thought if we kept walking toward the park he would calm down, but with each step further and further from the car he became more and more distraught, his body against the weight of mine as he reached back and I pushed forward. Alex grabbed him from me because I was struggling to not drop him, and the fight continued. We made it across the parking lot and to the closest park bench, but things were falling apart. Cannon was turning all shades of red, purple and blue from crying—no, wailing—and his parents were not far behind. With all of his three-year-old might he fought us to go back to the car for his slippers, and when we would not let him it brought out everything bad in all of us. He started hitting, swinging his little arms as fast as he could against Alex’s face, then against his own.

And to me, that’s the worst, when he does that to himself. Rips my heart out every time.

Then Alex and I started in on each other. “What do you want me to do?” Alex asked.

“I have no idea what to do!” I responded a little louder.

“This is awful.” He said in return.

“I’m sorry our life is so awful!” I told him through gathering tears. “Give him to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. But he cannot act like this! He cannot hit! He cannot make life impossible! And he cannot wear slippers at the park! We are going home!” And as I tried to grab Cannon out of Alex’s arms (who was—rightfully so— a bit reluctant to hand him over to a mama who, for all intents and purposes, had cracked) Cannon’s flailing body almost fell to the ground in the process. We caught him, but the whole scene looked awful.

Just ask the few dozen families at the park who watched it.

*****

I want to tell you that my faith in God has not waivered one bit in the face of a little boy whose life is confusing and, to be straight with you all, incredibly difficult. I wish I could say that I have had endless patience with the attempts to run off, with the refusal to sit and eat at the table, with head banging and arm flapping and a desperate longing for him to ask any question other than the one he asks a hundred times a day, “Where’s the volcano?” (Thanks, Dora). And I really, really wish I could tell you I patiently cleaned up another episode of fecal smearing (it is what one might guess it is) at 10:30pm two nights ago. But I didn’t, I sobbed through each and every swipe of the carpet.

The only thing I can tell you is that my hope, and faith, are paper thin right now. And that motherhood has completely stripped me of any confidence I had in my ability and my hard work. More than a decade removed from that memory of the Target yelling incident, I know exactly how that mama felt when she yelled “…as if I can do anything about it!”

That is, in eight words, exactly what autism feels like sometimes.

*****

I walked my crying little guy back to our van in the parking lot, all at once ashamed of myself and frustrated at everything that had just happened. Cannon and I both sat in our seats and sobbed for a few minutes, him over his beloved slippers and me over my beloved child. Every fear in the world rains on you in moments like this:

It will never get better.

The therapy is useless. So are the diets.

He’ll be in diapers his whole life. And wearing Cars slippers.

You only have another few years until he is much stronger than you.

Your other two kids will resent their life.

Say goodbye to dinner with new friends. Probably even old friends.

And it goes on. Fear is so bossy, and incredibly loud. And when it starts pouring down it is all too easy to forget everything I know about hope.

*****

For all of my life, I have believed in a good God. But I need to admit something: he seemed really, really good when I was enjoying incredible success as an athlete, marrying an amazing man and welcoming healthy babies in to the world. He has felt less good since autism.

But he’s not less good, and I know this. I do. I think that he is just asking my child-like faith if it is ready to be made real, if it will stand up to really hard circumstances, if day in and day out I can clean up smearing, sit patiently through inexplicable outbursts, be willing to leave places we couldn’t quite make it through the door of, and humbly do this work. I spent many years dreaming up a much sexier version of gospel-living and kingdom work. But with every elevator door we pass by that we must stop and push the button for, with every time we turn the car down an unfamiliar street and cause a panic-attack, with every minute I want to say “I quit,” I hear the familiar voice I’ve known in every season of life, still there: this is kingdom work, and I have never changed.

The fear might be louder, but the truth is stronger. And though I am a slow learner, I know the truth to go back to.

...in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them (Psalm 139:16)

I’ve cracked. But truth is gluing me back together. May it always be so. 

measurements

We measure things, all of us. So aware of all that is bigger, grander, beyond our control, or outside of our ability to explain, we use measurements as a means to grasp what we can, however we can— with the intent to put our lives onto a tidy shelf in our minds and label its contents: this is what I understand, this is what I am worth, this is how other people think of me.

We measure height, weight, growth, and shrinking. We measure bank accounts and retirement funds. We measure influence in likes and comments, and we measure accomplishment in applause. We quantify our lives in every way that we can, because against the backdrop of a life that is unpredictable and impossible to control, there is comfort in knowing and naming, in calculating who we are with whatever satiates the appetite to be known for that moment.

I first noticed this tendency in myself when I started writing on the internet seven years ago. I would toil over an essay, proud of the way I crafted sentences to be both rhetorically beautiful and theologically sound (that was the goal, anyway). I prided myself on honesty and connecting to the most common experiences of my peers that I could, then I would hit publish and share it with the world (or, with my Facebook friends, who certainly felt like the whole world in my self-centric mind).

One hour later, I’d wonder if anyone “liked” it and casually open the browser. I did not know at the time what was happening, but I see it so clearly now: the measurements—not based at all on my effort to honor Jesus but rather on my word’s and their reception with others—they would take over my day. I was valuable if people liked my words and I wanted to quit writing forever if people didn’t. My worth was found wanting or not based on the fickle, simple click of a tiny thumbs up button on a screen.

My words, my value, my day. And over time and too many emotional roller coasters, I learned that the problem with measurements is that there is simply too much of me in every equation I use.

It’s easy to make a life out of measurements; too easy, in fact. And when we set our sights on the one we want—whether it be salary, followers, publications, purchases or promotions—we chase it hard, with all of the God-given talent and passion and creativity we have. And while God-given pursuits are noble, needed even, it is also tempting in that chase to forget how Jesus went after his God-given pursuit: we go fast, famous, and big, always considering ourselves and our influence. Jesus went slow, overlooked, and small, only considering the will of his Father and the heart change his words of truth offered.

We chase what we can measure. Jesus walked through life in awe of the immeasurable one, of His Father.

At the heart of our misplaced pursuits is a simple solution, not easy, but simple: chase Jesus first, then we will chase after purpose like He did. We don’t need to abandon our creativity, our good endeavors, our goals or our passions; but we might need to do them in a different way, we might need to stop measuring them and simply let God use them. Open handed, humble, willing to let our very best effort and accumulated hours go completely unseen, we must remember that God has always used a very different system of metrics than the world, and all the applause on earth cannot earn the favor of a Perfect God. The cross, and only the cross, already did.

But a heart that pursues him and his glory with all that it has? That, friends, is where the abundant life is found. That is where we find joy immeasurable.

God does not need us, not one of our fancy offerings or impressive measurements is even worth holding up to the One who told the oceans where to stop. But he uses us! He lets us be a part of kingdom work and gives us real influence right where we are. How often do we sit in awe of that truth? And in the end, I think we will find that the most important measurement of all is the distance between a perfect God and our feeble and fickle hearts, and the marvelous fact that only scandalous grace could bridge that distance perfectly.

Everything changes when we stop measuring ourselves for Jesus, and simply start following him. 

__________

*This essay originally appeared on the Open Door Sisterhood blog.

writing to great grandma

“Mommmm! How do you spell ‘Great Grandma?”

“Harper, please don’t yell across the house. Come out here and I will tell you how to spell it.”

“But mom! It’s a surprise for Great Grandma. You can’t see it.”

“But I am not going to wake up your brothers, Harper. Can you come to the couch and I’ll tell you the letters?”

She sauntered out to the living room just a minute later, arms full of supplies and awkwardly cut paper hearts. After she spilled the contents of her tiny arms onto our oversized ottoman, she warned me not to come too close. “I just need the letters, mom. I’m making a card for Great Grandma. But you can’t see it yet.”

“Oh, Harper girl, that is really sweet, love! Great Grandma will be so excited to get that.”

“Yeah she will.” (Harper does not often lack confidence in her ideas.)

“Ok, are you ready for the letters? G-R-E-A-T, then a space, G-R-A-N-D-M-A. Great Grandma.”

Harper elaborately decorated the rest of the card with drawings of stick figures and hearts, swirly circles and even a depiction of her great grandma getting the letter out of the mailbox. She finally showed me her masterpiece with a beaming smile of pride, then folded it approximately 18 times into a thick, unrecognizable shape, and put it in an envelope. We sent it off, and I gave the card no more thought than that.

Last week a letter came in the mail from my grandma, Harper’s great grandma. She is my only living grandparent, having lost my grandpa and her sweet soulmate exactly two years ago. Since then, grandma JoNell has sold the big, beautiful home that held every memory of the last 45 years, moved in to a small retirement center, and spent many, many hours in the company of silence. When I opened the letter, it was a simple seven lines of beautiful, classic handwriting, the kind we just don’t see anymore.

Thank you so much for your nice letter and the sweet things you said.
I think your letter and the things you said were very good for a child of your age.
If you keep trying, I’ll bet you can be writing a book by the time you’re in school!
You are a very smart girl.
I’d love to have letters from you anytime.
Love, Grandma Mahoney

When I read this letter to Harper, she beamed, the image of her wise and gentle great grandma held in her heart as she took in the words that told her that special woman was proud of her. She brought the letter to her room and it is still on her dresser. I imagine we will put it someplace safe soon, but for now, Harper likes to see it.

I have done a lot of work in the last two years, things that I am proud of and that I hope have meant something. I’ve taught many classes and written many essays, some that have reached more people than I would have ever imagined. We bought a new house and a new car and we have diligently kept our debt at zero. I contributed to a book and celebrated it with parties and beautiful pictures. I’ve participated in Bible studies and book clubs, submitted articles at a few dream publications, read heavy theology and again and again set lofty goals for myself.

But I have not written a letter to my grandma.

Harper did, because my four-year-old seems to have a radar for what is important, one that I might have misplaced in my pursuit of doing important things.

Zack Eswine wrote these beautiful words about the mission of Jesus, saying that while we go big, fast and, popular, Jesus went small, slow, and overlooked. I want to say that the small, slow and overlook are my heart, but I wonder if my life has backed that up. The tiny letter from my grandma hit me with the conviction of a bag of bricks.   

There’s a world of people out there I tend to think I need to applause of, and there are people right in front of me I actually know but can so easily value less. The silent cheers of likes and comments can feel so loud and affirming, a moment of a fleeting "I matter!"-- gone as quickly as it came. I think it is time I switched things up a bit, and stop simply saying small, slow, and overlooked but living them.

I’d love to have letters from you anytime. You got it, grandma. 

His breath, our lungs, and the little boy who changed everything

For Cannon, on his third birthday

He came into the world so easily—one push, two pushes, then a baby boy on my chest, with a precious little face that mirrored his daddy’s from the very beginning. We wrapped him in a yellow, gray and blue blanket, the one he still spends every night with, and brought him home the day before Mother’s Day. I wish I had written more during those first few months of his life, or maybe taken more pictures. I don’t remember them like I want to, or like I remember them with his big sister. The details escape me every single time I try to recall them and for this, I feel so guilty. But I do remember that everything about him was gentle: the way he slept, his smile, his cuddle, his coos, even his yellow, gray and blue blanket.

But three years and three kids are not kind to a tired mama’s memory. And when we add the hazy details about when it all started to change, when the gentleness faded into disconnection and the coos stopped attempting to become words, it gets even hazier. It was an eighteen-month well-check, then a speech therapist, then a special school, then a specialist, and a hundred thousand moments of is this what I think it is?

It was. It is.

The tears still come, all the time I’m afraid. I would love to report that we’ve moved in to the rhythm of autism and we’ve got it, but that’s a lie. All we’ve got is Jesus, but that’s enough.

Because even through the fog that has been the last three years, and the way it got so thick and scary since the diagnosis, I do know this: when something is wrong, you have to make sense pretty quickly of a God who only does what is right. And this does not happen in a few peaceful quiet times and some tranquilly answered prayers in a journal. For me, it has been more like a street fight, questions thrown like punches and protests of my heart held out in self-defense. A broken record of Why? How? When? My fault? on repeat in my head the whole time.

It took me many months to understand I was asking the wrong questions. The only one I really needed answered was who?

The simplicity of it all still catches me off guard, because the everyday reality of life is anything but simple. I was drowning, spending all of my strength to keep my head above the water and when you’re working that hard to just fight the current you cannot hold anything else. But a new question and a new answer came in like a life preserver—it didn’t take me out of the ocean but it allowed to catch my breath, rest, and not have to fight so hard. It told me we would make it.

The answer to who was this: a perfect God, and a precious little boy.

If God had not given me Cannon, I wonder if I would have ever cared to look and learn how big He truly is? I could not even see the shoreline from where I was, yet God holds the entire ocean in the palm of his hand. This, still, is the most miraculous thing in the world to me.

The road ahead is long, and it is for a lifetime. I won’t pretend that the lessons are done being taught and that we can wrap this all up in a pretty bow and call it complete. In fact, I think it’s the opposite. After the hardest, most tear-filled year, I think we are only just starting. But if at one time I was drowning and unable to see the shore, today I have a life preserver and I do, very clearly in fact, see the shore: it’s God’s glory, his eternal purpose and redemptive plan for all of life. It’s not going to be easy to get there, but we will.

I went in to watch Cannon sleep last night; he is still so gentle in everything he does, even in his sleep. As I watched his chest rise and fall all I could think about were the words “It’s your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise…” God’s breath, Cannon’s lungs, my praise. And then I thought about this: we are never really drowning when God is doing the breathing.

*****

I had no idea three years ago what life would look like today. And I have no idea what it will look like in another three. I know so much more and so much less at the very same time, and I am ok with that. But it’s His breath, our lungs, and for His glory. And I do know that’s enough to get us to the shore.

Cannon Lee, who would I be if it weren’t for you? Love you forever, sweet boy. We will get there together, I know it. 

before the morning

My desk faces east, looking out the window onto our quiet street and beyond, where I can just barely see the tips of the mountain peaks in the distance, all still covered with snow from what has been a long winter and what has turned into a long and still-cold Spring. I meet the day right here, every morning, every season.

For most of my life I have been somewhat of a 'morning person'. Even in my teen and young adult years when it was an option, I was never naturally one to sleep until noon. But being a ‘morning person’ always meant waking up in a relatively good mood, and outside of that the standards were low. Before children I set the alarm for enough time to get ready for work, and after children, I simply let them be my alarm, and I learned quickly that with little ones no one is 'morning person' because motherhood demands you learn to be an ‘all hours of the day’ person, good mood optional.

But when my second was five months old, everything changed. I was drowning—faking it pretty well, but drowning. Parenting a baby and a difficult toddler, wrestling with questions about who I was, the work I had left behind that I was very confident in my ability to do in order to pursue the work of motherhood that I felt like I was terrible at, and all of it was messing with me. And when I really started paying attention to my heart I realized how noisy I had let my life get; from sun up to sun down, invited and uninvited noise at every turn and I could not find a counterbalance to it all.

Then one day, after spending the weekend with a friend who I watched beautifully live out this practice in her own life, I set my alarm for 5:00am. I read the Bible, I wrote, I prayed, and I marveled at how quiet the whole world felt at that hour, at how quiet my heart finally felt. And then I did it again the next day. And the next day. And the next.

That was two and a half years ago.

(And yes, I did want to take a nap about 3:00pm every day that first month. Sometimes I still do. Power through and be willing to go to bed at 9:00pm.)

Today, I think there are ‘morning people’- those who can get up and do what needs to be done and might even have a skip in their step as they do- and there are ‘before the morning people’- those who get up before the chaos, the demands for milk, the diaper changes, and the frenetic search for matching socks. Those things still happen, but they don't happen first. I knew I had officially become a ‘before the morning’ person the day after we brought our youngest home from the hospital. He was an every-three-hours eater from day one, but even then, when my alarm went off at 5:00am I knew what was waiting for me if I could just get my feet on the ground, and the allure of that quiet, it was enough. I pushed the baby’s Rock ‘n Play out to the table with me, and my little man joined my morning routines until he was big enough to sleep through them (which took almost fourteen months by the way—because what is this ‘sleep training’ you speak of? Apparently my children were born immune to it.)

When I think of the woman and mom I was two and a half years ago and the one I am today, I know the difference, and it is the morning. I am not more or less saved, not more or less holy, and not more or less accomplished (though I am rather efficient with my earliest hours). And I don't have a sense of pride built up in my morning routine as much as a sense of desperation; I need it, my heart needs it. Because when I did find the quiet, the counterbalance to the loud world we all live in, it was in that quiet, with—finally—nothing competing for His attention, that God got big. He was too small in my loud world, an equal part of equal size of the thousand moments that made up an average day. It was in the quiet, before the morning, that He finally became unmatched.

And with all that the journey of this last year has brought us, my heart has desperately needed Jesus to be big, to be unmatched. Really, haven’t we all?

On a technical and politically correct level, there is nothing magic about the morning, no command that says if you want to hear from Jesus he has office hours only before dawn. And yes, technically, that is correct. But I push back a little, because I think there is something magic about the morning: it is untouched, not yet derailed by a day that did not unfold like I planned. It is fresh, renewed, and I will say it again, so beautifully quiet. I think the Psalmists were on to something as the chorus of their praise echoes with sentiments of in the morning, show us Your steadfast love, Lord. I cannot prepare for everything the day will bring, but I can prepare my heart to trust who is writing it all, who has commanded the morning since my days began, and who has taught the dawn to know its place. *

For months the sun has stayed stubbornly behind those mountain tops out my window, as if it were too cold itself to want to come out and play. But as we inch our way toward a new season, the day turns gold a little bit earlier every morning, offering to light the day longer and longer, warmer and warmer. These are the mornings I wait all winter long for, when I can look out the window and watch the magic that turns dark to light so quietly and effortlessly, just like it has been doing every day since God called it all 'good'.

But I think the real magic is that in these same hours of quiet at the desk by the window, as the day comes alive and greets the world, so does my heart.

Morning glory, indeed.   

*Job 38:12

Jesus, people, and launching a book

It started with five words.

“We are writing a book!”

And it ended with something I did not expect.

On Saturday, April 2nd, I stood in a room in Sacramento, California, with over 150 people who were there to celebrate Coffee + Crumbs and the humble words we have offered to the world every month. I got to see my friends from Sacramento loved on by their people, and I got to hug and laugh with the writers who have made me better in more ways than I can tell you. We gave hugs to readers and thanked them for coming, we tried our best to read essays without crying and we failed miserably, and then we stayed up until 1:00 in the morning eating In ‘N Out Burger and talking about the future of Coffee + Crumbs with literal tired eyes and full hearts.

It would be impossible to name a favorite moment of the weekend, but one of them had to be a walk along the river with Sonya. We had the latest flights out, with two hours and a sunny day we had to take advantage of. We talked about politics and social ills, she shared about her three months young adoption of a beautiful three-year-old girl from China and what that has meant for her family dynamics, and I talked about Cannon and what he has meant for my faith and my marriage and my heart. And as I chatted with Sonya about so many things, I was reminded that our best writing does not come from the easiest things in life, but the hardest. And you know, the hardest things are also where I have met Jesus the most—so there is certainly something to that. Shauna Niequist once said that all writers want good stories to write, but God is going to make you live them first. This, friends, is one of the truest things I know about writing.   

Less than a week later, back home in Spokane, we were getting ready for one more launch party to book-end a week of celebration. Around 12:00pm on Thursday I heard a knock at my door. My husband went to answer it and immediately I heard “surprise!” and yelling and hugging and laughter. When I walked around the corner to the front door there was Emily, my best friend who had flown in from Atlanta (!!!) with her precious duaghter to show up for this little local book launch.

Cue the ugly tears.

This is the same woman who got three kids under five years old in the car and drove five hours by herself when I was in labor with Cannon to make it to the delivery room in time for his birth, so I should not have been surprised. But I was. I was totally shocked and speechless with gratitude. Showing up for people is the greatest gift we can give them, and I know that not because I have done it perfectly, but because Emily has done it for me. 

Ashlee Gadd flew in Friday night, we splurged like rockstars and got our makeup done by my favorite makeup artists on Saturday, the books never made it off the UPS truck for delivery so my sweet Dad drove around Spokane buying every copy he could find, and then we got ready to party thanks to my mom and Tannya and my talented MIL who handmade all the gorgeous desserts.

And one by one, people started filling in. I wish I could articulate what this felt like.

You’re here! You’re really here for us, for this book! You showed up! I felt underserving the entire time, like all these people got duped and were really there for the wine. But they weren’t. They were there to celebrate something with me and Ashlee, and they did just that. I want to name every single woman who came and tell each of them how truly grateful I was for their presence, but just know this: I will never, ever forget the night that 70 people gathered together with delight in their eyes. Never. I was on the verge of tears for two straight hours because of them, because of people. It was love in real life, and it was perfect.

It makes total sense to me that Jesus is all about people, and all about showing up. 

*****

So now I sit on the back end of this amazing experience, reflective and introspective and humbled all at once.

Writing a book is, with few exceptions, every writer’s dream. Just ask them. Often times the content of said book is only loosely defined, but most of us have allowed ourselves to think about it—to picture a cover with our name on it, imagining it on shelves at Barnes and Noble and ourselves sitting at a table signing hundreds of copies.

So when an email came into my inbox from Ashlee Gadd with those five words in it, I saw the first step towards every writer’s dream handed to me.

And y’all, it has been a dream. It has been the sweetest gift to write a book with a team of women whom I both admire and love, who have made me laugh hysterically and cry uncontrollably, who have taught me and challenged me and encouraged me and loved me. I have a new respect for Ashlee, who has spent countless hours working on this dream and sacrificing so much so that we could all have a small piece of it.

But what I did not expect, and maybe I should have, is this: nothing about my real life has changed.

We wrote a book, and so far, people really like it. (All the praise hands!) But I feel the same today as I did over a year ago, perhaps slightly more humble. I struggle with the same sin. I fail at parenting in many of the same ways. I get my priorities mixed up in the same manner I always have. I got something I always wanted, and the best thing it did for me was remind me that it is not what I needed. Not the book or the applause or the attention, anyway.

But isn’t this the very thing we fail to believe all the time? That when we get what we have always wanted our lives will change; that we will be content, accomplished, we will be someone.

To the only audience that matters in the end, we won’t. We will never be more or less than we are right now, because the most important work in our lives is what Jesus did on the cross and that was finished long ago. This is a paradox that used to baffle me, but not just leaves me grateful. 

Still, book launch week has also given me something I did need: a whole lot of perspective and whole lot of amazing people. And in the end, this is a story about people; about the gratitude my heart feels when I think about them, and about how, if I have learned anything in the past two weeks, it is that I want to be for people, I want to be someone who shows up.

We hope you love the book, because we sure loved writing it, and we are very proud of the hard-fought words that fill up its pages. It would be all we could ask for to know that those words made a small, meaningful difference in the story of your motherhood. But when this work is a distant memory, when we are all reading and celebrating the next thing, we hope you remember Jesus and people, and what love for each of them looks like in real life.

I leave you with this memory from an amazing two weeks of book launches, because it perfectly captures so much of it.

I mentioned that the books we ordered for the party in Spokane did not arrive in time for the party, but we really wanted to at least fill the pre-orders that night. I called my Dad, who had already offered to help in any way we needed, and asked him if he wouldn’t mind spending a few hours in the car and grabbing every copy of the book he could find around town. Without hesitation, he said yes, hopped in the car and was on his way.

Ten minutes later, as my Dad was on the freeway headed to the northside of town for the first stop, I got a text from him:

“Katie, what is the title of your book again?”

Stay small, friends. 

the whole story: a thank you note, from me to you

Oh dear reader, thank you. Thank you for being here, for meeting up in this little space and then being willing to come back for a visit. I do not tell you this enough, but it humbles me to no end that these simple words actually have an audience, and that by the grace of our good, good Father, they connect with some of you. Do you know I keep every email, every message, and every word of encouragement you all have sent? Yep, every single one. From South Africa and New Jersey and Texas, from the teacher at my daughter’s preschool, from the fellow special needs mamas, and the friends I do life with on a regular basis— when you tell me that something I offered on paper was even the slightest bit encouraging to you, I praise Jesus and then ask him to help me to show up again and write some more.

Because can I tell you the truth? This has been hard, at times harder than I have wanted to work through, and I cannot do it without him.

When I started just enough brave I was certain God was calling me to pioneer something big and bold in my city. I had grand visions of people all over my tiny pocket of the country being inspired to live bravely and fight for justice in their places. I was slowly but surely stepping in to an idea I knew—and still believe—was from God as an advocate for women in the sex industry. I wanted to tell a different story about them, and I wanted to help them see a way out. Well, God raised up a few like-minded women and we stumbled our way through something we had no idea how to actually do. But let me tell you something: all God needs is obedience, He’ll do the rest. And he has. He has sustained and grown something that is allowing women in a very dark place to see Jesus.

And he has done it not because of me, but in spite of me.

But two and half years ago, that was my brave. And I believed if I could find just enough of it, God would honor that. That ministry has grown in ways I would never have pictured. No website, no social media, only—much like this—vague descriptions of our end goal coupled with massive amounts of prayer and faith. We have a prayer team, consistent donors, and a support group far bigger than I had even thought to ask God to grow it. And yet with every month of growth or moment of ‘only-God’ praises, I have had less and less of a role. It has grown bigger, and I have gotten much, much smaller. I have had to.

It was just over a year ago that we started seeing signs of ‘something wrong’ in our little guy. So many of you have followed that journey since I started sharing it, but all roads seemed to point to autism from the beginning, and that is where we find ourselves today.

I wish you knew how many times I have asked God, “Why?”

“Lord, we were willing, we were ready to go anywhere! But what Cannon needs is here. Why are you keeping us here, why did you give us this? We were willing to go!”

Yet God is so patient with our myopathy, isn’t he? We can only see right here, right now. All of human history has been directed by his hands and we are so quick to grumble over the things we do not like in this moment. But over my months of protesting, he gently kept whispering this to me: ‘If I have asked you to do it, no matter what it is, you’re going to need to be brave.’

If he has asked me to be a special needs mama, I need to be brave.

If Cannon is angry and upset for reasons I cannot understand, I need to hold him tight so he doesn’t hurt himself, and I need to be brave.

If treatments and therapies and endless doctor appointments sweep away savings accounts and extra income, I need to trust that it is truly God’s money anyway, and I need to be brave.

If we cannot participate, or have to cancel plans, or if my little one is misunderstood by onlookers and people who do not know him, if we have to sit outside a birthday party while others walk in and silently wonder why we can't just yet, I need to offer a quick plea for patience and grace, and I need to be brave.

If we do not understand why, if there is no clear cause and no clear cure, if for all of our effort we cannot find a formula that guarantees a way through this, I need to trust the Author of every great story, and I need to be brave.

‘This is your brave, Katie. You only have to find just enough of it.’

If I could summarize our short time on this journey so far I would say this: God has grown bigger, and I have gotten much, much smaller. He’s always been big, I just haven’t always seen it.

And all along the way, I’ve done the only thing I know how to do: be honest about it. I have been honest with my grieving and honest with my hope. I have written from exactly where I am because there would be no possible way for me to pretend to write from some other place. I have thought a hundred times in this past year that I should quit, that these hours spent at the computer could be better spent researching methods and therapies and all manner of options for treating something that is so hard to wrap our hands around.

And almost every time, in the moments I am most ready to stop, there’s an email, or a text, or someone somewhere—maybe I know her but most often I don’t—telling me not to. Bob Goff said once that, “God doesn’t pass us messages as often as he passes us each other.” That, sweet readers, could not be more true for me.

A few months ago, as I was processing all of this with my friend Jen, she said something to me that I have been holding on to all this time. “Katie, I don’t think it is an accident that while your little guy has so much trouble finding his words, God has given you so many of them.”

God certainly does not struggle to see the whole picture, does He?

Today, I am just feeling… I don’t know, some combination of grateful and pensive, as I sit here thinking about how far God has taken me, and what he has done as I have so imperfectly shared the story. This space has kept growing. But I keep getting smaller. While I used to want to be a Writer, capital 'W', and a Leader, capital 'L', now I just want to be someone with unshakable faith, even if it is merely the size of a mustard seed.

If I did not see it two and half years ago, or even a year ago, when two very different journeys began for me, I see it so clearly now: He increases, we decrease. And as that happens, as the distance between God and us gets bigger and bigger, his glory fills in the space. It is so, so beautiful; I just had to get much lower to see it this well.

*****

So dear reader, that is the just enough brave story. My life looks so little like I thought it would when we began. But it looks exactly how God wants it to, and knowing that is all that I need to feel so incredibly grateful to be chosen for this work. I still think and pray all the time about how and when and why to share in words—when you are convicted to your core that God sees every single motive that governs your heart it quickly changes how you do everything. But for today, I think I will keep at it. These hours could be spent in a dozen different ways, but so far they have all added up to teach me about God, and they leave me more in awe of him with each passing one. Time well spent, I think.

I know now that brave is not always leading and not always grand and not even always something anyone but God will see. Being brave is doing exactly what God has asked you to do, and humbly pointing every bit of that work back to the One who sustains it. If you ask me, I think humility is the new brave.

So, what do you say we all keep getting smaller?

And a hundred times, thank you for letting me tell you everything. You are good friends to listen so well.