Dearest Reader

Dearest Reader,

I've been thinking a lot about you. I've been pondering what your life looks like, how you pass your time, and what makes you come alive. I've been considering your deepest longings, your struggles and your insecurities, the things that keep you up at night. I've been contemplating what goes on beneath the surface, that outer shell that you've carefully constructed to protect yourself from judging eyes.

You are married and in your early thirties, the proud mother of two or three littles. You have a college degree and you spent some time in the workforce initially but now you pass most of your days at home with the kids. Suddenly you find yourself questioning "Is this all there is for me?" You love Jesus and long to have a stronger relationship with Him but He feels so distant in all the busyness of life. You are surprised by marriage and find yourself "finally coming up for air" after the newborn baby years and are looking at your husband and trying to remember who he is again. You are lonely and marriage is harder than you expected and you miss your husband and what you once were.

You are annoyed by the shallow nature of conversations with people in your life and how hard it is to share honestly the challenges you are facing in your marriage, home, with your faith and your view of your own self worth. You are a perfectionist who is trying your darnedest to let go of the death grip you have on holding it all together and keeping all your balls in the air. You are insecure and people really, truly like you but you have no idea how amazing you are. On a lot of days you feel empty and tired and you wonder if you are living your life "right." You worry you are screwing up your kids. Anxiety often takes hold and threatens to steal your joy. You are uncomfortable with the unknown. You feel guilty that you don't find more fulfillment in staying home with the kids.

Dear Reader, what do you need? You need to know that you are ENOUGH. You need to know that mistakes are OK and learn to view them, not as failures, but simply as more information. You need so desperately to hear you are doing a good job. You need to know you aren't the only one. You need relationships where you can be fully authentic and wholly real. You need to know how to feed your kids. You need some basics like a recipe for a quick and easy dish you can make for dinner tonight and some ideas for breakfast tomorrow. You need to be released from the paralyzing handcuffs of comparison. You need a date night. You need your husband to look you in the eye and really, truly see you and accept you and then pursue you like his life depends on it. You need to witness more beauty. You need to hear others tell you that you are brave. You need to laugh. You need confidence in who you are in Christ. And most importantly, you need a whole lot of GRACE.

If any part of this letter resonates with you, Precious Reader, I want to say WELCOME. I am so glad you found this space and I want you to know that you are safe here. You are accepted and loved. This is a place where truth will be spoken, a place were we will rejoice together and celebrate all the things - both big and small. This is also a space where we will speak of the hard. We won't be brushing it under the rug but rather we will face it head on and bring it out into the light because it is in expressing our deepest places of pain and struggle that the healing can begin.

Reader, I know this balancing act you've been walking, these inner wrestlings. I know this, Dear Soul, because I am very much like you.

You are not alone. You are among friends.