Surrender and Trust: Choosing Grace in the Midst of it All

+JMJ+ If there’s one word I could use to describe the last several months, it’s surrender (followed closely by trust).

This season of my life has been marked by a lot of change. My family is full of hope and joy (and nervousness) as we anticipate the birth of our sixth child due this fall. I have navigated through grief and loss, celebrating unexpected joys, and enduring unexpected sufferings. I'm doing my best to remain steady through the trials and errors. There's also a lot that goes along with raising our five beautiful children, homeschooling, and witnessing the remarkable (and sometimes overwhelming) journey of helping them grow and mature in every possible way.

In the midst of it all—in the chaos, the quiet, the pain, and the peace—I’ve been unmasked. Certain trials have revealed areas of my life I didn’t know still needed healing. Certain wounds I thought were long closed reopened in subtle and surprising ways. In His mercy, God continues to invite me into deeper healing, although it doesn't happen all at once. Nor does it happen in a dramatic fashion. Rather, it happens gently, patiently, and sometimes through the smallest, most unexpected moments.

Even years later, the healing continues.

Each new day also brings new opportunities to grow in virtue, to be refined, to live not for “what’s next,” but for what’s now. It's about humbly recognizing my flaws and the places where there is room for improvement. It’s not about rushing through life to get to some perceived finish line or next stage. Instead, I'm learning how to slow down and trying hard to live intentionally. God is calling me to live with focus and purpose, even when the temptation is to just rush through some days and collapse into a comfortable bed.

There are days I do want to rush through. There are days that feel too heavy. But God has been teaching me to surrender to Him, to accept the gift of each moment, and to live each moment. He's teaching me to walk each day in honor of Him, to rely on His grace and not on myself.

How weak I am—truly! So often I hear women talk about how strong and capable we are and how resilient we can be. Yes, that’s true in many ways. Yet, what leaves me in awe isn’t my own strength. It’s God’s grace, His strength in my weakness, His power in my limitations, and His love. It’s not about me. No. It’s about Him living in me.

It’s about serving others, especially my family. It’s about sacrifice, and love, and saying “yes” again and again to the calling of motherhood and marriage. In uniting myself completely with my husband in the sacrament of marriage, we’ve become conduits. We are far from perfect, but we are willing to accept God’s light, love, and grace. Together, we’re allowing Him to touch lives, especially the lives of our growing brood.

More and more, I’m realizing…

Too many people are caught up in the social media posts.

They're too caught up in saying the “right” thing, writing the “perfect” caption, or having a cause that draws likes and shares.

Folks, this life is not about recognition or popularity.

So much of this life is about simplicity. It's so often about quiet acts of love, about humbly saying “yes” to the unseen, the unnoticed, the hard and the holy. While so many people fight to get to the top to be seen, we so often forget about holiness.

We are all answering God’s call in different ways in whatever season we are in—ways that may not make sense to everyone. And that’s okay. God will give us the grace to be okay with that.

In surrender, we find freedom.

In trust, we find found peace.

In our weakness, we find His strength is enough.

Through it all, we cling to hope, that virtue which anchors the soul. Fittingly, this is the Jubilee Year of Hope in the Catholic Church. What a great reminder that our hope is not in perfect circumstances, or in our own abilities. Rather, it's in a God who never fails. He is a God who heals, and a God who transforms even the worst suffering into something beautiful.

“Everything is grace.”

— St. Thérèse of Lisieux