The outcome we didn’t accept

The sun shines on a Tuesday morning and at the breakfast table we chat over fried eggs and toast of what the day will hold.

We know little of what each day will hold, and yet we daily play the game of laying it out in our minds as if full control is within our hands.

I share about the scheduled time in court that had slipped my mind up until the day before. “I’m sure it’s nothing” I tell the little faces sitting around our table.

We will simply show up and walk out five minutes later like every time past.

We laugh, roll our eyes.

We accept the outcomes we expect. We do not remember how little control we posses.

And so the day proceeds.
The toddler requests his favorite song on the drive into town like every other day.

We sing, we clap, we make our way to various homes for kiddos to play at.

I am to meet Zach in the hallway.
Except that I am late and the hallway is empty.

Due to a security officer who took his time, an elevator that seemed to go just 10 seconds slower today, I am standing on the outside of the room I was meant to be in with a newborn baby on the brink of a meltdown and an overstuffed diaper bag in my other arm.

I am just a few weeks postpartum and a moment like this is enough to bring hot tears splashing down my cheeks.

I keep tears in check and smile at the man waiting outside of the room next door.

I calm the baby enough to slip in through back of the room without too much of a disruption.

Monotone voices are in conversation.
Monotone voices that don’t know me or any member who has been living under my roof for any period of time.

Yet, their conversation revolves around making decisions for the little lives that I have poured heart and soul into for several years.

The monotone voices of strangers are what will determine our future.

And before I know it, they are steering us another way.

A way we didn’t expect. A way that will be harder than what I had in mind.

This was not the plan for today.
This was not the outcome I had accepted at the breakfast table this morning.

Tears splash down my face as I stand directly across the judge who is still talking.

And then it’s done.
We shuffle our feet out of the room with disbelief in our hearts.

This was not the plan, but this is our reality.

At some point we will wrap our minds around it, but for now we are still feeling the full weight of a different future than what we hoped for.

Two members of our household will no longer be members in a very short time.

But as days pass by,
As conversations take place,
As we pull up chairs to a shared table with people who once were viewed as enemies and now feel more like family, we make plans. This night here, this night there.

We find a way forward.
Little sparks of hope are brought back to broken hearts.

We look each other in the eye and we say —“this will work.” “We will be okay.”

And we remember back to that sunny Tuesday morning and the plans we had made, this was not ours, but He knew it all along.

He had good in store and He has good in store today.

He prepared us more than we understand, for the road He had planned for us to walk all along.

We do not get the “easy” way, we get the messy and hard way, and we will walk forward with hope because if He chose it, we know it to be the best way forward.

We have joy, even with the hard moments yet to face and the unnatural way of broken families and the breaking up of ours.

Because all the way our Savior leads us and we are tasting a sweeter intimacy of knowing Christ because of these hard and messy days.

Because we are made for hard and messy days.