The Impossible

This picture was my Christmas present from M. and the kids. In a homemade frame. Perfect. They know my love language is pictures. And spent the day getting this shot of all four kids smiling. Or at least looking in the same direction and not falling off the playset.

At least I think no one fell off.

I wasn’t there.

I was writing.

Which is where I was most weekends for the past four months. Lots of evenings too. And even some weekdays, when family or dear friends spent time with the kids.

As proof that life never happens like we plan it, I received a book contract the day before Nate was born. I had proposed the book months before, but because publishing companies are slower than drying ink, it took five months to get approval and a contract.

The whole time M. and I were waiting, we joked, “I’ll probably get the contract the same day the baby is born.”

Day before.

The other proof life is never like we plan it, I had expected a year to write it.

No, my editor wanted it in bookstores by June 1. They gave me four months.

One night, shortly after I got the contract, M. and I went for a walk. We had family in town helping after my c-section, so it was just the two of us. We were still in shock about the baby, and the book, and all that we had on our plates. One of us (me, I’m sure) said, “This is impossible.” M. assured me it wasn’t. We had asked for this. We could do it. We prayed that God would bless our efforts.

Over the next four months, when we travelled to Vegas on a trip we had planned months before, when we looked at each other and one of us said, “this is the most tired I’ve ever been.” When I got sick, just about every couple weeks. And one time horribly ill with Epstein-Barr virus. When M.’s busy work schedule, or my other writing projects seemed like they would never get done… when the laundry threatened to overtake us, when the kids threw simultaneous temper tantrums, when I just couldn’t think of one more fresh thought about moms in the Bible, M. and I reminded each other about that we knew this would be hard, we asked for it. And soon, it would all be over.

Or at least the book would be done. And everything would get back to our new definition of normal.

And now it is. And when I look at this picture, a picture I wasn’t here for. And I think about I was hunched over my iPad at Panera while my kids took pictures without me, I’m so thankful the book is done.

And I can be home all day on this Sunday.

Doing laundry.