I’m a bit of an agenda pusher. In college, for example, I saw marriage as my opportunity to no longer be scared in bed each night. For whatever reason, I feared the darkness.

That is, until I read a magazine article with the perfect antidote. It told me to call out one word three times: Jesus. It worked.

My husband and I will celebrate eight years of marriage this summer, and I must confess that when he travels, I still chase the invisible monsters away with a single name.

What’s harder, however, is quieting the other demons that persist in adulthood. The anxiety. The doubts. The dread of not knowing the future.

Quite simply, the walls we can’t easily push through.

—

Right now our family is in a difficult season. We’re living in a rental still partially under renovation, and much of what we own is stacked in cardboard box towers that may as well be 50 stories high. No, Son, there is no way I’m digging for that toy.

But just the other day I caught myself slipping into old habits. I tripped over a box, lost an earring, and felt like I was drowning in housing despair.

Have you learned nothing, Lauren?

Remember the time you had to resign from your teaching job just three months into the school year?

Remember the time you filled out job applications for eight straight months with no bite?

Remember the time you couldn’t run the half marathon?

[Enter epiphany]

In all of my wallowing, I had forgotten the solution to my own salvation..and sleepless nights.

When I can’t push, I have to let Him pull.

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One Year Ago: Grate Expectations