The Richest Gal in the World

I’m still processing so much about 2024. Many parts felt too heavy. An impossible grief. A wearying load. To tell you the truth, I’m tired.

As a family, we wrestled with anxiety, health scares, and questions of purpose… while deep in our souls, there flowed a forever ache for our fourth child.

It’s so strange, when talking to God about all we faced this year, to utter “thank you” and “why?” in the same breath about the same thing. Yet here we are. This is what it is to be human. It’s a gift and it’s a reckoning with grief. It’s loving deeply and having no control over what happens next. And I say this with no pretension, but as a needy person in the thick of it: I don’t know how anyone ‘humans’ without Christ. Without leaning all their weight on the Shepherd as He softly whispers, “Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt. 11:28-29)

I don’t know the ‘why’ of so many things, and I probably never will. It’s hard to release the grip on that. But in my days on earth, I have known the comfort of Christ through depression and job loss and death and infertility and, now, the year 2024. I had not known what His presence felt like through this particular valley until now. Now I know. And I believe (or I’m trying to believe) that the deepest valley with the Savior by my side is better than any mountaintop I could stand on without Him.

So as I wrestle with this grief and soul-tiredness, let me tell you what I know to be true:
This life is inescapably hard, and God is inexhaustibly good. I get to call myself rich because Immanuel fights for me; and if I were to lose everything else, I KNOW I could never lose Him.

Maybe that’s better than knowing why.
——

(I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.)

Photos by Riley Morgan Young Photography