“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” (Hebrews 11:8)
A new school year starts for us this week, and I’m feeling the familiar old shifting of time and energy and emotions. Once I was a mom of babes, drowning in Huggies wipes and Gerber puffs, and today—has it really been a matter of years and not mere weeks or days??—I am hugging my tween girls goodbye, back to their classrooms where they speak in intelligent sentences, read books as thick as mine, and tackle math problems beyond my own recollection. My firstborn is a seventh grader this week, my friends.
Seventh grade.
And for the first time ever I’m realizing the years ahead are shorter than the years behind.
It’s been eight years since I started this blog; eight years since I began contemplating the holiness of raising babies, then toddlers, then kindergarteners and grade schoolers and—next stop—teens. Some of you have been with me from the start. Others have hopped aboard along the way, and I’m sincerely grateful you’re here. I like to think I’m wiser with each passing year, but the truth is, the longer I walk with the Lord, the dumber I realize I am—compared to His all-surpassing greatness. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Along with the nostalgia of these eight years past comes the realization that I am more than a mom. I’ve always known it, even when my girls were small, even when it was harder to decipher my own identity among the piles of board books and baby socks. But now as my children are increasingly independent and their school hours are my office hours, God is calling me forward. I have work to do, passions to pursue, and a business to build that has been borne of my family life and now exists to serve it.
I’ve written three books in the past five years.
I’ve launched a speaking career, a mentoring program, and a writer coaching platform.
I minister to women in blog posts, just as I did the day I started eight years ago, but today this blog is also the hub of a ministry turned venture which is embarking on a new road this year, one that I’m not entirely sure of where it leads.
In the coming weeks you’ll likely see a face lift on my website.
You’ll see more of me in certain online spaces and less of me in others.
You’ll see fresh devotions and maybe some just-for-fun content that you haven’t seen from me before.
I don’t know yet exactly what’s coming. The vision is still forming. Over the next two months I’ll be working closely with a business coach to map it all out, and that’s a big step for me. A scary step.
But I know God has called me down this road, so I’m going—one foot in front of the other. And I’m ready. I’m hopeful.
Like Abraham, who knew not where the road to the promised land would lead him, but went anyway—in obedience, and with great hope—that’s kind of how I feel today, on the cusp of another school year, another work year, a fresh start. The future is always a little uncertain, right? But we’re in good company. God goes before us. And with Him, even if the path gets rocky sometimes, the final destination is always joy.
What road are you facing today? What fresh start is God asking you to venture toward? Will you join me, with the faith of Abraham, and move in the direction God is pointing? Let’s do it together.
An inheritance waits for us there.
Blessings,
Becky
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