Last night, we helped Emma record her honors choir regional audition.

She is cut from my cloth, but woven intricately is something all different from me completely- her drive to put herself out there, her talents and abilities. She’s also been practicing daily for her audition with Violin Regionals. Even in elementary school, she auditioned for talent shows, singing competitions, violin parts; some she made and some from which she was rejected.  But her resolve to do what is in her DNA still composes her resolutions, sometimes to my hesitance.

I just don’t want her heart broken.

But what is a broken heart? Throughout time, personal experience included, a broken heart was a key to something greater.  Our hearts are not made to be kept perfectly whole. How else can things seep through and truly get to our core?

These days, I admit, I pray more than I have prayed.  By no merit of my own or discipline of my will, my prayer life has come what is a daily need. As a mother, I am finally at a mindset that I my control over things is so miniscule.  So I turn to the giver of life. I turn to the greatest healer.  I constantly call Him Savior.

I am a greater wuss than I have ever been. At the slightest cadence of a song, I fight tears.  At the shortest lyrical phrase, I repeat over and over until it gives me strength. Even in the briefest moment, floodgates of personal testimonies crash on my mental shore and my heart pays dearly. I guess that’s why the hymn goes, “the longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.”   As I age, with all the experiences compounded, how do I deny God’s faithfulness? As His creation, I inherently respond to it. And the older I get, I surrender to the idea of surrender.

Because my control over things is so miniscule.

I am brought to a faith by no merit of my own or discipline of my will.  I know that I need Him. I need Him more now because I am entrusted with the lives of three beautiful girls. I cannot control them or what happens to them as much as I can direct the wind. I have words, rules, locks, resources, but I have limited power and limited answers.  Most times, I realize that as much as we can do, as much as we can provide, as much as we try to plan, we are dangling by a thread of grace.

So every morning, I am brought to prayer. As I wake up in the middle of the night, I fall asleep in the middle of a prayer request. As I drive, passing drivers see me in contemplation. Yet my heart still betrays me and my mind tells lies, and my body responds in fear. I am battling for peace and surrender, and I don’t know if one day I can learn to let go without worry.

But until then, I sing songs of praise, reminding myself that two things He’s told me, that His love is strong and that He loves me.  He stays the same for my girls, my husband, my parents, my siblings and their families, my friends, and my church.

And in between all that introspection, there is life going on- how busy we have become as a family.  I remind myself to remind them as well, to slow down and pray.