Here in the great state of Nebraska, we just closed out the most magnificent autumn season. The kind with gentle sunshine that warms the back of your neck, but produces no perspiration. The type with soft breezes and a full kaleidoscope of foliage to delight. The autumn that puts energy back into your bones and beckons you from the house, where you can marvel at the creation all around. It’s the stuff dreams are made of, y’all.

But autumn is never a sure thing around here. Never, ever. In the Midwest, it’s a fickle season that often fails to come to fruition. While the sticky, humid summers of glaring sunlight and frigid winters with mounds of bright snow are always a given, autumn can be a sort of unicorn. Many trick-or-treating events have been spent with full winter coats and shivering teeth, as kids walk from one home to the next in boots. Nor is it unusual to have heat that drags itself into October, only to pull a quick change within days and plunge us straight into below zero temps. Our weather masquerades as a wild card.

The joke around these parts is that you can experience all the seasons in one week. In Nebraska, it’s the plain hard truth. But all kidding aside, a great many of us LIVE for the fall weather, and all the fun it brings. College football, all things pumpkin spice, sweaters and boots, and apple picking. When the fall rolls around, we turn into a real life photo from a magazine. But we get no guarantees. If asked, we’ll tell you all about the horrible storm of (insert year here) that wrecked the power lines for a week or effectively took out a holiday. Still, even if we only get a glorious, picture-perfect autumn once every few years, we hang in there. Through the ice and snow, through torrential downpours and tornado drills, through 100 degree temps with nearly 100% humidity, we bet the whole farm on a maybe. Because the chance of it – just the possibility of autumn – is enough to keep us hoping. Those autumns put the ‘good’ in The Good Life.

The same can be said of my marriage and raising my daughters. I have spoken with rawness about my messy marriage, because who wins when we fake it? Nobody. Hiding can never bring a victory and it only serves to beget more falsity. I’ve also been transparent with our legions of parenting challenges, some of which left us dusting the rubble from our battered and war-torn hearts. Some of the battles would have had others – whole battalions, maybe – running for the hills. Still, here I sit, staking my claim in daydreams that run far ahead of my reality.

Marriages are not fairy tales. They are endeavors, authored by the God who values relationship above victors claiming a win, and even above our comfort. They are forged in the trenches, between two people who come to the table with a history and experiences. Husbands and wives bring with them inlaid behaviors, some level of trauma, and expectations. The days of blood, sweat and tears often outnumber those of spring time picnics and leisurely drives. The hours of my marriage pass through the picture show of my mind and reveal devastation, desperation, sometimes hopelessness. It’s all there.

BUT.

I am loved by a Creator who takes delight in our delight. And so, even marriages that are not fairy tales can sometimes feel momentarily like that of a romantic tale. And there are springtime picnics. And leisurely drives. Shared laughter…..shared joy….a shared history. It’s OUR shared laughter, joy and history. All gifts from the Lord who loves me and loves my husband and loves our union.

And our babies? Man, that’s rough. Like in the trenches – again – rough. If you’re like me, you walked into parenthood eyes wide open. Suited up, armed with a heavy metal shield in one hand and prayer in the other, I had no silly preconceived notions of grandeur. I expected my kids to cry, to pitch a fit, to need correction. But THIS. This I did not expect. It’s so much harder…so much more gut-wrenching….so much more why-can’t-it-ever-be-easy-so-that-I-don’t-always-feel-like-I’m-failing than I could have ever anticipated. Good grief.

BUT.

I have great kids. Amazing daughters, who make the colors in the world sparkle like jewels and the ills of humanity feel fixable. I had no idea that I’d find myself sitting in auditoriums with tears clipping down my cheeks at the sight of a dance or a song that displayed their giftings. Or that I’d feel so proud so often. And it runs parallel to the tough, y’all. Right next-door to the moments that I’ve found my chest contorting into knots and sucking the oxygen from my being, are the moments when my bones have never felt more alive. All because of them.

It’s true that a real, raw life isn’t all good all the time. That’s just not possible for a creation fallen to sin. But it’s equally true that it’s never all bad either. Because my God’s not a liar, and if He says that goodness and mercy pursue me, then I know for sure that they do. The hard and the exhilarating coexist in a delicate dance all the time, taking turns as lead and advancing us forward with the twirls, dips, and leaps that characterize the small hours of daily living.

So why keep putting one foot in front of the other? Why put all my chips on the dream in my heart? What is it that makes us plant our feet, square our shoulders, set our jaw and stare down the lies that dare to suggest hope is nowhere to be found?

I take my cues from my Lord. He’s the kind of savior that hopes against all hope. He buys into someone without seeing the proof first. He puts the cart before the horse. All those clichés we say to justify the fortresses standing tall around our damaged and weary hearts – He demolishes them without consideration. He doesn’t stand for them. Because He is the hope of things unseen. He believes in you before you do. If ever there was a cheerleader for the underdog, waiting for that triumphant autumnal sunrise to crest over the horizon in glory and splendor, it’s Him.

And now winter beckons. The breeze that was once chilly-with-a-drop-of-warmth has taken a turn towards frigid. The trees are looking bare and you can feel the ground under your feet beginning to lean back into the cold. Already I am longing for those October joys again, just as I long for the days when my marriage soars, and parenting is more ease than arduous. My heart does not hold out for these things because I’m a silly and hopeless romantic, nor do I parent in denial. It is not because I am settled. Or stubborn. Or too afraid to leave my comfort zone. Nor am I a glutton for punishment. The place in me that holds out for flourishing is the same spot that looks toward the harvest interlude that wraps itself tenderly around my heart, however far off it may be.

In my waiting, I’m expectant for the possibility of autumn.

-Mande