Living In The In-Between

I am a Christian.

I say that plainly.
Just a fact, like saying my name or how many kids I have.

The Christmas music is on but not the cheerful version. I’m talking about the slow, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” song. When it’s slowed down, every note stretches the ache and the words hit differently. They’re singing about decking the halls, but it’s not like Christmas at all. It’s that raw reminder that even in the season of joy, the heart can feel empty.

I am a Christian and my prayers are rarely answered the way I ask.

I have prayed for healing and buried the people I loved most.
I have prayed for relief and have woken up to the same ache.
I have prayed with faith, with anger, with tears, with silence.
And still, the answers I hoped for did not come.

I prayed for promotions.
For doors to open.
For someone to finally see the work, the calling, the effort behind the scenes.
I prayed believing that obedience would be met with provision.
Instead, I watched opportunities pass me by.
I stayed overlooked.
I learned how quickly unanswered prayers can start to feel personal.

I prayed for people to see my heart.
To recognize intention, not just output.
To notice the care, the integrity, the quiet faithfulness that doesn’t announce itself.
I prayed that doing the right thing would eventually be understood.
Sometimes it didn’t happen the way I expected.
But I kept moving.
I kept working.
I kept showing up.
I am not a victim. I am a survivor. I am active in shaping my life, even when it’s hard.

I have carried heartbreak.
Not the storybook kind that resolves neatly.
The kind that lingers in quiet moments and fills empty rooms.
The kind that settles in your chest when you realize the people you loved most are gone.
The kind that sits beside you at dinner, in carpool lines, and in the pauses between bedtime prayers.

Just because time has stopped for me, the world still turns. And sometimes it turns right over my toes.

I spent most of Thanksgiving alone.
On purpose.
In a town halfway across the country just to be somewhere nobody knew me.
To eat a meal without pretending I was okay.
To watch people laugh without trying to force myself into it.
To feel lonely but also free.

Being a mom is hard. The pressure never stops. There are bills, carpool lines, homework, lunchboxes, and bedtime routines. There are expectations – some real, some imagined – that we keep trying to meet. And in the middle of all that, life keeps moving. Grief doesn’t pause for chores or schedules, and the world doesn’t slow down for our exhaustion. Some days it feels like staying afloat is all we can do, and sometimes, that’s enough. Some days it feels like a miracle when everyone makes it to school on time.

I see people with dark hearts and unkind ways advancing in life. And yet, I continue on my path, steady and intentional. I keep showing up, keeping my integrity, keeping my focus on what I can control. I am not a victim. I am choosing how I live, how I react and how I move forward. That is strength. That is winning in its own quiet way, I suppose. 

I am a single mother of four.
That sentence alone holds more weight than most people realize.
I make lunches while carrying grief.
I sign permission slips while missing my parents.
I cheer from the sidelines while holding my head high. 

Some seasons are defined by abundance. This one has been defined by nos and not yets.

No…to the life I thought I would have.
Not yet…to the healing I keep asking for.
No…to closure.
Not yet…to relief.

Somewhere along the way, I started saying, “It is what it is.”
People hear that as resignation.
But for me, it’s survival.
It’s the sentence that lets me get out of bed without pretending things are okay.

I don’t say it because I’ve given up.
I say it because I’m still here.

As a Christian, that’s been the hardest part to admit.
Faith doesn’t always feel like hope.
Sometimes it feels like staying.
Sometimes it feels like praying even when you no longer expect an answer.
Sometimes it feels like whispering, “I don’t understand” and continuing on anyway.

There are people who love tidy testimonies.
Stories where grief wraps up neatly and joy arrives right on time.
This is not that story.

This is a story about living in the in-between.
About standing at the edge of one year and the beginning of another without resolutions or promises.
About choosing not to romanticize what was or rush toward what might be.

I’m not carrying big hope into the next year.
I’m carrying presence.
I’m carrying the quiet determination to keep showing up for my kids.
I’m carrying the belief, thin as it feels, that unanswered prayers do not mean abandonment.

God is here in the staying.
In the making dinner.
In the deep breaths taken between hard moments.
In the days that don’t feel miraculous but are still lived. And if He’s not, well, I guess we’re all just stubbornly hanging in there.

This year did not break me.
But it did not fix me either.
It simply asked me to remain.

So as the calendar turns, this is my posture…
No pretending.
No spiritual cliches.
No pressure to be okay.
Just a woman.
A mother.
A believer.
Standing between what was and what’s not yet.

And for now, 
that is enough.

I cannot be the only one feeling this? Like life keeps moving, people keep winning, and you’re just trying to survive and keep your heart intact? If so, know this: survival is not a consolation prize. It is courage. It is resilience. It is showing up when the world expects you to crumble. It is bearing witness to your own life, even in the cracks, and deciding that the story you live, unpolished, is still worthy and still profoundly yours.