After my dad passed, there was a sense of relief from us.
After almost a year and a half of him battling cancer
and literally dying slowly
every day, the reality that he was no longer suffering
and no longer in pain was a relief.
And as much as we all tried to “prepare” for his death,
the thing I didn’t prepare for was life without him.

A friend texted me some scriptures, one of them was, “Those who plant in tears will harvest shouts of joy” Psalm 126:5 NLT.

This got me thinking: what causes someone to harvest shouts of joy?

I am currently in a season of my life where I feel like all I have been sowing is tears. I find myself asking, when Lord, when is the end? When will all the tears stop? When will I see a harvest of shouts of joy?

In the book of Exodus, the famous story where God speaks to Moses and calls him to lead Israel out of Egypt, a life lived in captivity. God parts the Red Sea, provides water from a rock and manna from heaven. He protected them as they travelled, their clothes never wore out and they lacked nothing – but yet they still complained and wanted to go back to Egypt.

As I sit and read scripture, it’s easy to see how He’s taking them from being slaves and setting them free, all while they are complaining.

At what should be my 11th week of pregnancy, I hear, “There is no fetal heartbeat, no yolk sac, and your baby isn’t growing. Your body is going to begin to miscarry.”

The heartache that followed, the disappointment, the blame, “Is it my fault? Could I have done something different to ensure a healthy baby?” The hurt and confusion that the Lord would gift us this baby only to allow us to experience a loss in the womb, it just felt so cruel.

I had an issue with one of my car tires where it kept going flat. Not daily, just every 2 weeks or so. I finally took it in to get looked at in hopes of it being a simple patch repair—or whatever they do.

They told me the tire was not fixable. It had an air bubble on the inside of it, and if I continued to drive it, it could explode, causing not only damage to my car, but anyone inside and around my car—imagine being on the freeway and this happened.