One of my favorite books is the one written about Esther, and it happens to be in the Bible. Unlike any other story in that Book, though, God’s name is not mentioned once during the narrative. I don’t love Esther so much in spite of that fact as I do because of it.

In a former life, I wielded my pen (or typing fingers, as it were) like a weapon, taking the “religion” I learned at church and transcribing it onto paper (computer screen), throwing a few mentions of “Jesus” and “God” here and there to convey divine import. Turns out, though, that Jesus isn’t meant to be a blunt object against people’s skulls; true change is a product of loving, not bullying. And while I may have seen my intentions as noble, my heart had yet to be leveled by grace.

Fast forward a few years, years full of the exfoliating effects of New York City, marriage, and parenthood. That hard shell built by empty obedience didn’t stand a chance against what grace held in store: the dark places of the soul revealed through rebellion, cries in the night, a lethal mixture of self-love and self-hatred that begged for warmth even as it shut people out. My rule-keeping didn’t get me anywhere. My brokenness did.

There is nothing trite about multiple doctors’ uncertainty regarding your child’s health. No way to dress up the ugliness revealed in me when The Husband reaches for the Ben and Jerry’s and I think, “But that’s my pint!” Or when he sustains a basketball injury and all I can think about is how it inconveniences me. It’s so easy for me to be my son’s advocate through this healthcare maze, especially when he’s not throwing cups or waking at 3 am. But when he was? Or when I am called upon to bear more of the family weight for one day so TH can heal? I revert back to the toddler phase myself: My time. My schedule. Mine.

When I entered marriage, I didn’t realize I was assenting to a war waged against my self-prioritization. When I became a mother, I didn’t realize I was stepping into the land of Mommy Wars and ferocious protection. I never knew I would be the lady at the front of the restaurant staring at the hostess in disbelief when she offered us a table in partial sunlight. “My son cannot sit there,” uttered in disdain? Did I say that?

I didn’t know what I signed up for: when I married, when I gave birth, when I believed. It’s always so much more than you can see in the moment.

In a recent interview, Paulo Coelho said: “Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know?…the contradictions are a sign of authenticity…So this is what I love–he is a man for all seasons.” Later, he adds, “Faith is not to disconnect you from reality, it connects you to reality.”

I no longer want any part of the prescriptives of mainstream, Bible study-ese religion that calls me to behavior instead of uncertainty; that carries out the bulk of life within a church built by men instead of a world built by him. This is not reality. I link arms with the questioners, the doubters, the broken and the unsure, not the Sunday school teachers with an answer for everything. I enter the hospital not just as a mother protecting her child, wanting the best for him, but also as one who knows that imperfections aren’t the worst thing that can happen. All of these times, they ebb and flow: sickness and healing, surety and uncertainty, patience and ill temper, poverty and abundance; and all I know is that I won’t be a better wife or mother or friend or anything else simply by trying. Though God-given, all these earthly roles are ultimately only accoutrements of a temporal life anyway. What makes them holy is the recognition that in them, and beyond them, I am a soul. A soul in desperate, consistent need of grace. Grace that isn’t an excuse for bad behavior, but is anathema to it–just anathema in the form not of condemnation but of hope. Grace that allows me to see all that I really am–all the darkest parts–and hope anyway. To put them on paper or a computer screen and know they are not what is most true; that indeed it is never what I do that is most true.

Grace that allows me to lay that deadly doing down and just be still. Because grace allows there to be seasons that are a call to action, to ministry, and seasons that are a paean to being still. To moments spent lingering in the doorway and taking it in: TH lifting The Niece up to make a basket while The hat-clad Kid sits on a blanket with The Sis reading a book. Moments when you don’t have to scrawl His name all over everything because the very air holds the promise of more, of his handiwork. Moments when breathing in that air and breathing out thank you is worship enough.