When the doorbell rang, I was sitting in front of a screen, typing. I silently hoped it was UPS, that departing footsteps would sound on the porch steps and the ringing would stop. This is why I was such a great New Yorker–there, we have buzzers and doormen as a first line of defense against unwanted intruders.

But the bell rang a second time, and I had to consider, from my position now crouched away from the front door’s windows, that the walls of my personal space had been breached and I had been spotted. Heaving a sigh full of regret over the lack of suburban privacy, I trudged to the door. My neighbor was headed back down the driveway, and I considered letting him continue his path home. But I opened the door.

He turned, a dozen daffodils and some papers in his hand, and I immediately felt guilty. Over the next few minutes, he handed over the flowers and papers–faith-friendly devotionals for people who are struggling. He hugged and encouraged me. And when he left, I no longer felt invaded. I felt crumbled, humbled, the walls a pile of dust. I felt loved in spite of myself. I felt seen–and not in a bad way.

This season of our lives, with The Kid and uncertainty and waiting, has called me out of the nooks and crannies into which I burrow–the comfort zones within myself and around me: quietness, solitude, the couch. I’ve had to let people in–to the door and to our story–because to not, to keep the story hidden, is to deny TK all the love due him. All the prayers and support and caring for which he is meant. And with “apple” and “bubble” being his favorite and near-only words right now, I’m called out of my inner monologue, out of my tendency to shut down, out of my preference for silence, and into a constant narration with and for him. He has to hear words, and I have to speak them. This is a part of my daily calling now. It’s not awful, but it’s not comfortable.

Which is an apt description of much of the best parts of life, I think.

Yesterday, a woman from church brought by some dinners. I dreaded her arrival–during nap time, my time–fearing she would want to do that talking thing, and maybe even…shudder…pray with me. But she left almost as quickly as she arrived, and in her wake was a bag of food and a bottle of wine. My love languages.

I wonder, sometimes, how much of my life has been spent focusing on the effort of saying no and avoiding what waits behind the door of yes. The ill-defined, shrouded-in-shadows terrain of the affirmative–until the door is opened and light pours through and I finally see what’s been waiting for me.

Because if this season of Lent, of our lives, is about anything (other than training TK not to climb out of his bed and to eat something other than crackers)–it is about the stepping out in love done for me so that I can now step out in faith. There is risk and infinite beauty in being called away from being only what I have been and toward everything I’m meant to be.

TK is doing well. He’s continuing to be a two-year-old, a quality that fills me with rage one minute and barely-containable love the next. But these battles of temper are not spasms of pain, and some moments I’m so thankful for that I can’t catch my breath through the tears. He has an MRI scheduled for Saturday and depending on what his doctor says about it, we may be taking a couple of road trips to broaden our neurosurgeon pool. We still don’t have an answer, but it’s hard to deny all that we do have. Especially when I tell him to say bubble and he semi-echoes in return–“buuuuba”–then turns and squints his eyes to make me laugh. And I do, in spite of myself–thank God for all I do in spite of myself–just like I do when, a few minutes later, I catch him in the monitor looking for a way out of his bed, toward the light, so he can open the door.