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Meg Marie Wallace

newborn

Quinn’s Birth Story
Family | Favorite Posts | General | Life | Mama Life

Quinn’s Birth Story

All images are credited to my sweet friend, Megan, with Megan Houze Photography. If you are in the San Antonio area I could not encourage you enough to have her as your newborn and/or birth photographer. She was so respectful of us and attentive to the sensitivity and preciousness of these sacred moments. I am…

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What if the door isn’t the point?⁠ We mourn th What if the door isn’t the point?⁠ We mourn the closed ones.⁠ Wait for the new ones.⁠ Strain to understand why one slammed shut⁠ and when the next will open.⁠ ⁠ Helen Keller once said,⁠ “When one door of happiness closes, another opens;⁠ but often we look so long at the closed door⁠ that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”⁠ ⁠ That line has stayed with me.⁠ ⁠ Because it names something deeply human—⁠ Our ache for clarity.⁠ Our longing for control.⁠ Our hope that joy will come,⁠ as long as nothing gets in the way.⁠ ⁠ But what if joy was never meant to be fragile?⁠ ⁠ What if it could exist⁠ not in the absence of hardship—⁠ but in its mastery?⁠ ⁠ Helen Keller knew something about that.⁠ Blind and deaf, yet impossibly full of light.⁠ She didn’t ignore suffering.⁠ She transcended it.⁠ With hope.⁠ With courage.⁠ With faith.⁠ ⁠ She wrote:⁠ A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.⁠ And:⁠ Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope.⁠ ⁠ Scripture says something similar:⁠ We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,⁠ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.⁠ (Romans 5:3–4)⁠ ⁠ We don’t have to wait for perfect conditions to live fully.⁠ We don’t need wide-open doors to soar.⁠ We just need Jesus.⁠ And enough faith to take the next step in the dark.⁠ ⁠ Because life with Him isn’t always safe—⁠ but it is always sacred.⁠ ⁠ So go ahead.⁠ Mourn the closed door.⁠ Feel what you need to feel.⁠ But don’t stare so long⁠ that you miss the grace that’s already opened. Hair by: @austen.thelightcollective
The doctor asked if I was sitting down. There was The doctor asked if I was sitting down. There was cancer in two places—my left knee and my left shoulder. She couldn’t say whether it was localized or had grown through every major organ in my body. Four days later, my husband was fired over false accusations never investigated. The countdown began—two weeks left on our insurance. Surgery was immediate. The surgeon cut wide and deep, telling me later he didn’t ever want to see me back in his office. Recovery was six weeks long, double-stitched, and brutally silent. I was alone with my anger, shock and confusion. I didn’t know I could feel such fury, such rage—I didn’t know I was capable of such anger. But God knew. And in His mercy, He laid me down and shut the door. I was silenced not by shame, but by sovereignty. At the time, I felt abandoned. I thought God had left me. But now I see it so differently. I wasn’t abandoned. I was hidden and protected. Like Moses, tucked in the cleft of the rock—I was kept hidden to catch a glimpse His glory. Not literal lightning or clouds, but something better: His presence. Quiet. Unyielding. Fierce. Holy. Sometimes, trust looks like not saying a single word—because the Lord Himself has covered your mouth in order to hold your soul. Even here…in that silent broken pain….He is still trustworthy. And today—years later—I spoke to the same doctor again. But this time, it was different. 100% clear scans. Cancer free. He didn’t just heal my body. He met me in the broken…and I will never be the same again… Sometimes…the sweetest love letters from heaven are sent in black edges envelopes…and on my worst days I have found they are actually my best…because He is with me in the storm.
It’s far easier to avoid conflict, than to press It’s far easier to avoid conflict, than to press in to walk through it. ⁠ Or maybe because when we do confront…⁠ it’s often more heat than unity.⁠ ⁠ But Scripture paints a different picture.⁠ ⁠ “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone,⁠ able to teach, patiently enduring evil,⁠ correcting his opponents with gentleness…”⁠ (2 Timothy 2:24–25)⁠ ⁠ That’s… not usually what we see, is it?⁠ ⁠ Kind.⁠ Patient.⁠ Gentle.⁠ ⁠ Not weak.⁠ Not passive.⁠ Not one who avoids or blames. But Christlike.⁠ ⁠ Because this is not about rights.⁠ It’s about obedience.⁠ ⁠ The mark of a disciple isn’t who’s right and it isn’t about who is opposing whom. ⁠ It’s about who lays their rights down at the foot of the cross.⁠ ⁠ That kind of humility only comes from a Spirit-formed heart.⁠ One that’s more committed to reconciliation than reputation.⁠ One that’s more concerned about what is righteous instead of insisting on being right. One that’s willing to lose an argument to win a brother.⁠ ⁠ Rebuke if needed.⁠ But do it gently.⁠ If a rebuke comes—receive whatever you are able to with grace…and throw out the rest. Speak truth whenever it is needed. ⁠ But do so in a way that builds up rather than tears down. ⁠ Go first⁠ Even when you wish they would.⁠ Even when you feel they should. ⁠ Because you can have all the faith, all the answers, all the right theology…⁠ But if it’s not rooted in love,⁠ as Paul says—⁠ it’s nothing. That we might be known for our love for one another….
The people of God were in exile.⁠ Displaced.⁠ The people of God were in exile.⁠ Displaced.⁠ Unraveled.⁠ Living under foreign rule in Babylon—a land not their own.⁠ This wasn’t the promise they were clinging to.⁠ ⁠ They slept with their shoes on.⁠ Waiting to leave.⁠ Waiting for the word that it was time to go home.⁠ ⁠ Prophets—false ones—told them it would be soon.⁠ “Don’t get too comfortable,” they said.⁠ So they didn’t.⁠ ⁠ No roots.⁠ No gardens.⁠ No homes.⁠ Just… waiting.⁠ ⁠ But then came a word from the Lord.⁠ ⁠ Not the one they wanted.⁠ Not the one they’d been hoping for.⁠ ⁠ Build houses.⁠ Plant gardens.⁠ Raise your children.⁠ Seek the peace of the city I’ve placed you in.⁠ You’re going to be here a while.⁠ ⁠ Seventy years.⁠ Long enough that most of them wouldn’t live to see home again.⁠ Long enough to make staying feel like a death sentence.⁠ ⁠ But it wasn’t punishment.⁠ It was purpose.⁠ ⁠ And then, after that hard word—after the call to settle and stay—God speaks the words we so often quote out of context:⁠ ⁠ “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord.⁠ “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,⁠ plans to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)⁠ ⁠ The plans came after the exile.⁠ The promise came through the staying.⁠ ⁠ Sometimes the holiest thing we can do is stay.⁠ Stay planted.⁠ Stay faithful.⁠ Stay present.⁠ ⁠ Even when it’s not where we wanted to be.⁠ Even when it’s not what we thought we signed up for.⁠ ⁠ Jesus didn’t just send His disciples out.⁠ He told them to go with nothing.⁠ No backup.⁠ No certainty.⁠ Just faith and dependence.⁠ ⁠ And when persecution scattered the early church like seeds in the wind, the gospel exploded across the world.⁠ ⁠ But it started with obedience.⁠ With trusting that wherever God sends us—or keeps us—He is working.⁠ ⁠ Sometimes exile is where the roots finally grow.⁠ Sometimes staying is where the real healing begins.⁠ Sometimes foreign places become holy ground.⁠ ⁠ So if God has asked you to stay—⁠ in the place,⁠ in the pain,⁠ in the unknown…⁠ ⁠ Go get some seeds for your garden.⁠ He’s not done with this place yet.
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