I’m trying to figure out what it was about this that made me ache. It made me ache in that familiar way, like when snow falls or babies are born. There’s something about beauty mixed with ugly mixed with cracks mixed with gold. There’s something about loveliness that can’t possibly last.

So I am an enneagram 5, but my 4 wing has a really big butt and she takes up a lot of room inside me. (And if you think I take those numbers seriously, we must be complete strangers…)

So the “enneagram 4 wing force” is strong with me, and I apologize in advance. Bradford pear blossoms on a cracked and dirty tray make me verklempt. If that sort of emoting troubles you, I beg you, look away.

Maybe it’s the loss of my father, last year. Maybe it’s a dozen other smaller losses combined, but the ache is making…has made…me wiser, softer, and sillier. I am more ready to risk - and that is saying a lot, because risky is already basically my middle name.

I know. I know, you look at me and see someone so careful. But look deeper. Deeper, still. The part of me that willingly stood beside my husband when he quit his full-time job with benefits to pastor full-time? The part of me that threw caution and workbooks to the wind to educate her children with mostly whole books and life experiences? She’s still there. The part of me that has refused, at great risk, to let myself feel beholden to those who did much to try to make me be? She’s still alive and alert. She hasn’t even taken a nap in 30 years.

Every beautiful thing God has done in me and for me, the meticulously gorgeous design of my family and my life, and the glory of the weighty calling that is on us - is not because anyone supported us, though so many have and do and will.

But they have, and they do, and they will because Living God has bathed us in favor. That’s true for you, too. You can risk, without fear of man. The only problem is, I cannot believe this for you. And I’m telling you, it is not easy to walk in simple faith in God’s goodness.

It is risky business to know these things for sure. To live like I believe it invites misunderstanding.

Spring’s brief and beautiful ache makes me even more willing to “fail, having dared greatly”.

I told you to look away!