The past four years have proven the most challenging and enlightening of my life, to the individual-me as well as to the mother/wife/daughter/sister/friend-me. What’s more, the past three months have been the most difficult and rewarding of those years. I’ve been pretty silent during this time, because I’ve not been sure where or how to begin or how much to say. But here are a few of the lessons that have been furled in my heart: The winds are favorable.

The first lesson is that I don’t have to know everything in order to write something. Sometimes a favorable wind and a whole lot of trust are all I truly need; God will direct me as I go.

The Lord has used ALS to reveal a deeper understanding of both who He is and who I am. He has used this circumstance to teach me patience: God unfurls His truths in His time, not mine. Until recently, I wasn’t remotely prepared to receive the truth of who He created me to be and what He has for me to do.

In the spirit of context, I am compelled to admit I’ve never been able to zero-in on a single identity or a single profession for my life: I’ve wanted to be many different people and do a thousand different things, and for better and worse, I have done precisely that, with a fair amount of success. I believed I created my own identity, and that’s one of the biggest reasons I was so lost for so long. And if I am being completely honest, the list of things I still want to do is long, but I am learning to let God write it, and as for the knowing-who-I-am part: It’s become more and more clear to me for one reason only–Jesus Christ.

As many people already know, the four years since Stan’s ALS diagnosis have been spent trying to make sense of life and all the worst outcomes we were prepared by the professionals to expect (most of which have not transpired, praise God!). One thing that is worth clarifying, however, is this: Neither Stan nor I were or are afraid of his physical death so much as the way ALS takes a life. And while it’s weird that ALS has become such a large part of my story, it’s not really the disease that has impacted me: The significance emerges from walking through physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual uncertainty and learning to truly trust God in my circumstances.

In March of this year, I walked into my pastor’s office, sat down, and confessed: “I have absolutely no idea what God wants me to do, but I know I want to do it. No matter what it is.” I had reached the end of myself; I was desperate.

Truer words have never come out of my face, and God heard me. God always hears us. He hears it; He responds to it. I had no idea where He would take me from there, but I gave Him everything, and I pray daily for that same humble, honest heart. I now know what complete and total surrender feels like, and I never want to exist in anything less, though I know there will be moments when I falter in that. Paul’s wisdom has never been more clear:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:28

This verse doesn’t promise that God will work everything out the way we have always envisioned, desired, or prayed for. It does promise that God will work things for good–not for my version of good, but actual good. Not to everyone who asks, but to all who love Him. Not to those who demand their own way for their own purposes, but to those who respond to the calling He has placed on them.

And today that’s all the navigational aid I need.

It’s no small thing, just how much of my life has occured on a sailboat. God uses every single moment of our pasts to bring us to the Truth of Jesus Christ and who we are in Him.