I spent almost 30 years being petrified of having children. My parents had an oops baby at the age of 40 and I had watched tumultuous times with a toddler (and divorce) follow. Growing up, I was told that children are unpredictable and uncontrollable; what if I couldn’t cut it as a parent? What if some poor kid inherited all of my weaknesses? Courtesy of my baby sister, I also knew, firsthand, what making a bottle at 3 am felt like. When I told my parents how tiresome it was, they’d laugh and tell me never to have children. Looking back, I see the pain that they were in during that time in their lives, and where the jokes came from. What I didn’t realize was how far they’d sank into my heart.

But then life happened; my stronghold husband happened and 30 hit. I was still afraid but I trusted that there might have been lies in my head about what I thought I knew about children. I gathered every ounce of courage that I had and we went for it. And went for it. And went for it. The months and years went by. A doctor told me she was surprised (by my total lack of contraceptives) that an accident hadn’t yet occurred in the decade that Mike and I had been together.

When I first met Greta, she struck me as a warm, kind and beautiful person. She was studying to become a hair stylist and lived down the hall from my sister. Fast forward a couple of years… My sister and her friends had asked me to lead a small group bible study. At the time, Greta wasn’t yet part of the group. Randomly one day, I asked my sister how Greta was doing, to which she replied that she hadn’t really seen her much since school. The next day, Greta showed up at the salon where my sister works – just to say hi – and that is when we invited her to join our group (Greta lives 40 minutes away from that salon and was only there because she was visiting another friend in town; the coincidence of my having asked about her not 24 hours earlier even struck my sister as completely crazy). I knew then that God had a little something planned for Greta; What I didn’t know, was that there was nothing LITTLE about it.

I later learned that Greta grew up in a very religious family; Her older siblings, cousins, parents and extended family all loved God, did well in school and were wonderful people. As the baby of the family, Greta was the only one who struggled with things like detention and going to some of the parties during high school. Somewhere within that timeframe, she found herself giving up. She felt like she would never be able to live up to the bar her family had set, and a dark vulnerability began to take over her heart.

Unless you wrestle through the darkness, you will never appreciate flying in the light.

When I was little, I continually asked Santa for wings. Apparently, I desperately wanted to fly! I’ll never forget the note I received from him one Christmas:

My Dearest Hailley,

Although I would love to give you the wings to fly right now, only God will give you those.

Love, Santa