I struggle from moment to moment, moods changing from optimistic to dark in seconds. I planned to write a post today called “Difficult Things”. And to be sure, there are difficult things. But today was different.

Today, I woke optimistic, and actually stayed that way even as my mind left the fog of sleep behind. I realized that we don’t get to choose the challenges in our lives, but we all have challenges. And though we don’t get to choose them, we do get to choose what we do with them.

I’m choosing questioning as the approach to this conundrum of gender and how it’s hitting me in the heart. I’m not willing to accept status quo and just move forward without engaging. But I don’t want to live in an unhappy place. I need to find a way to be okay no matter what is going on around me. 

I recently read a book called The Fate of Gender, and the history it presents of fighting against stereotypes, standing up for change, and refusing to be silent strikes a chord with me. I’m right there. And then the chapters on transgenderism come, and it breaks my heart. Something’s missing, and I feel like no one sees it. So caught up in the fight, both sides move blindly forward supporting their agenda, their cause.

Back and forth my brain goes. Sad and quiet, then stubborn and resistant. I’m in an existential crisis, trying to figure out my purpose in all of this. In my life to date, this is the most lost I’ve been in knowing my purpose.

So today, birds singing happily and refreshing cool breeze wafting in, I had an epiphany. I thought to myself, it’s better me experiencing this challenge than someone else. Someone else might give up before ever looking for answers. Someone else might just accept the prevailing societal attitude and not blink an eye. And someone else might just reject their child’s conclusions and give up hope. Alternately, I feel like doing all of those. But I can’t and I won’t.

I’ll love my kids. I’ll keep studying and learning, from every possible source I can find. And I’ll grow into who I am, something that should have been done years ago. Maybe if it had, I wouldn’t find myself in existential angst right now….who knows?

I’ve always told my kids they could change the world. They told me that was a lot of pressure. I never intended that. I intended that they knew I believed in them and their abilities, and if they put their minds to it, those abilities and their uniqueness would take them far.

I didn’t ask for this challenge. I didn’t ask for any challenge. I think I was hoping that life would move peacefully along as my nest became empty, children checking in here and there to let me know their new accomplishments. I could report their successes on social media and take credit for being a good mom. The kids are checking in, but the reports are mixed, and not all news I’d like to share or take credit for. But maybe I’m the better for it.

Maybe I get to change the world, in my small little corner of it. Maybe in challenging my faith, I’ll find something even deeper and more valuable. Maybe in the quest to understand, I’ll discover something so important that I never before realized I needed to know.

This is not easy. I would not choose it. But this is my journey, and I will not back away. I will not give up. I am a tough cookie. There’s something that needs unearthed here. Something needs found. I don’t know what, but it’s my quest to keep seeking – answers, deep faith, gospel that spreads grace and truth outward from me in widening circles.