As we recently celebrated Shannon turning one year old, it has struck me that a day like this…. a celebration…. life with a little person seemed so very far away. Getting here has been a long journey … and leading up to one, little moments from that journey have popped up in my mind and reminded me just how special the blessing of this season are in our life.
The fall of 2018 Danny and I decided to live boldly… courageously… and to go after our dreams. Today some of those dreams were realized….. some are so far away it seemed crazy we even tried for them…. and some have morphed and changed from their origin, but become a fixture in our world. No matter where each one ended up, one constant remains: we are eternally grateful we tried and the trying can never be taken away… even if the dream was.
We each made leaps in our personal hobbies, our health, our careers and then we joined hands and made a huge leap together: we set out to have a family. We did not know exactly what our own personal experience would be, but we were confident it would take determination. We would have to be determined to stay the course no matter the health road blocks…. we would have to be determined to choose Hope when we felt loss… we would have to be determined to sacrifice wants and let go of expectations.
What we found is Hope is more of a verb… an action… a whole perspective shift FOR EVERY LITTLE DETAIL. What we learned was “supposed to” is a waste of time. And what we experienced is no one thing will be the solution to your problems. But at the heart of it all… we found a profound joy in taking the chance.
That spring right as things were getting real, we came across the children’s book “What do you do with a chance?” And it became our fight song. Some of our favorite lines:
“I thought about it a lot. I wished I had taken my chance. I realized I had wanted it, but still didn’t know if I had the courage.”
“Then I thought, “Maybe I don’t have to be brave all the time. Maybe I just need to be brave for a little while at the right time.” I realized it was up to me.”
“So, what do you do with a chance? You take it…because it just might be the start of something incredible.”
We read it through the early phases of our story and then from the very spark of start of life for Miss Shannon we read it to her.
After welcoming our little girl in this crazy year, one thing is for sure – we will be sharing with her why we took a chance and how we hope (still as a verb, by walking hand in hand with her), she takes every chance she gets too.
Thank you so much for reading and remember to make it a great day!
Jackie
Have A Little Faith in We 