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MY BOOK // Even If Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the in Between

Even If Not: Living, Loving and Learning in the in Between

kaitlyn_bouch

On an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, I opened my inbo

On an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, I opened my inbox and gasped. Inside, an email invited me to congratulate my grandma on a milestone number of years in her listed profession: pastor’s wife.⁣
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Just past the hilarity of “How in the world is she on LinkedIn and who signed her up?” is the gut punch, the sting of tears, the unexpected wave of sadness rolling in.⁣
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What LinkedIn doesn’t know is that my grandma passed away last year. Today is exactly two years since my grandpa passed away. Two funerals in less than one year is, frankly, two too many.⁣
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Grief is both a stranger and a close friend you know intimately. It can bring you to your knees in an instant, while other times you see it coming from a distance. It’s is a path chosen by none yet eventually discovered by all, occasionally anticipated but mostly unexpected. It shouts and it whispers and it lingers, arriving in waves that can lap at the shore or roar in a storm.⁣
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Within my small circle of close friends, over the last two years we’ve worn black dresses at seven funerals for our parents or grandparents. We’ve walked through cancer, car wrecks, job loss, difficulty finding a new job, break-ups, abuse, starting over in a new city, a heartbreaking diagnosis, medical unknowns from the lack of a diagnosis, and unexpected surgeries . . . to say nothing of a global pandemic.⁣
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It’s been a lot for what feels like a long time.⁣
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And I keep coming back to this… it’s so small, just two words, but it deeply matters: Jesus cried. The Man of Sorrows is acquitted with grief and familiar with waves. We have a God who cries, who comes close and stays with.⁣
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We really do have a reason to hope.⁣
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These words (caption + images) are from my newest piece that went live at @incourage today. I pray it honors my grandparents & also meets you right where you are.

Dust dancing in the light. Shifting shadows climbi

Dust dancing in the light. Shifting shadows climbing the wall. The kind smile of a stranger passing by on the trail. Soup bubbling in the crockpot. Wispy clouds. A flickering candle, scent wafting unseen but so very there. Birds chirping. Leaves rustling. A familiar voice on the other end of the phone. The cocoon of a cozy blanket. The smell of a book. The crinkle of a page turning.⁣
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The truth I’m repeating to myself this week: He is the God of the details & we have a God who cries (more on that tomorrow).⁣
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Today, I’m looking.⁣
Listening.⁣
Keeping watch.⁣
Staring and staying and waiting.⁣
Expectant.⁣
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Believing that at the very same time, the One who isn’t bound by time is doing the very same. Looking & listening. Keeping watch & waiting. All while taking care of every single infinitely small detail—with great delight.⁣
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Nothing is overlooked.⁣⁣
No one is forgotten.⁣⁣
He is the God of the details.⁣
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There is grief & there is grace & there is glory, daring to dance together like dust in the light, showing up in the details of an ordinary day.⁣
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Nothing is too small.⁣⁣
No one goes unnoticed.⁣⁣
He is a God of the details.⁣
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#beautifulordinarynow #miracleseverywhere #noticethelittlethings

This feels small but I’m gonna say it anyway:⁣

This feels small but I’m gonna say it anyway:⁣
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🤍 If you need a permission slip to take a deep breath, this is it.⁣
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🤍 If you need someone to say you’re going to make it but also you don’t have to be okay today, here I am.⁣
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🤍 If doing even the small and simple things takes 3 times as long as it used to, I’m with you.⁣
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You know the feeling of driving through a crazy storm, rain pelting your car as you drive through the dark, your shoulders scrunching up as you reach to turn off the radio? (So you can see better, of course, because somehow that makes sense in the chaos.)⁣
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Many (I’d submit: all) of us have been navigating storms for weeks, months, years now. (This new pandemical normal, of course, but also everything else. Because life stuff still happens and storms don’t always show up in pixels on a screen.) Our shoulders carry the weight, our eyes are strained, our bodies are tired.⁣
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So maybe you don’t need to Do Big Things right now. Maybe you need to pull over to a safe place and rest a while. Maybe you just need to breathe and keep your eyes on the road. Maybe that is the exact right next thing, and maybe it’s not so small after all.⁣
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The winds will still and the chaos will calm. The rain that falls will nourish the ground and one day, something beautiful will bloom. Morning will come and with it, new mercies. But first: a sunset reset. A deep breath. This is your permission slip. You’re making it. You’re showing up. You’re doing a really good job in the middle of a really hard thing. You’re fighting for joy. You’re holding onto hope. Eyes on the road, friend. One mile at a time. 🤍

Maybe you sent an “I’m so tired I’m sitting

Maybe you sent an “I’m so tired I’m sitting in a cubicle in the library just trying not to cry from exhaustion and a headache. This is where we’re at...” text to a friend this week. Maybe you received news that changes things, that’s hard to swallow. Maybe you’re waiting for an update. Maybe you’ve been waiting, praying, hoping—for actual years. Maybe you stared at the sky in wonder. Maybe you said a hard no. Maybe you said yes and showed up with your full self. Maybe you picked up pizza for dinner—again. Maybe you cried until you laughed or laughed until you cried. Maybe you listened with care, holding the story of another. Maybe you wore the same outfit three days in a row. Maybe you did work you’re proud of. Maybe you said sorry. Maybe you danced.⁣
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Maybe it was another week of a lot of things.⁣
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These are the days of . . . so much. Beauty, heartache, joy, loss, wonder, overwhelm, delight, exhaustion, fear, surprise, love, grief, laughter. The list could go on until reaching the character limit of this caption. And that’s my point.⁣
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In case no one has told you lately, you are stronger than you know and the strength you’ve been given is a gift, but it’s also okay to let yourself take a breath. To pause. To be vulnerable. To hide in the library or text a friend or turn all the devices off or stand barefoot in the grass and just stare at the sky as the clouds pass by.⁣
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Speak to yourself like you would to a friend. You are holding so much at one time . . . But you don’t have to hold it all together.⁣
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What if, instead, you chose to be held?⁣
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This weekend, may you pause and still for a moment or ten, and if guilt or shame try to sit down beside, may you choose to kindly but firmly scoot them over to make room for grace and delight. May hope take you by surprise. May you see the light through the trees, in the flicker of a candle, and in the face of another.⁣ May you experience God’s kindness in ways you couldn’t have imagined when you woke this morning, and may you find that even when your hands are full, your cheeks tear-stained, or the to-do list long—you yourself are held. And His arms won’t fail.

Words to hold onto through the night until morning

Words to hold onto through the night until morning arrives. It will. It always does. New week, new month, new mercies—same God.

Woke up. Looked at the to-do list and the full cal

Woke up. Looked at the to-do list and the full calendar and yesterday’s dishes in the sink. Wondered how it would all happen. Totally ignored all the things and scrolled through my camera roll instead. Saw this old picture and immediately thought, “I’d choose rest.”⁣
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And then I stopped, realizing *I don’t have to choose.* Why do I think I have to pick, like I’m limited to one per day? Like I’m selecting a combo in the drive-thru? Like He isn’t the God of actual incredible abundance?⁣
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All of it, paid for.⁣
All of it, freely given.⁣
We have Jesus and in Jesus we have it all.⁣
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I don’t know which one you need most in this moment—provision, peace, wisdom, rest—but I’ve got really really good news.⁣
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You don’t have to choose. 😭🙌🏻⁣
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They’re already yours. All of it and so much more, promised by the God who doesn’t break His word.

What a day. What a sacrifice. What a gift. What a

What a day. What a sacrifice. What a gift. What a love. What a friend. What a God.⁣
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At my church, the cross stands at the center of every service. On Good Friday, we each approach with a torn strip of black cloth. The weight of the world, the sin of all humanity, covered by the blood. On Easter, we bring bouquets to adorn the cross, an abundance of beauty and life.⁣
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Death—died.⁣
Every promise—kept.⁣
A way—made.⁣
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Everything sad will come untrue.⁣
Even now, all is being made new.⁣
We have a reason to hope.‬⁣⁣⁣
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Emmanuel, God with us.⁣
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Always.

This is the day of the diagnosis, the phone call,

This is the day of the diagnosis, the phone call, the soaked pillow. This is the day of questions, of doubting, of grieving and waiting. This is the day of the ampersand (&), the middle place, the in between of one thing and another. This is the day so many of us find ourselves in over and over in life.⁣
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And yet… It's this day that reminds me there’s hope: what looks like the end might actually be the middle. Today keeps the promise that He is faithful even in the storylines that don’t yet make sense. Today says that His timing is perfect, His perspective is greater, and our stories don’t end with Saturday.⁣
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It was the day between Good Friday & Easter when my phone lit up with the worst text of my life, with news that led to walking hospital hallways, sitting in waiting rooms, wondering. Also on that great In Between day: I wrote about darkness & light, confusion & doubt, longing & waiting & sadness & finding Him to be faithful in the middle of it all.⁣
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I thought I was writing a blog post. Turns out I was writing the very first words of a book about trusting God in the in between, a book that wrestles with the question ‘Is God good when life isn’t?’, a book about choosing hope for tomorrow when today feels like a question mark.⁣ A book with an unedited “blog post” printed in Chapter 7, titled “Darkness & Light.”⁣
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My word, He’s a God of the details… Even down to the day. Even in the unknowns, the storms, the hallways, the ampersands.⁣
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Sunday is coming, but He’s with us in every middle place, too. Saturday isn’t actually that silent. Hope has something to say. Even now, the page is turning. The Author wasn’t—isn’t—done writing. He weaves it all together, every chapter of the Story ultimately giving glory to the One who holds the pen.⁣
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What a glorious, powerful, promises-are-being-kept-even-now day it is.⁣
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♥️ I’d love to gift #EvenIfNotBook to someone currently in an in between season. Comment and tell me if that’s you? 🙋🏻‍♀️ I promise to pray over each comment & will post the randomly selected winner in IG Stories tomorrow.

In love and gratitude I want to say in times of fe

In love and gratitude I want to say in times of fear and distress, 'My Father, I do not understand You, but I trust You.'⁣⁣⁣
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When the world feels like it’s spinning mad and darkness covers like a thick blanket… when it’s all just so much, too much… it’s the fact that Friday is called GOOD that offers hope with an outstretched nail-pierced hand. Because yes, Sunday is coming. And yes, the sadness of Saturday has an expiration date. But also: Friday is a reminder that Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, understands. Even in our darkest, loneliest, most broken and hopeless moments, we aren’t truly alone.⁣
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From Genesis to Revelation, all of Scripture points to this Truth: God just keeps getting closer. Coming for us, dying for us, staying with us, walking us all the way Home.⁣
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Somehow sorrow dances together with joy, and it’s right to slow and remember, to refuse to rush through the depth of the sacrifice as we intentionally choose to sit in the grief of all that felt unredeemed.⁣
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But even as the salty tears of Friday fall, even as we enter into the greatest in between of confusion and silence on Saturday, we know that these days are called good for a reason. Hope and laughter are coming, for He who has promised is ever faithful. What is broken can be mended and if the story isn’t good? Well, then the story isn’t over. He is making all things new.⁣
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So we come. We come with our questions and find Him to be the Answer. We show up with hearts overwhelmed and broken to say that we don’t always understand, but we will trust. We remember the suffering and rejoice that our sadness will soon turn to joyful singing.⁣
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The story doesn't end with ashes. Thank You, Jesus, that though my sin was so great, Your love was greater still.⁣

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