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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

📚Author of #EvenIfNotBook
✏️Writer: kaitlynbouchillon.com
☕️Lover of iced coffee
💻Virtual Assistant

Guilt pushes harshly⁣ Grace leads gently⁣ ⁣

Guilt pushes harshly⁣
Grace leads gently⁣
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Guilt condemns⁣
Grace cheers⁣
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Guilt shakes the doorframe⁣
Grace opens the door⁣
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Guilt shouts hurry, hustle, produce⁣
Grace says be still, it’s okay to rest⁣
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Guilt shakes its head⁣
Grace chooses to try again⁣
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Guilt lowers the eyes⁣
Grace lifts the chin⁣
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Guilt tears down⁣
Grace plants seeds⁣
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May you encounter grace as you move through this week, and may those you meet encounter grace in you.

I didn’t see it until a few hours later. I mean,

I didn’t see it until a few hours later. I mean, it’s literally right there—but I missed it in the moment.⁣
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I saw the flowers, of course. They’re the reason I stepped off the trail, got down low, and took a picture before getting up and taking the next step. From the moment my feet hit the gravel to the second I got back in my car, with a brief pause for a deep breath and picture, I talked to God about a handful of heavy things. I asked for help. I asked for hope. I shut my mouth to listen, but all was silent.⁣
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I was almost to the halfway point when I saw flowers to my right. They were small, and for all I know maybe they’re actually weeds, but it didn’t matter in that moment because a small sign is still a sign when you’re looking for it.⁣
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But I missed the best part. Behind the tiny flower-weeds that are the actual size of my fingernails, something new is being made. Something more. Coming right behind this small glimpse is another. It’s already in the works, already being prepared.⁣
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One for me, one for you, and more on the way—for both of us.⁣
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I don’t know what you need today. I don’t know how far down the road you are, how many laps you’ve already walked, what overwhelms or what is coming up ahead. I don’t know what you’re asking God for. But whatever it is, and wherever you are, I think somehow this picture is supposed to be for you too. There’s more on the way. God will not run out; provision is not running low.⁣
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Hope for me, hope for you, and more on the way.⁣
Peace for me, peace for you, and more on the way.⁣
Grace for me, grace for you, and more on the way.⁣
Comfort for me, comfort for you, and more on the way.⁣
Laughter for me, laughter for you, and more on the way.

I had brain surgery at age 17. I don’t talk abou

I had brain surgery at age 17. I don’t talk about it very much. It’s an important part of my story, but honestly, to me, it’s a small part. I’m so much more than that “event.” And also, it kind of feels like a fairy tale, like "once upon a time in a far away land a surgeon removed a golf-ball sized tumor from my brain." But it's real. It's true.⁣⁣⁣
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At the time, I had no idea it would be one of many opportunities to say “even if not”—I just knew I had to figure out if I trusted God to be Healer even if His version of healing didn’t look like what I was asking for.⁣⁣⁣
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Almost eleven years ago I said those words and closed my eyes, not sure what I would wake up to. (I keep re-reading that because it feels too weighty, but the truth is we all do this every single day.)⁣⁣⁣
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I’ve clung to Psalm 30:2 through a dozen storylines I wouldn’t have chosen. Even now, in this exact moment. I’m a month out from surgery number five and holding tight to it once again as I struggle every day with recovery.⁣
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I’m not sure why, but it feels important to say it publicly right now, today. Maybe someone else is in the middle of an “even if” and needs to hear from from somebody who is walking through, too. Maybe you're the someone. If so, I just really want you to know: it holds true.⁣
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We can wonder "what if" all day long, or we can declare "even if." But at the end of the day, He is going to prove Himself faithful. Sometimes the miracle is that we receive exactly what we hope and pray for. And sometimes, we don’t. But even then, we still receive a miracle because we’ve made it through what seemed entirely impossible. We are the miracle.⁣⁣⁣
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Verse five says morning will come. Is the miracle that morning arrives or that you made through the night? Maybe it’s both. Either way, Scripture promises: a reason to rejoice is on the way. #evenifnotbook⁣

From one garden to another, from Eden to Gethseman

From one garden to another, from Eden to Gethsemane to an Easter morning when the man who looked like a Garden called Mary’s name and suddenly, she could see the One who saw her all along.⁣⁣
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He’s the same all the way through, kind and good on every single page. Praise God, the Word gets the final word. ‪Everything sad is coming untrue… Even now, all is being made new. We have a reason to hope.‬⁣⁣
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“A dead end means nothing to a God of resurrection.” - @bethmoorelpm⁣
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(I’ve added this image to the lock screens highlight, if you’d like it for your phone!)

I look forward to this day all year… the day I g

I look forward to this day all year… the day I got the worst text of my life, which led to surgery waiting rooms and major unknowns, and also the day I wrote words about darkness and light, paragraphs that are now printed on pages of a book I hadn’t even dreamed of yet.⁣
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Both, on the day in between Good Friday and Easter.⁣
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This is the day of questions, of doubting, grieving, and waiting. This is the day so many of us find ourselves in over and over in life. Here, somewhere in between.⁣
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And yet it's this both/and Silent Saturday that reminds me there’s hope, because what looks like the end might actually be the middle. When everything feels like it’s falling apart and the world is spinning mad, today reminds me God is holding us together and He will keep His promises. Today says that His timing is perfect, His perspective is greater, and our stories don’t end with Saturday.⁣⁣⁣
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On this In Between day six years ago, I opened a blank page. I thought I was writing a blog post. Turns out I was writing the first words of a book about 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.⁣
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My word, He’s a God of the details. 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 like to gift a copy to someone who's in an in between season right now. Comment and tell me if that’s you, and if you’re willing, share a detail or two? I promise to pray for each one.⁣ (I'll post the randomly selected winner in IG Stories tomorrow.)⁣
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P.s. The blog post? I never clicked publish. Holy Spirit was abundantly clear: it would see the light of day — but the words were for me to keep on living before they were for me to share. You can find them, printed unedited, in Chapter 7 of⁣ #EvenIfNotBook.

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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Somehow sorrow dances together with joy, and so on this morning of mourning, we grieve and we remember. We refuse to rush through the depth of the sacrifice, and 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 soon enter into the greatest in between of confusion and silence on Saturday, we know that hope and laughter are coming, for He who has promised is ever faithful.⁣⁣
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Even on Good Friday, the story doesn't end with ashes. So we come. We come with our questions and find Him to be the Answer. We remember the suffering and rejoice that our sadness will soon turn to joyful singing. ⁣⁣⁣
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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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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. Thank You, Jesus, that though my sin was great, Your love was greater still.⁣

Hope wept when a friend died. Peace flipped tables

Hope wept when a friend died. Peace flipped tables. Joy chose to stay when torches blazed in the darkness, weaving like a snake through the valley on the way to a garden.⁣
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It’s upside-down and right-side-up, the Gospel. God… died? For us? We can’t begin to truly know all that means, the fullness of the sacrifice freely given.⁣
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It’s absolutely crazy and outrageously beautiful.⁣
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For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. The joy.⁣
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Jesus knew with absolute certainty what was coming on Friday... and He didn’t run. Instead the King of the upside-down Kingdom bent low to wash dirty feet. John 17 says that on that Thursday night, He looked to heaven and prayed for the disciples—and for us. For us.⁣
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I wonder how many times Jesus planted His feet on the Earth He formed and looked up at the sky He created, remembering why He came. Maybe thousands, maybe none. I don’t know. But I do know Friday changed everything, so on this Thursday morning, I’m standing here with dirty feet on this plot of Earth, giving thanks for the One who came down.⁣
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For the joy...⁣
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For us.⁣
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*Wherever you are, I invite you to go outside, take off your shoes, plant your feet in the grass or the dirt, and look up. Remember. Darkness will soon fall, but God won’t run. Instead, God will die and in His death, Light will get the last word.

Cue the voiceover narrator saying “little did sh

Cue the voiceover narrator saying “little did she know.” I wrote these words on Instagram Stories one year ago today, two weeks into sheltering-in-place. Remember when?⁣
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This image showed up in my photo memories today, a reminder of reminders I needed back then... and, as turns out, need just as much now.⁣
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We can’t possibly know what March 2022 will hold (let alone what tomorrow will bring), so I’m taking this archived image and permanently adding it to my IG feed for my future-self... and maybe you too? 🤍⁣
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True then. True now. True tomorrow, too.⁣
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Yesterday, today and forever.⁣
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Thank God for God.⁣
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(P.s. Tap the bookmark icon if you’d like to save it. I’ll show you how in my Stories today! And also, yes, I’m seriously saving my own post to my “remember this” folder. A future reminder of reminders that will hold true every single day, come what may.)

Maybe one day we’ll look back on the seasons whe

Maybe one day we’ll look back on the seasons where we tried our best to follow His lead one shaky but trusting step at a time, only to discover that all along God was teaching us to dance.⁣
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I took this at the trail near my apartment, the trail where I walked and cried and prayed “I trust You but I really don’t understand” prayers this week, the trail a mile away from the neighborhoods destroyed by yesterday’s tornado.⁣
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I wouldn’t dare to tie a bow on brokenness and call it a day. I have no clichés to offer. Just worn tennis shoes and empty hands and a knowing that God walks alongside.⁣
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That, and this promise... These lyrics from the song that has been my constant this year, four words a podcast guest “happened” to say on the episode playing in my ears just as I paused at the sight of purple flowers swaying, dancing in the breeze:⁣
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He keeps Hope alive.⁣
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Yes, He does.⁣
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Let’s learn to dance. 🤍

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