He holds all things together

kaitpackLeave a comment

I sit on the front porch of the farmhouse, sipping coffee with Mom. The wheat shifts in the wind along the laneway. But I am not thinking of that. 

It’s the face of my husband picking me up from the airport that’s on my mind, and the settled feeling after unpacking from a long trip.

We eat pizza on the couch and turn on our favourite show. I touch his hand briefly after our long absence. But I am not thinking of that. 

It’s my mom on the front porch of the farmhouse. I imagine what it would be like if she lived down the street – and my childhood friends, too. What if they rang the doorbell now? Their kids burst in with no need for reacquaintance. 

Past life. Present life. Always this shadow of grief. 

He grabs the decanter to mix a drink – the one we inherited. We talk about how we miss his calls, how he’d pick up with a cheerful “Hullo, Kate.” 

“People really aren’t around forever, are they,” he says. It’s not a question. 

Maybe if I had stayed close to where he lived. But then, I wouldn’t be standing in this house with the love of my life. 

“You don’t see sunrooms in many houses anymore,” I comment as we drive around the city. And that’s when I remember my childhood friend’s house with the sunroom – oh, and the secret stairway to a second attic where we played dress up. I tell him all about it. I had forgotten. “That was the absolute best house.”

“That is the best.” 

Always these memories slipping into shadows, these limits. What else will I never recall?

I wake up one night in a half-dream state, wondering why we’re both lying in this bed for eight hours every night. Like every king and queen, and prime minister, and dictator. No matter how big our claims or confidence, our bodies slip into unconsciousness for half of our lives. 

As if to say: “I surrender.”

In the early hours of the morning, I am not thinking of the next thing or the last thing, where I should be or what I should’ve said. I am a creature who rests with unanswered questions, unrealized memories, limited time. Always this shadow of grief. 

I am thinking how the sun rises and the shadows roll back and I’ll open my eyes to see He has held all things together.

Just you wait

kaitpackLeave a comment

“Just you wait,” people say.

Wait until you’re an adult and you have to pay your own bills. Your rent. Your car insurance. TAXES. 

Wait until you’re as old as me and your body betrays you.

People say the best age is 17 or 21 or something, but I’ve lived better. People say your wedding day is supposed to be the best day of your life, but I’ve lived better. 

Because I think it’s actually 32. It’s the days you barely remember, the days you worked and ate nothing fancy for dinner. 

We celebrate three years of marriage right around the time I get the urge to sort through every drawer in our house – and he wisely heads to work. I find our old notes to each other. 

Growth is too slow to capture in real time. It’s astronomical in hindsight – and on lined paper.

Just you wait, people say. And I’ve said it to myself. You’ll both change drastically. 

And they’re right, in all the wrong ways. 

We celebrate three years and I have given up all doughnut shops, but one – where the dough is truly blessed. I only buy well-made leather shoes that live up to my now-German last name. Occasionally, in the spirit of unity, I attend a garage sale. I even force my pragmatism aside and purchase an additional raffle ticket to increase our chance of winning 40 bred heifers. 

Just you wait, people say. But they don’t warn you how your confidence grows when you know there’s someone to pick you up when you fall. How you’ll start to see yourself in the eyes of the person who loves you and thinks you’re amazing. You’ll share your ideas more. Speak in public. Nominate yourself for president. 

And you’ll always be eager to get home. 

“The things we fear are almost never the right things,” she says over the phone before we pray about future decisions.

What other good things am I missing for fear of living a one-dimensional version of someone else’s story? The best people I know have lived nightmares, but watched for grace at dawn.

Just you wait, people say. 

Will do – for all of it. Years and years of every bad and good thing. Every disagreement and reconnection. Every death and resurrection. Every forgettable journal entry. And every bit of growth. 

Maybe it’ll be great. Just you wait.

The gift of limits

kaitpackLeave a comment

The first warm spring day. You remember those. Don’t you? Across the years.

When you’re a kid and you beg to stay up late because there are too many things to do in the last light. Cheeks flushed. You have to ride your bike, kick the soccerball, a couple somersaults on the trampoline. 

Sure, your dad sees snow on The Weather Network. But the hours you have, you have them in high resolution. 

The last campfires of summer. You remember those, too. Don’t you? Across the years.

When you’re a kid and you cook golden brown marshmallows for your mom and watch her squish them between chocolate cookies. Or when you’re a teenager and you watch the boys build the fire bigger and bigger on the beach. Just a bunch of pyromaniacs. When you’re an old woman in your thirties and you crack a cold one and talk budgets and babies with the best of them. 

“I’m tired of being busy,” he tells me over the phone. 

I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve looked at our shared calendar and I’m pretty sure we’re booked until 2088. 

It’s almost halfway through the year and my New Year’s resolutions have come back to haunt me. They crowd my brain in the middle of a conversation with my mom. In the middle of a prayer before we drop off to sleep. 

Some would call it productivity. A friend calls it “anxious productivity” over the phone. “Good thing God commanded us to rest,” she laughs.

Did He really tell us that? Really? To go out there and get nothing done. 

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT. (But so is my bedtime.) So is my brain and my budget and my energy and my time. What a gift.

I don’t have to do everything, but I can do some things. For example, I don’t have the time to Google the history of rat eradication in Alberta, but I could sit on the riverbank on Sunday night and finish zero books. 

Put it on my tombstone: She always dropped everything to do nothing with people she loved.

Embrace the limits God gave me. Watch the boy build the fire bigger and bigger. Just a bunch of pyromaniacs with front-row seats to world-class sunsets.

Did you see that girl?

kaitpackLeave a comment

“Did you see that girl? She’s reading as she walks.” 

It’s a habit of mine as the nights grow longer and the snow disappears. Usually, it goes unnoticed. I walk, absorbed in my pages. Others walk, absorbed in texts and emails.

“Did you see that girl?” The pre-teen girl on the scooter says to her friend, pointing back at me.

And for a second, I’m a teenager again, on the sidelines of the soccer field, subbing out one of the pretty girls who has a boyfriend. “Did you see that girl?” I imagine them saying when they get ice cream later with the other pretty girls.

And then I brush it off because I’m an adult. Besides, my ego says, I’m a girl who’s reading War and Peace. 

I talk with the girl on the couch and the girl over voice messages and the girl in my house and the girl on the hike and I realize how – us girls – we’re all wondering: Did you see me – that girl with the expanding waistline? We’re wondering – did you notice I’ve changed? My forehead is lined. My cheeks are round. My eyes have bags. My hair has grey. Please don’t notice.

But I have been noticing how little we control in this life – and how much we try. Sometimes we talk about our struggle with our skin and loving to live inside it. I say it to her and mostly to myself: “Perhaps this is the most practical way we daily surrender to God?”

And I have been noticing the girls who write beautiful poetry, who cook dinner between babies napping, who play Chopin on the piano, drive the kids to soccer and paint pastoral scenes on blank canvas between loads of laundry. 

“It is a gift to have friends from childhood or university,” we agree as we soak up April sun on the back deck. 

And I think it’s because you get to see those girls across the decades. Filling up with experience and filling out with wisdom. Growing in confidence and gaining the fine lines of her craft. 

You get to see those girls growing all the way to glory. One surrendered day at a time.

The great story arc

kaitpackLeave a comment

There’s nothing less interesting than fake perfection. 

I laugh at Craig Wall’s review of The Glass Castle, a memoir: “Jeanette Walls was given the ultimate gift as a writer. A dysfunctional family packed with eccentrics.”

The problem is most of us like to hide the dysfunctional mess under our bed. Or under loose clothes. Behind a solid resume, good shoes or an active social life.

There’s nothing less interesting than fake perfection. 

But there’s nothing more legendary than redemption. The great story arc. Pauper to princess. Outcast to esteemed. Poor to rich. Lost to found. Lonely to loved. 

How will the story resolve, though, when I never admit when I’m fearful? Never admit I give my body the judgmental side-eye in the mirror or I have an irrational fear of loud noises in the night. 

I still remember when we were new to each other. “I have to tell you something.” I took a deep breath. Laid it all out on the table. 

“It’s okay. I got you,” he said. Simple as that.

Two years after our vows – and more times than that, I say it again, gripping his hands tight. 

“I got you,” he says. Simple as that.

All I want is to be fully known and fully loved. All anyone wants. Cinderella. Jane Eyre. Ebenezer Scrooge. Our neighbour Tim. 

How will the story resolve, though, when I never admit when I’m weak?

Like he does, standing knee-deep in the baptismal tank, not even a year after his daughter died. “Weak is not a strong enough word to say where I’m at,” he says. Hardly one eye stays dry in those pews.

Submerged in grief – the whys, the hows, how could this be. We watch him go under the water. 

“I got you. It is finished.” Simple as that. 

Like a resounding ending to the world’s greatest story. 

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

Day nineteen of the new year

kaitpackLeave a comment

Maybe the snow will never melt. It will leave its layers on the street, one week after another, until we can’t get out the front door. 

Maybe we will never be as close as we once were. Have the time we once did.

These are my thoughts in the third week of January, the worst of all weeks.

I HAVE NO FRIENDS, I tell a dear friend. 

I HAVE NO COURAGE, I tell my husband. 

Really I am just forgetful. 

I forget last July, sitting on her front steps long after the stars and the bugs came out – long past our butts going numb against the cement. Reluctant to head inside, to cut a good conversation short. 

I forget that feeling we had waking up in our very first house, that very first Saturday morning. The trip to Home Hardware and the excited discussions about sitting on our patio, cooking hamburgers, unpacking the fine china and serving cocktails to a long line of guests.

But I remember the eight months of house hunting – do I ever – going to listings, making offers, getting outbid. 

I should be studied – the way I forget the good things in the third week of January. 

As if we never had those late nights fishing where he put his hand on my knee and said, “These are the nights we’ll remember.”

But I don’t. Not on day nineteen of the new year. 

I don’t remember I’ve felt this way before, trapped between seasonal depression and hormonal chaos. And the best approach has always been to wait and see. 

Wait and see if the snow melts and the temperature warms and the trees grow green leaves again. Wait and see if we have another late summer night, catching up on the years we haven’t lived close to each other. See if we catch another monster fish – another story to tell our kids someday.

We are people who wait. Wait to see if death will die. Sickness will be a tale we tell about the past. Evil will be outlawed and heaven will be home. 

It feels hard and holy in the third week of January. 

But I will wait and see, with the screen off and the earbuds out. No scrolling to the end. Minute by minute, trusting and hoping that I will taste and see that the Lord is good.

Those will be the days

kaitpackLeave a comment

Those were the days. The Christmases. When everyone was there. Everyone – and the cheese and the crackers and the strange pickled things and the same people getting offended and offending everyone else. Those were the days.

The Christmases. When I’d leave the townhouse I shared with three other university students and bring my laundry home to the farm. When everyone was there. Everyone – and the chocolate-covered almonds and the strange Christmas pudding. Those were the days. 

The days I believed that Christmas morning had some magic to it, would bring me every happiness, even if it didn’t.

“I used to love Christmas,” I tell him, dramatically. But we became too practical for our own good. Never had a tree as adults, never hung up stockings. Not in that basement apartment. Not when we were underground, with the small windows, waiting for our life to start. 

“I used to love Christmas,” I tell him. 

And he listens. A good man. I come home from the conference, pull off my heels and there he is – snipping old lights off a massive Facebook-marketplace-miracle tree. Five Christmases together and it’s our very first tree.

“I’m really in the Christmas spirit this year,” I tell them – and it’s not just the tree.

“I have been learning about heaven and it has been changing my life.” I tell him more than once. Just so he knows the big thing happening in my heart, as we live together, make dinner together, take out the trash and clean the floors. 

I’ve never understood Advent – not past the lighting of the candles at the front of the church. Not until this year when I’ve been learning about heaven and remembering His coming – the impersonation of hope. 

Those were the days. The First Christmas. When everyone was there. Everyone – and the animals and the angels and the humble in heart. 

But there will be greater ones yet. When everyone is there. The redeemed and restored – from every nation, tribe, people and language. The new earth, plants, creatures, creativity and culture. The feasting, celebrations, music, laughter and learning.

And no more shadow of death. 

Those will be the days.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4

That awkward moment when…

kaitpackLeave a comment

Are we all just freaks, trying to connect over the latest report on The Weather Network?

Or maybe some of us are more freaky than others?

We’re pumping ourselves up in the bathroom stall at every party, gearing up for some light banter – and hoping it doesn’t show that we might have a touch of social anxiety. 

Sometimes I watch him at social events. He always seems to have something witty to say and I find it fascinating. But I guess he married me because I can bring up the topic of terminal illness while we’re all sipping beer in a hot tub, having a grand old time? It is one of my coolest party tricks.

What was God thinking when He decided to enter into the human experience – attend weddings and go to dinner at other people’s houses – ALL THE TIME? 

Willingly choosing to enter into the misunderstanding of it all.

“Everyone struggles,” he always tells me. 

That’s why we convene on a riverbank in July, sipping beer and eating chips. There’s the person taking the selfie – half of us are not looking. Someone shares something personal and another person interrupts at exactly the wrong time. We are all working through different things in our minds. 

But we come together in misunderstanding. 

I have friends who are twins. One has always been the initiator – inviting people over and planning the big events. The other is the noticer – always aware of people on the fringe and ready to bring them into the conversation.

“I want our house to be a place where people feel they can come anytime,” he says the week after we buy our first place. And I know, he’ll be the initiator. I’ll be the noticer. And both will be necessary. 

I tell her how I’m giving speeches often now – at Toastmasters. I’m hosting events and speaking on panels, even if my hands shake when I hold the microphone. I’m trying, in spite of myself, to be seen.

And to get past my own internal monologue to see others. Enter into misunderstanding. Carry each other’s burdens. Give the clumsy side hug. Offer up a scattered prayer out loud in the parking lot. Really listen and not know what to say. 

And when all else fails, look up from my phone to say hi and talk about the weather.

“If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?” 2 Corinthians 12:17-19

Shores of Nineveh

kaitpackLeave a comment

I expected to be swallowed by a fish and vomited on the shore of Nineveh. Or thrown against the cliffs of tragedy, the rocks cutting through my cynicism. 

My toxic trait is that I read the comment section on all the post-Christian influencer videos. 

It was only last year that I left her a seven-minute voice message: “I don’t want to be this cynical.” 

We’re in our thirties now and I’ve treated church like a McDonald’s drive thru. Get in. Get out. Consume the saturated fats and don’t run into any neighbours when you’re not wearing makeup. 

Reading the Bible was a daily habit because I’m a highly disciplined person. Not because I was hoping God would speak to me. GOSH NO. And if He did, please just use a still small voice. Nothing bold. Nothing crazy. 

But halfway through 2025, I realize my heart is softening. We used to be cynics together, but now she’s quick to tears whenever she sees me. She tells me how all her best laid plans are strewn across the past year and half – and she has never loved God more than right now, in the aftermath. 

There’s no pastor calling me to kneel at the altar at the front of the revival meeting, but there’s a softening when I grab his hand under the covers and we pray like we do every night. Even when we’re doubtful and our egos are bruised. Even when he can only pray for God’s will to be done because God’s will sure as heck doesn’t seem to align with his.

She says she’s always believed in blackness after you die. She asks me what I believe. “Heaven,” I say. 

“It’s funny,” she says, “no one really knows what happens after death except the people who have died.” 

And those who have risen, I want to say. Instead: “It does take faith.” 

It takes faith to see her tears and then agree with her that God can pick up the pieces of her best laid plans. His redemptive work still turns up from time to time in 2025.

It takes faith to reach my hand over to his every night. “We should pray,” one of us says to the other. 

“It does take faith,” I tell her. But I’d like to throw my ego out the window so I can have a heart as soft as butter – full of hope. Perhaps all His promises ARE true. 

I’ll be that believing fool.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

Old boring people potential

kaitpackLeave a comment

I knew life would never be boring if I married him. It would be filled with many wild ideas I would feel the need to veto. But never boring. 

I knew this early into dating, when we were exploring abandoned buildings and jumping onto moving trains. 

It would be filled with a lot more small talk with strangers and minimal use of the self checkout at the grocery store. 

But never boring. 

Maybe there would be live lobster to cook and that would freak me out. Maybe there would be spontaneous road trips to the Arctic that would give me preemptive nightmares, but there would not be boredom. `

“We have nothing in common,” we often joke. Also: “We make a good team.”

I love to read. He rarely does. He likes to instigate adventure. I like to expand on it. He likes to buy things. I like to save. He likes to chit chat. I like philosophizing. I overthink some things. He overthinks the other things. 

On our two-year anniversary trip, he leans toward me and says, “You just married me to keep life entertaining.” I laugh because it’s partly true.

But I also thought we had old, boring married people potential. The potential for growth. We’d keep the adventure, but cut the drama. Apologize earlier. Forgive easier. 

Sure enough. We’re only two years into marriage, but every Sunday after church, we buy groceries at Costco – those dill pickle salads and a bag of apples. Eggs. Greek yoghurt. Fruit. We are faithful to the weekly list. 

And many nights, after dinner, we go on a 1.82 km walk in the dark. We talk about what houses we like along the edge of the neighbourhood pond – the one on the edge with the big patio. It’s not very exciting at all, but it’s one of my favourite things. 

We still run unplanned half marathons on a Monday and take last minute trips to the Northwest Territories, but we stay home too. We eat the same meals. Watch the same shows. Go to bed at the same time. Assume the best of each other, more often. 

I knew life would never be boring if I married him. But now I know, boring moments make some of the best building blocks. 

“But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs.” 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-11a