Time as an Element of Beauty
A Collection of Journal Read-Alouds from the Last Nine Months
My heart is overflowing with all God has done for me. Starting back in July of last year, I started writing about this birth with a post called Impossible Things, which is exactly how I felt about going through this whole process again.
Through these last nine months, I have woven thoughts on having another baby (our ninth), overcoming fear, and walking by faith throughout my weekly letters on Substack. The arc of this beautiful story was the birth of my beautiful baby boy three weeks ago.
I went back and read seven of these posts aloud and added audio to the original posts and decided to edit the whole story together in today’s podcast. The whole story, told in chronological journal entries, is a beautiful picture of God’s mercy and time as an element of the beauty of a life that is surrendered to Him. Sharing the whole story and an introduction to it on this new episode of The Sacred Everyday Podcast. Click below to go there (or listen wherever you listen to podcasts…).
Below are the posts that I am reading aloud. (If you prefer to listen/read them in Substack, click the links below!)
Thanks so much for bearing witness to my life and for listening to my stories. It means so much to me that you are here.
Love,
Mackenzie
Impossible Things
Impossible Things. I feel like I am living in a story. Where the heroine is being asked to do impossible things, and you know she will do them, because those are the only kinds of stories worth writing or reading. You are rooting for her, you are believing in her, you are trusting that she will make it through. Reading the story, you have complete confid…
Crying in the Grocery Store
I cry in the grocery store a lot. People see me filling up a buggy to the bulging brim, and they stare at me and sometimes crack a joke. I smile sweetly and say I have a lot of children. They ask me how many. I say eight, and then my eyes begin to fill with tears.
Fear Comes and Asks Me for My Life
When I climb to the top of the highest point of my life and look out over the vast landscape before me, instead of awe and joy and overwhelming gratitude for all God has done to bring me to this holy, beautiful place, sometimes all I feel is fear. Even though deep down, I know I have been carried by God to this very moment, and I know by heart that He w…
The Nurse is Checking My Blood Pressure and Asks Me How Many Times I Have Been Pregnant
The nurse is checking my blood pressure and asks me how many times I have been pregnant. “Ten,” I say. She makes a note without looking up. “Any miscarriages?” “One.” She continues typing, glancing up to monitor the cuff on my arm. She asks a string of routine questions and I answer, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice. I don’t want her to see me c…
Going Slow
Sometimes I feel like I am caught between time warps. The world around me is moving at lightening speed, and I am so slow. I sit before the blinking cursor, waiting for my thoughts to materialize into coherent sentences while a time-lapse movie of a family in motion fills the frame around me.
All that is Required of You is to Breathe
Today is my ninth baby’s due date, which is not like a library due date resulting in fines or a math exam which, if late, lands you a zero. The day will likely pass as all my other due dates have passed. Out of memory, overshadowed by a day in the next week or two which will become my baby’s birthday. But I want to mark it still, and etch into the day s…
The Birth Story of Ezra Ronen Chester
My newborn baby is resting on my lap as I write these words. It has been one week since his holy arrival into this world, and already I can feel the way the details of birth are receding into a place of softened memory. This was a different labor for me, and I want to write out the story so that I never forget what God has done. This is the birth story …