It’s 2 am, and I can’t sleep. Norah is next to me, and her little tummy is moving up and down. In and out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

So many times these past few weeks, I have relied on my own breath to get me through a moment.

My mother always tells me a story about when my dad died in an accident and she had a 5 year old and a 2 year old. She couldn’t sleep or eat or imagine what to do the next day. She would repeat Psalm 46:10. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. It’s all I can do in these nighttime hours lately. I repeat it to myself like a chant and drift back to sleep for a moment.

I am not religious in the traditional sense. But I know someone is out there listening to me. I know there is a method to any madness we experience here. I know life is crazy and full of surprises, and something bigger than you carries you through.  I know pain is wasted if you don’t evolve. Become bigger and stronger.

Sometimes I feel that presence lately. And sometimes I don’t.  It’s so easy to be blinded by fear, doubt, sadness. It’s so easy to forget that there is a master plan involved.

I pray every night that my little life will look just the same in a year as it did two months ago. But I just don’t know. I feel it in my bones that the train is barreling out of the station, and a new destination is there. I don’t want to go, but it’s there for me – whether I choose it or not. But this life? This one has been so perfect in so many ways. It’s hard to see the past few years as anything other than the best of my life.  But life doesn’t always ask our permission before moving to a new chapter.

Friends, if you are the praying type, I want to you pray for peace in my heart and in the heart of others. For love to prevail.  And forgiveness and hope. And gratitude for the blessings I have.