About seven years ago, I approached the head of our Arts Ministry at church and asked her if we had a writing group I could be a part of. Having recently left singing professionally because the time commitment was too much for my fledgling family, I was looking to find my voice again, and writing was as much a part of my DNA as music, so I picked up my pen and returned to the solitary task of writing.

Lonely for community and desiring the synergy that comes from creating in the midst of other creators, I decided a writer’s group would be a great next step. Alas, our church’s Arts Ministry did not have a writer’s group, so I went away disappointed. I would have to write alone.

Always a little on the slow side, it took me a good six months before I realized I didn’t need to “write off” the idea. If I wanted there to be a writer’s group at the church, all I needed to do was start one. Psalm 45:1 was born in the fall of 2001, and over the last seven and a half years it has grown into a tight-knit community of deliciously quirky and delightful friends who sometimes have nothing more in common than our desire to put words down on paper. But that has been enough.

Were I to attempt to name them all, I would surely forget someone, so I will not attempt. But this group has been both a creative and spiritual touchpoint for me, and there is not a single life within it that has not touched mine. I have been blessed beyond measure that they have chosen to come hang out with me once a month, and have thanked them for it every time.

But the wind has been picking up for some time now, and I have been keenly aware that a new season is around the corner. I used to think, in my naivete, life would get easier as my children got a little bit older. Things would slow down. I could regain some of my own life again. I was not only mistaken, I was deluded. My children need me home more now, at six and almost ten, than they ever did as babies, and I need to embrace that, turning into the wind, surrendering, arms wide open, to its invisible force.

There are only a few more years left to snuggle in bed before lights out—to hear the confessions of the day, to talk about troubled friendships, to answer questions about the kinds of things I want my children to be asking me about and no one else. I need to be there for every possible moment, before those moments are gone. That means there are other moments I must miss elsewhere—writer’s group, card night, working late, evening lessons. It is a trade off.

In my best moments, I have a peace about this. My children are, in truth, my highest priority and I love being their Momma. I WANT to be there. In my less certain moments, it feels a little like a death. How much more must I give up? I have laid down all that is important to me, all that has defined me, all that has given me life. What will the return on that be? Will there be a return at all?

I know the answer is yes. But I am sad tonight, nonetheless. I know these friendships will endure, and I know I will continue to write. My daughter even has aspirations of joining me—perhaps in a few years that will look like me and a group of teenage girls at a coffee shop with notebooks, who knows. I will remind myself, again, that this is not an ending—it is a new chapter. And writing new chapters is, after all, what I do best.

family life motherhood reflection writing