How My Heart Grew

getting comfortable with being uncomfortable

If you asked someone to characterize me, they might use descriptors like nice, kind, sweet, good, helpful, generous, or brave. I’m not trying to brag here—stick with me. These are actual things people say to me—“Oh, you are just the sweetest person!”—or about me when they introduce me to someone new. Usually, I quip, “Oh, don’t be fooled. I can be just as ugly on the inside as anyone, and if there’s anything good in me, it’s because of Jesus.”

Now is probably a good time to say:

This story involves my Christian faith—a faith that not all readers ascribe to. The lessons learned, I believe, are universal. I hope you’ll read on.

It’s true. Some of my actions are nice, kind, sweet, good, generous, and brave, but that’s only because my heart grew.¹ I’d like to tell you the story of how that began, but first, let’s set the stage.

The Backstory

My husband Mike and I met online 15 years ago. That’s not really a big deal in 2022, but it felt a little weird and awkward back in 2007, especially because I was a 32-year-old with two kids and was supposed to meet men in all the usual places. You know—grocery store, church, ballpark, bar. Quite frankly, some of the men I bumped into on this dating site were scary, but have you actually been to the grocery store lately??

When Mike and I set up our profiles, we each chose to list the greater metro area as our location instead of the suburban town we actually lived in. Neither of us had a clue we lived 3.4 miles from each other. Or that our kids attended the same after-school care at the Episcopal church. Or that his ex-wife lived a literal stone’s throw from my apartment (and before you say anything, no, I never did). Our paths likely crossed multiple times throughout any given day, yet we never met until that fateful first date.

Both of us were parents. I had two boys—Noah (8) and Jonah (5), and he had two girls—Chelsea (16) and Brittney (10). We each shared custody with our former spouses, the kids going to and fro as kids of parents-who-couldn’t-make-it-work often do. One exception: Chelsea didn’t live with Mike. Even though he raised her as his own, Mike isn’t Chelsea’s biological dad, and when he and H. divorced, Chelsea chose to live with her mom full-time.

We were practically strangers then.

When Mike and I married in 2009, Chelsea didn’t live with us. I chatted with Chelsea during holidays and extended family gatherings, but she was a teenager on the go. I simply didn’t know her that well. She graduated high school and soon began college shortly after our nuptials.

The Unexpected

A year into our Brady-Bunch wedded bliss, Brittney and Chelsea’s mom remarried and moved nearly 500 miles away. I was suddenly faced with being a full-time stepmom to a girl. Britt was a dream of a child, really, but she turned 13 the day before her mom left and I panicked. To me, this seemed the time a girl needed her mother most, and now her mom would be a whole state away. I was not qualified to be a girl-mom substitute. I grew up with two brothers, had two sons, and did not benefit from a close relationship with my mom at any point in my life. I needed help, so I began seeing a therapist to figure out how not to screw any of this up.²

While I was learning how to parent better and Britt was learning how to live without her mom’s physical presence, Chelsea was figuring out that she really didn’t have a “home” anymore. She had decided not to go back to college, so campus housing was not an option. With no car, no home, no job, and no immediate plans, she did the thing that made sense to her. When the guy she was dating asked her to move 500 miles away with him to be near his parents, off she went.

We spoke on the phone a few times while she was there, but we didn’t have our finger on the pulse of her well-being. We didn’t pry, and she didn’t share much about her life. Until six months later.

Just a girl trying to find her place in the world.

Mike’s phone rang, and after emerging from the bedroom, he summed up the call.

“She said she isn’t where she’s supposed to be and wants to come home. ‘Home’ meaning here. I told her to pack her things, and we’d be there tomorrow to get her.”

He didn’t have to discuss it with me because he knew I would have said something synonymous. Our kids are our kids. We don’t use the word “step” when we talk about our children because we both love them. All of them.

The phone rang again. Mike took the call and then relayed more information.

“She called back to say that she’s also pregnant. I told her that doesn’t matter. We’re still going to get her.”

We later learned that the boyfriend and his parents were pressing Chelsea to terminate the pregnancy, something she was unwilling to do, and he became very angry that she wouldn’t comply.³

We dropped the other three kids at my ex-husband’s house for the night so he could get them to school the next morning and then set our alarm for 3 a.m. When we arrived at her townhouse, a very underweight, depressed, mess of a girl opened the door. Very little was packed. Chelsea wandered from room to room, unable to make any decisions. She was like a zombie, a shell of a human.

We quickly went to work, Mike loading obvious items in the vehicle while I began searching the place for her possessions. I uncovered childhood photos and mementos on the cusp of abandonment and shoved them into whatever containers I could find. Once I was satisfied that no irreplaceable items remained, we climbed into the leftover space of our SUV and drove away, breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn’t come home. She slept most of the eight-hour drive.

We lived in a 1,700-square-foot home with three bedrooms and two baths. Noah and Jonah already shared a room, so Britt rearranged hers to accommodate. After getting Chelsea settled in, the first order of business was to find an OB/GYN. The second was some pampering. Chelsea scheduled her first prenatal appointment, and then we had a girl’s day. I took her to my stylist for a fresh cut. We shopped for comfortable athletic shoes and ate a good lunch. Looking back, the indulgences were my feeble attempt to bring her back to the land of the living, but now I realize how much we needed that time to talk and bond.

Getting to know each other.

Chelsea admitted she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about the baby, and I encouraged her to explore all her options. But I also told her that whatever she decided, we would help her. After all, I had once been in her shoes—unmarried and navigating an unplanned pregnancy.

Christmas was less than a month away when Chelsea came to live with us. We were cozy that December—the season was bright, hearts were light, and Chelsea and Britt went to visit their mom for a week. Nothing felt crowded, cramped, or awkward those first few weeks. I mean, it was the best time of the year, right?

January arrived and Chelsea, about 12 weeks pregnant, enrolled in college and applied to live in the dorms. She still didn’t have a car, but she used campus transit during the week. On Fridays, Mike picked her up after classes so she could come home for the weekend. They would often stop for lunch on those trips, and he commented once that he got such awful looks at the restaurants that he thought about ordering a shirt that said “I’m HER dad, not THE dad.”

12-year-old Noah made his dream come true later that year.

Things were rolling along nicely until around mid-February when Chelsea told us that after serious consideration, she planned to keep and raise her baby. Until that point, we had been taking each day as it came, knowing everything would work out the way it was supposed to. The declaration of her decision forced us to finally think about what the addition of a baby meant for our home, our family, and our life.

Chelsea would be back at home full-time when her July due date arrived. How would this work? Brittney couldn’t share a room with Chelsea and a newborn, could she? How would nocturnal feedings (and definite cryings) work without disrupting the other kids? How would the baby sleep through boisterous boys coming home from school in the afternoon? Would Chelsea have enough room for all things baby? Would she have enough privacy?

For the first time in a long time, we weren’t so certain everything would just fall into place.

The Challenge

Around the time that we were having heart palpitations over this whole situation, our Sunday morning class at church was reading a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan and watching the related video series. One morning, we watched a video and read some words that changed everything for us.

Our study landed on Chapter 7: “your best life…later,” a chapter dedicated to the topic of giving. Chan was explaining how he and his wife Lisa have always shared their home with others, inviting them in to live, not just as boarders, but as family. This example was part of a bigger discussion of how we, in our modern-day culture of accumulation and looking out for #1, tend to hoard our resources. What would it look like if we shared what we have to the point of sacrifice—sharing not just from our excess, but from things we might need? Could we trust God to provide?

“Anyone can say, ‘Oh, I know this house isn’t mine—it belongs to the Lord,’ but it’s a lot more difficult when you start letting other people treat this place you live in as though it’s their home as well….when you start obeying the commands of God, and you make these ‘sacrifices,’ [that he says really don’t feel like sacrifices in the end] you end up happier because of it. I love having people live with us now…they’re family.”

Chan’s message challenged us to let go of those things we hold tightly and get uncomfortable in order to experience something greater. You really have to watch the full video to truly understand his point, but this idea of getting outside the comfort zone landed squarely on us (and has since become a permanent part of our thinking).

In our group discussion, we also talked about what stood out in the book.

“Pride tells you that you’ve sacrificed more than others. Fear tells you it’s time to worry about the future. Friends say you’ve given enough, that it’s someone else’s turn now.”

What if we didn’t fear the unknown or the uncomfortable—adding a newborn to the mix? What if we lived open-handed, open-minded, and open to getting uncomfortable, trusting that God would come through?

Chan wrote, “This place of trust isn’t a comfortable place to be; in fact, it flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught about proper planning. We like finding refuge in what we already have rather than in what we hope God will provide.”

Having a baby in our home would require great faith. It would require willingness. It would require getting over ourselves and our creature comforts.

Chan went on to quote chapter 58 of Isaiah, which is a beautiful call to love others well—to step outside the circle of self-focus we all tend to camp out in from time to time. The whole thing is incredible, but the part that stuck out to me was verses 9-12.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you always;

he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like a spring whose waters never fail.

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

and will raise up the age-old foundations;

you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,

Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”⁴

That phrase “if you spend yourselves” blew me away. I had never considered how I was “spending” myself. Sure, we spend money, spend time, spend energy, but what did the overall accounting of my life show? I remember jotting down:

Not the same Bible from 2011. I’ve had this one for about four to five years. It’s about time to get a new one. You can bet I’ll note this same passage.

How had I, at 35, spent myself? How did I want to spend myself in the next 35 years? On behalf of the hungry? The oppressed? The marginalized? The downtrodden? The weary? The homeless? The scared, pregnant 19-year-old? The answer was YES to all of these.

Once I looked at my life this way, really examined the silliness of the worry and anxiety over how our home and lives could accommodate a baby, I became excited that we were getting to expand our lives and hearts to include a brand new human who God knew about before any of us ever did. God was using this situation to grow me—to grow my heart into a softer one, a more flexible one, a roomier one.

The Joy

In July 2011, Chloe was born, a red-haired beauty. She was a whopper of a baby, too, so I’m glad my heart got bigger! I won’t tell you it was easy or comfortable or quiet, but her arrival into our home—which would not have been possible without Chelsea’s coming home to us, letting us help her, trusting us, and having patience with us—was one of the best events of my life.

It set my heart on a path of expansion.

Pure joy.

It was the season that began a new thing in me—learning to release my expectations and worry and to trust God to supply everything I would need and more. It was the season that began a realization that has become a lifestyle: when you open your hands in release, they are free to gather those blessings.

How will you spend yourself?

1. Please stop imagining me as the Grinch. I’m much better looking.

2. I still screwed some of it up, but my therapist definitely helped me not make a monumental mess of things.

3. I share this story with Chelsea’s full permission. While it was painful to relive those days as she read this, she understands her beautiful story can help someone else. You’ll hear more about her in future posts.

4. Isaiah 58:9-12, The Holy Bible.