God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies.

When I diagnose my depression now, I think it was partially about saying goodbye to these kids that I always expected to have but already knew that I wouldn't.

I watched them, thinking that little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women.

My heart skipped a beat and then flat-out tripped over itself and fell on its face. Then my heart stood up, brushed itself off, took a deep breath and announced: "I want a spiritual teacher.

Women come into marriage with great inflated expectations for what they want this relationship to be, and men don't give it that much thought. Men come into it with reluctance about being capsized or trapped or whatever their fear is. When you check in later, women are disappointed because their expectations have not come to pass, and men are pleasantly surprised.

At that moment of realization (that union with God is always present), that's when God let me go, let me slide through His fingers with this last compassionate, unspoken message: You may return here once you have fully come to understand that you are always here.

I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.