The Labor of Valleys

Sometimes we have to look back at where we’ve been to remember where we’re going.

This photo popped up recently, as this little one turned two and it immediately reminded me of one of the most difficult, uncomfortable but incredible places I’ve been.
As soon as she was born, I asked two questions… “does she have dimples?” & “how long was my labor?!” They couldn’t tell yet if she had dimples but from water breaking to delivery had been 33 hours.

My sister jokes I mention this “33 hour all natural v-bac labor” story as often as I can and it’s sort of become an inside joke in our family. But the truth is, when my doctor told me how long I had been pushing through the pain, I raised my hands in the air and shouted, “I can do anything”!!!!
It was singularly the most exhausting and exhilarating experience of my life and, in that moment, I resolved I really could do anything. I was capable of so much more than I had realized!

That superman feeling lasted about three days.

Somewhere in sleepless nights and constant feedings and a body that looked like someone else’s, I began to feel completely the opposite of capable and strong. Quickly, I fell back into the same old patterns, believing the old familiar lies that I’m really not cut out for greater in this life.

Have you been there, friends? A moment on the mountaintop where you resolve, “things are really going to change this time”, only to be lulled back into complacency as that old record of “not enough”, “never going to happen”, “incapable”, or “unequipped” plays over and over in your mind?

I’ve been there.

Not just in my “33 hour all-natural labor” victory story but in so many other instances.
I don’t know what your mountain-to-valley moments have been. Maybe it involves the relationship you desperately want to mend. The bills that keep piling up. The marriage that keeps coming to the same crossroad. The doctor’s report that looks bleek. Or the dream inside you that seems an impossible reality.
But I do know, that record of lies does not have to keep playing and you are not meant to dwell in the valley; not forever.

There’s value in the valley and much to be learned there but if you never leave, what was it all for? How will redemption’s story be told?
Ruth Graham said, ” mountaintops are for breadth of view and inspiration but fruit grows in the valleys”.
The truth is, we need them both. We need moments like 33 hour labor to make us shout, “I can do anything!” But we also need the days that follow to sow, water, weed, and prune through the mud so fruit can grow.

In one of my favorite songs (that has been on repeat recently) Lauren Daigle sings,
“I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough
Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low?
Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know
You say I am loved when I can’t feel a thing
You say I am strong when I think I am weak
You say I am held when I am falling short
When I don’t belong, oh You say that I am Yours
And I believe, oh I believe
What You say of me
I believe”

It doesn’t matter what the old record keeps playing in your mind because the truth is, God says you ARE enough. You ARE loved. You ARE capable. You ARE equipped. And because He is enough, you can climb mountains and plow valleys. Because what He says of you is greater than any old lie other voices are telling you. Because He can do anything, YOU can do anything!

Don’t despise the valley. Tend to the plow. Watch for the fruit. And take your steps; one, after the other, after the other. Push through the pain, back to the mountain where you’ll raise your hands in the air and exclaim, “I can do anything!”