The baby and I spent the last week up in Virginia visiting with my sister and her family. She’s just entered the last month of her pregnancy, so we skipped the usual D.C. tourist grind in favor of playing with my baby and her preschooler, shopping, hanging out and talking…and talking…and talking.

One of our more memorable conversations revolved around what our Mom would call a “sigh”. Sighs are those incredible, bittersweet, and amazing defining moments (good and bad) when you realize that your life will change forever. She was “sighing” a bit as she enjoyed these last precious weeks of her little guy being an only child—even as she joyfully anticipated the birth of this new baby.

I thought about some of the moments that are my “sighs” in life.

…Meeting the man who would not only become my husband, but would be instrumental in leading me to Christ

…Getting the late evening phone call informing me of my dad’s death

…Sitting having ice cream with my two oldest children, knowing that I was in labor with my third, but savoring just “one last time” being out with only them

…Stepping out of a plane and breathing in African air

…Rocking in my living room, watching a rare Arizona rainstorm in the middle of the night and trying to remember every moment of that last night I would feel a baby kick and roll inside of me.

…Watching my children kiss me goodbye and cheerfully enter their classrooms, my kindergardener telling me, “Mom, you can go now”.

…Feeding Mr. Milk Monkey bananas and rice cereal tonight, knowing that it’s the first step in not needing mamma to meet every need.


I wonder if King Solomon was “sighing” a bit when he wrote, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

I entered a new season with this sister during the past week.

After years of rivalry and conflict, we’ve found common ground in our mutual bonds as sisters in Christ, as wives, and as mothers. We don’t always see eye to eye, but we do know that we have a relationship worth fighting for and pursuing.

As I kissed her goodbye at the airport, I touched the life swelling under her shirt and felt my heart sigh with joy and hope for the future. Things would never be the same again.
I wasn’t just saying goodbye to my sister, I was saying goodbye to my friend.