One of the most shocking television moments I ever witnessed was on L.A. Law in the 1980s. A character everyone loved to hate, Rosalind stepped through her law office’s elevator doors mid-sentence and unexpectedly plummeted to her death. That’s kind of how I felt when I became a mom…like I was falling. I stepped forward, and the floor wasn’t there. The drastic life change was much more challenging than I expected in ways I didn’t anticipate.

When I looked to the future as a child, I never saw myself as a mom. Babysitting bored me to tears. The one time I watched a baby, I cut my hand on a glass while washing the family’s dishes. My baby dolls always ended up with ugly, chopped hair, marker stains on their faces, and missing clothes. Meanwhile, my older sister’s dolls were perfectly coifed, with pressed garments and tiny plastic shoes still on their feet. I just wasn’t very maternal.

But by my mid-twenties, I was surprised by the desire to have a child. Within a couple of years, I was expecting our first son. The pregnancy wasn’t an easy journey, but having a new infant in my charge 24/7 (and one who didn’t sleep) made the pregnancy and birth feel like a walk in the park. The full weight of my responsibility started to dawn on the night he was born. The predictability of my career had been traded for the full-time care of a brand-new, tiny human dependent on me to sustain his life. Poor guy! I hoped he wouldn’t end up looking like my childhood baby dolls.

I had entered a territory where my daily rhythm and purpose had cataclysmically shifted. Becoming a mom was much harder than I envisioned, and I was ill-prepared for the job. Lacking infant and childcare experience, I tried gleaning information from books to supplement my fledgling maternal instinct. My husband was in it with me but had even less experience than me and worked long hours. And despite his help and support, I struggled to manage the myriad of feelings the baby birthed in me. On top of that, we moved to another state just months after he was born.

As I muddled through that first year of motherhood, my inability to find equilibrium had an upside. The realization that I didn’t have what I would need for the job, no matter how many books I read, sent me running back to God. Though I had committed my life to Christ at age twelve and had never stopped believing in Him, I had not been close to God for over a decade. I hadn’t lived for Him, attended church, worshipped, prayed regularly, or been in relationship with other believers. But God used that elevator-shaft season of new motherhood to draw me closer to Him. And stepping back onto the firm foundation of God’s love was what finally steadied me in the chaos of change.

Fast-forward twenty-five years, when my youngest son left for college in 2021. Moving him out, the last of four, was another significant floor-shifting event. Once again, I entered a foreign place where I quickly realized that my expectations weren’t aligning with reality. But I had learned something during those years of raising kids: one of my earthly roles might be “mom,” but my identity was in Christ. So, even though the momentous shift in my life rattled me, I gained my footing much faster.

Also, when I became a new mom, my distance from God made it harder for me to rest in His peace, presence, and provision as I grew into my role. But, when seasons dramatically changed again as the kids left home, I wasn’t as caught off guard by the new uncertainty and swirling emotions. Through a quarter-century of walking closely with God through a thousand things, big and small, I knew Him better. I trusted Him more, and because of that, I didn’t flail for long before I remembered to rely on Him. Experience showed that He would be with and guide me in the uncertainty.

So many life seasons are like that – not what we planned or pictured. When massive shifts in our roles occur, routines are upended, emotions become tangled, and we often flounder. Yet it’s usually in those places where we feel most ill-equipped and off-balance that God reveals His faithfulness most clearly and draws us to Himself.

I once read a story about an adoptive son who found his birth mother. He said if there were any advice he could give, it would be this: don’t be afraid to enter an unknown future with a known God. The more we know God, the less fearful we are. We can step into new seasons and chapters of life without fear because God is already there to catch, hold, guide, and comfort us.

God has brought me a long way from that first day in the hospital with my newborn son. As I parented four kids through all the joys and trials of growing up, God equipped me with what I needed to mature and thrive along with them. And motherhood became my greatest joy, despite initially seeming a poor fit for me. Of course, I’m still a little sad at times that my kids have grown, and I’m unsure of what will happen next. But I am not terrified, defeated, or overly anxious because I know God is close. That is my secret weapon now, the rope that I cling to when the elevator doors open and the floor isn’t there. And when I step intentionally into that space, trusting Him to catch me, there’s usually a pretty big adventure waiting in the unknown.