I say my husband and I found healing in an unexpected place to us—because in our pride, we assumed real healing could only come from those who agreed with us.

As the Christmas season approaches, memories around my twins’ traumatic birth start to tumble in my heart. How do we quiet our hearts to enjoy Christmas this year? How do we find the peace that was announced on Christ’s birth? I think of Mary, the mother of our Savior, and the example she left us.

Every baby, every mother, every family is different to some degree. What works for one mom or one baby might not work for another; but in both my pregnancies and postpartum experiences I’ve found these six things to be true each time.

Sometimes, suffering will be a reckoning with our doctrine. It will appear as hopeless laments. Sometimes there may even be questions and doubts. But God is still there.

More than six million people in the United States alone face intrusive thoughts. Perhaps you’re one of those people. And perhaps like me, these thoughts rattle you and your faith at times. What’s wrong with me? How can I, one redeemed by Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, experience these kinds of disturbing, violent, or sexual thoughts?

My entire life I’ve waged war against anxiety. I’ve longed for the day when I wouldn’t be afraid of vomiting or social gatherings. After all these years, I’m still facing anxiety. Maybe you’ve heard those stories of victory and overcoming I’m learning that those aren’t the only stories. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us are hopeless—if we choose, we can find quite the opposite.

Discipleship doesn’t only take place in quiet rooms with books, Bibles, and coffee—it also takes place in the bustling homes of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Thanksgiving doesn’t come naturally to our hearts. It appears as the most easy of prayers, yet it’s often the one we neglect the most. If we collected all our complaints and praises in a jar, we might be shocked by which one bubbled up to the top. Why is this? How do we grow in thanksgiving when it doesn’t come naturally?

Do you wonder why God never speaks to you? Pastors, conference speakers, mentors, and friends all hear from God. But all you hear is the humming of your dishwasher. You never feel any nudges or hear any whispers. Maybe you’re starting to wonder if God loves you less.

Perfectionism paints a pretty, promising picture for us: Our hearts will be at rest and our minds will be at peace. But each day perfectionism brings us no closer to that promise and instead leaves us exhausted, frustrated, anxious, and hopeless. But if you rest in Christ and his model for growth, you’ll find true rest and peace.

As I grieved our losses and trials, I, like Elisabeth Elliot, realized not all suffering falls into neat and tidy boxes. We can’t simply assess our pain and drop it into the right category and then deduce the results that should follow. Some, if not most, suffering is beyond our understanding.

Do you resist the rest your body aches for because the floors must be scrubbed today? Do you say yes to yet another project, another event, even though your schedule already has you weary? What if we stopped following the example of our children and instead obeyed God’s call to rest?

When I’m drowning in a season of suffering, my pain often floods my vision, and I miss the small moments where God is still faithful. Suddenly all his promises and claims of character fall flat in front of me like cardboard cut-outs. He’s still the same God in that suffering, but often it’s my eyes—my faith—that have grown jaded and weak.

To trust God we don’t need to turn our heads from modern medicine and research. Those places aren’t God-forsaken. Even if the people’s hearts are darkened towards him, he is still powerful and gracious enough to shine through them.

One day as I struggled to burp one baby while the other wiggled next to me, I muttered to my husband, “God should have given mothers of multiples the ability to grow an extra arm.” But as each day passed and more people offered to help, I realized that God had given us something much better than extra limbs—he had given us whole people who loved us and our children.

April was c-section awareness month. All month long I scrolled past social media posts empowering me to stop seeing my scars as a failure but as celebration of what my body could do. Those posts angered me. My body did fail me, I thought. There’s a bit of truth to that, but I’m learning that there is still cause for celebration—though not in me and my body, but in a God who is much greater.

Have you ever sat across from a friend and felt your theological disagreements strike up between you like a jagged fence? Perhaps it felt like a crack in the foundation of your friendship, and your heart ached a little—from wonder at how she disagreed with you to fears of losing your friend. How do we move forward?

Church can feel like an add-on to our weeks. We’ve already invested so much time in going to small groups and other activities. Is church even important? We have the music, the teaching, the Word, and the fellowship all contained in our pockets. Is it really worth waking everyone up early and piling into the car to drive to church each Sunday to do what we’ve already been doing all week?

Patience is a virtue I am continually chipping away at. In a similar way to these ordinary tasks, I’m learning to be slow and patient with my words as well. And I find these two pictures of patience from my husband to be a helpful reminder of what that patience looks like.

When someone experiences suffering or grief, especially one we haven’t experienced ourselves, our mouths often feel dry and empty. But don’t let fear of saying the wrong thing or of encountering her grief keep you from speaking. You only need a few simple components to show a grieving parent of a miscarriage your care and love.