You Didn't Lose Her. You Just Forgot.

I’ve discovered how to practice patience. Just take a road trip through Chicago on a Friday afternoon.

Recently my daughters and I hopped in our car to visit friends across state lines, which according to the GPS should have been a three-hour drive. And on the way there, it was. We arrived late Thursday afternoon and spent the evening chatting, laughing, snacking, and enjoying precious time with precious people. It was worth every second of the trip.

Even the trip home. 

Because let me tell you, that was no three-hour drive. As soon as our SUV met the on-ramp, we crawled, bumper to bumper, across 200 miles of interstate. Apparently everybody with a vehicle decided to hit the highway that afternoon, and so with only a couple quick bathroom breaks and one 20-minute lunch stop, our three-hour drive grew to nearly seven hours on the road. Seven!! By the time my girls and I reached home at last, our brains were drained and our legs were taffy.

And I had never felt so strong.

Because this trip? It was a big deal for me. Before marriage, I drove long road trips through big city expressways all the time. At night! I knew how to crank up my cassette player, flip on the cruise control and manage tricky traffic without a second thought for my safety or skill. I was independent. I was capable.

And then I met my husband. And he did all the driving.

And the gas pumping.

And the tire checking.

And I became content to settle into my passenger seat, the trusty companion, relying on my husband to take the wheel. And that’s okay. That’s a blessing. Marriage takes teamwork, and we do that very well.

Yet I think I forgot my own abilities in the midst of it.

I used to know how to troubleshoot the DVD player. Now I ask my husband to fix the Netflix login.

I used to pound nails in the wall and hang pictures wherever I wanted them. Now my husband prefers to measure, level, and reinforce. So I don’t even bother. Hanging pictures is his job now.

Grilling, mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage—there are all sorts of tasks around the house that belong to my man because we’re a duo, we divide and conquer so our household can thrive. Whether or not I can actually do the jobs he does seems kind of irrelevant because I don’t HAVE to do them. 

But then came the road trip. And I realized how long it had been since I’d driven such a distance on my own, and even more serious now because I wasn’t really on my own at all. I had two beautiful young women to transport and protect. My cherished cargo. Their safety was all up to me. No husband buffer would be manning the wheel this time. Mom had to step it up! And I did! I was the queen of the road trip!

Until my “low tire” light went on.

Dang. I’m not the one who checks the tires! I don’t use an air pump! I didn’t even have a tire gauge in my car, for crying out loud.

But—I did what mature people do. I remained calm, got off at the nearest gas station, bought a tire gauge and checked those PSIs like a boss. And the whole time I was unscrewing wheel caps, filling my tires with loud bursts of air, getting my fingers black and my forehead sweaty, my confidence swelled like it hadn’t in years.

I am capable.

And sometimes I forget.

Do you forget, too? 

There’s a big difference between not having to do something, and not being capable. Sometimes I just confuse the two. As if, in the roles and routines of family life, I’ve lost some old part of me. But I haven’t. You haven’t. We’ve just made that old girl better. Different, maybe, but better.

And if you’re in the stage I’m in—watching your kids grow into adults, FaceTiming their dorm rooms, learning to let go—then you know exactly what I mean. Because the closer they get to leaving, the more we realize: we've been pouring ourselves into other people for so long, we’ve forgotten what we’re capable of on our own.

We’ve forgotten who we were before “Honey” and “Mom” became our first names.

I stopped driving long distances because my husband took over the driver’s seat. I stopped hanging pictures because I could pass them off to him. I stopped doing a hundred other tasks because marriage and motherhood created a beautiful division of labor—and I was grateful for it.

But capable? I never stopped being capable.

Neither did you.

Because while we were busy raising humans, loving our people, and doing the daily work of building a family, we were also becoming. Becoming wiser, stronger, more resilient than we know. We’ve navigated sick kids, budget crunches, heartbreak, years when our marriages were held together with duct tape and prayer, and a thousand Tuesday afternoons that required more energy than we had.

And we did it.

So when the house gets quieter and the calendar gets emptier and we find ourselves wondering, “Who am I now, beyond all of this?”—that’s not a crisis. That’s an invitation.

An invitation to rediscover what God put in us before the kids, before the roles, before the routines took over.

“For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10, NLT)

You are capable. Not just of road trips and tire gauges. But of purpose. Of reinvention. Of stepping into this next season with the wisdom of everything that came before.

God doesn’t waste a single year of what you and I have lived. He’s been building us all along.

So if ever you feel inadequate or scared or unsure of who you are outside of the roles you’ve played so well…

If ever you wonder whether the best years are behind you…

If ever the idea of an empty nest feels more like an empty life…

Hear this.

You are capable.

You always were.

And God’s not done with you yet.

So next time you’re feeling like you’ve lost yourself somewhere between the carpool line and the college drop-off—pull over at the nearest gas station. Check your tires. Remember who you are.

And then? Get back on the road. The best part of the trip might still be ahead.