We can all take heart in knowing we are all in a very hard season of life right now.

I’m here to remind you we are human. And being a human is so complex but also so simple. Yesterday, I worked all day after a very trying first week of homeschool. It’s when my husband made me realize just how much we are doing, and all the new things we started inside one week, that is making me feel even more insane. He put it in such amazing perspective for me, to imagine all the stress we are feeling right now, and then amplify that inside our kids. God he’s good.

When I was what I’d consider now a very young adult at the tender age of 18, my mother bought me my first designer handbag. A Dooney and Burke limited edition bag from the glass cabinets of Boscov’s. I knew how much the bag was. Heck I still know how much the bag had cost because I felt unworthy to receive such an expensive gift. I wanted her to take it back and just give me the money she had spent so I could make the responsible decision of making a payment on my one measly Macy’s credit card.

But she insisted I keep it. So I did. For a while I wouldn’t even use the bag. I was so scared to use it and ruin it or get it dirty. But my mom encouraged me to, so then it was the only bag I used for years. I had a wallet inside it with literally nothing important. Maybe a few dollars, a paycheck on Fridays on my way to the bank, a lipgloss, my mom’s flip phone some nights when I went to the mall, and definitely a pack of gum.

I can remember going on a cruise with my parents that November, and standing in line with that shiny new, matte leather designer bag and feeling like something was so weird about me using it. I stood on line at the airport, while my parents did all the talking and showing of IDs and what have you, and then my dad would hand me a $50 and the room key for the week and I’d preciously pack it into my wallet with vacant slots and zip her back up.

Once we got on vacation I would leave the bag in the room and never think about it again.

Stay with me.

So l was talking to my sister about life and the state of the world, and I started to explain this feeling that I’ve had many purses, pretty and sensible, oversized and extremely small ones. I’ve had many life lessons and it wasn’t until this conversation that I realized what that bag has symbolized all these years.

I never knew my purpose in life. I didn’t have parents who had all these huge hopes and dreams they wanted me to fulfill. The loved me and wanted to see me do good, but there was never this big end game goal for my life. All I knew was I wanted to be a mother, but had no idea when that would happen for me. So I got a job, went to school, snd then I fell in love with doing hair and made it my career. Still, my bag didn’t feel important enough.

Before I became a mom I was just a little girl walking around a giant airport with a big empty bag. The bag had no real meaning or importance, but I had it, because everyone carried a bag.

The day I met my first born, the bag had become heavy in weight, filled with meaning and important things. The purpose of my life, defined upon meeting someone I created. That bag gained reason, and purpose, and goals. I now knew who I was and what carrying my purse meant.

Then my middle came along, and he taught me how to use the things in my bag, how to explain them to people, and speak about the purpose of what I carry around, broadening and intensifying my purpose on earth and giving it even more meaning and more weight.

And once my sweet girl came, I realized as a woman and a mother, I’m to teach her everything I carry in this bag. All the life lessons and ways to be the best mom to your kids, how to be a woman of faith, and a devoted wife and friend. I’m responsible to teach her how to be everything my mother was to me, and so. Much. more.

So today, myself included, when we go out into the world let’s remember we are all mothers and fathers, potential mothers and fathers who still carry around that empty bag but we carry so much more now too. We carry the weight of motherhood in our hearts. We carry the stress of the world and our passions to fight on our shoulders, and we wear the weight of the world on the smile we muster up for our babies, our friends, and even our own parents some days. And above all else, we are still children in the deepest parts of our hearts who long to change the world. To see the change, and to be the best humans we can possibly be.

It’s September. The world has gone mad, we are back to school, it’s been 20 years since 9/11, and we are entering year three to flatten the curve. We are tired. Our souls are weary. Our hearts are hard. But Today?

I’m choosing to be soft. To give a little slack. To ask for help. To say something nice and smile at a stranger. To be the good. To spread the good. To call in all the good our hearts can stand. And be kind and warm to everyone.