The Gift of Believing

Santa Billy had an early Christmas present for me at sunrise yesterday – a red tumbler with “Believe” emblazoned across it. He handed it to me with his characteristic grin, white whiskers catching the morning light, before climbing back onto his beach-raking tractor.

Lord knows I need to believe.

Obviously, I believe in something. I believe the sun will rise. It always does. Constant. Steady. It’s a waiting game, but I wait expectantly. Rain or shine, the sky begins to lighten. The soundtrack builds from a base of crickets and cicadas against gentle tide, swelling to encompass birds chirping, crowing, cawing. The river waves lap in rhythm unless hurried along by a distant boat, only to return to the eternal pattern of low to high tide and back again.

I believe in the sun in a way I can’t believe in myself. Because I’m not steady or sure.

There is One, however, I can believe in. And I’m believing Him for this book – the one where I’ve shared the gospel more explicitly than ever before. It’s become my ministry, this manuscript. My calling.

The Beauty of Partly Cloudy

I’ve been coming to Yorktown Pier every morning since last December. Sprinkling lightly? I still set up my beach chair. On the last two rainy occasions, it was as if the precipitation paused just for me, leaving me to journal in a just-dry dawn. Even when I know I won’t see the sun crest – might not see it at all – I’m still there.

God paints sunrises to express the full range of human emotions: mist, rain, fog, snow, sleet, clear skies, partly cloudy, and of course, sunny days. I’ve witnessed them all, felt what they represent.

But here’s what I’ve come to understand: the sunny days are far less captivating than when the forecast reads “partly cloudy at sunrise.”

Those are the days the river mirrors the sky in pinks and golden orange. The clouds turn cotton candy – pink and purple-blue. The interplay of light and shadow creates depth pure sunshine can’t rival.

For me, partly cloudy is the mood state I shoot for – euthymia. I don’t want to burn bright like a cloudless day or spread myself thin in depressed mist. I want the balance, the beauty that comes from contrast, the faith that emerges in the in-between.

Shifting With the Sun

I’ve had to move to the right side of the pier where I used to sit last winter. Day after day, chasing this sunrise, I’ve noticed: the sun shifts, and so do I.

This weekend was all about Calista’s fourteenth birthday party. We prepared a little each day last week, building toward the colorful chaos of serving family. On Thursday night, while Tony chaperoned Cali’s marching band at the high school, I snuck away to Fort Monroe beach. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been, which meant it was time to ground myself.

I grabbed my ukulele for a sunset sea glass stroll. For an hour, everything slowed down. I walked the shore and remembered when I used to be a sunset girl – up late, sleeping through the sunrise. That hour readied me for the weekend ahead. By the time Cali took the field for her halftime show, I was back in Yorktown beside Tony, cheering her on, made complete by my brief time away.

The Harder Wait

I’ve started my second round of submissions. I’ve revised my manuscript – now titled Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made: From Shame to Sanctuary. I’m reworking all my marketing materials.

It’s harder waiting on my book to be published than waiting for sunrise. Publishing isn’t certain like dawn. There’s no guarantee that if I show up enough mornings, an agent will say yes. No promise that persistence alone will crack open this door.

And still, I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to do when I’m sitting in that majestic mirror each morning. God meets me there in the partly cloudy moment and in the extremes of brilliant sunshine or impenetrable fog in the nuanced sky that holds both light and shadow.

What Believing Looks Like

I believe we can change. I’ve seen it in myself – from sunset girl to sunrise woman, from hiding my bipolar to sharing my story, from sinking shame to seeking sanctuary.

I believe in the sunrise, even when clouds obscure it.

I believe in the kindness of folks God positions in our lives – the Santa Billys who hand us exactly what we need to hear at exactly the right moment.

I believe in my calling, in my book, in this ministry of vulnerable truth-telling.

Mostly, however, I believe that the partly cloudy days – in weather and in life – are where the real beauty lives. Not in the extremes of mania or depression, success or failure, acceptance or rejection, but in the in-between spaces where faith has room to grow.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be back at the pier, Billy’s red tumbler in hand, waiting for whatever sky God paints. Because I’ve learned that “Believe” isn’t about certainty. It’s about showing up in the in-between, trusting that partly cloudy can be the most beautiful forecast of all.

Maybe that’s why they call it faith – this willingness to wait for what we cannot guarantee, to find beauty in what isn’t perfect, to believe even when we can’t be sure.

The sun will rise tomorrow. That much I know. Everything else? I’m learning to hold loosely, to shift when needed, to find God in the partly cloudy dawn.

And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s everything.