This photo and link are from a U.S. News and World Report article featuring my dear friend, Brandy Bailey. She is a real life superhero. God knit my heart to hers ten years ago at the District Attorney’s Office in Brownsville, Texas, the day she asked me to be her partner prosecuting a child sexual abuse case. I said yes, and God joined in and blessed it.
We tried child abuse cases together for several years, through the first two of my three pregnancies. I remember feeling both spiritually satisfied, and emotionally drained. I remember days I cried my eyes out in my car after work. I remember bringing the facts of the cases home with me at night, unable to shake them. I remember praying for many months that God would take that cup from me, and find another way to use me– one that didn’t require so much. I loved my work, but I wanted to be home with my kids.
My third child, Mitchell, is the only one born outside of Brownsville. The only one that while in utero didn’t try a murder case with me. The only one to know a mother who is home all day, every day. Some days this feels like a win, and some days it feels like a loss.
Often I remember my prayer for a different cup. I know that God would have continued to use me there, on the front lines, had I asked. Some days I wish I was as strong as Bailey, to pray only for what God wants of me and not insert myself into the prayer. But then I remember that He knows my heart before I tell Him, and He knows my limits.
My decision to stay home felt easy at the time. I would make the same decision again. There are days I really miss the courtroom; days I really miss Bailey. There are days I miss putting on high heels and leaving my house. There are days I miss showing up at day care to pick up kids I actually missed. All in one weepy jumble I both miss the abused children and hope to never meet another one. I always miss feeling like I was at the center of God’s heart, fighting on a front line next to my friend.
I enjoyed my job. I miss my job. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to it. I probably won’t. My portion right now are the three children under my roof. These truths feel better on some days than others.
A strange thing I learned as an adult is that all the people who are running the world are just people making choices. Just like the people in the Bible. You don’t achieve magical wisdom in your thirties, and adulthood doesn’t deliver you to the wizard behind the curtain. Superheroes are born as ordinary people, sometimes quite flawed, not knowing they will be superheroes. But somewhere along the way, their choices make them heroes. They say Yes when it is asked of them. They make sacrifices when others make excuses.
Brandy Bailey has always inspired me. It isn’t that she has raw intelligence, hidden talents, or a wellspring of courage when others feel afraid. In fact, we often felt afraid together. It is that in the face of fear, time and time again she chooses to go in. She chooses what God wants for her life over what she wants for her life. She chooses to lay it down and watch it burn. To do what is right.
I believe God ordained me to be the Jonathan to her David. I am her encourager and her friend. I show up every now and then to say, “You’ve got this! You are right where God wants you!” And like their relationship, ours is sometimes too deep for words. We have more than once wept on each others’ shoulders. We won’t ever be able to explain to other people what those days were like. The cases and kids and late nights and bathroom breaks and hallway sobs and last-minute prayers that bound us. Much like soldiers who go to war together, there are some things only we will ever know.
I know, I know, it was just the practice of law. And what I’m doing now is just motherhood. True, true. But also, this is it— these hours and these days and these choices. This is a story He is writing on our hearts and in our lives and in our relationships. I am so deeply humbled and honored that at one time, my story came alongside that of Brandy Bailey. I am better for having known her, and called her friend. Her everyday choices– the small and private and hard ones– turned her into a superhero. I want to be a witness, not just in this life but in heaven, too. I hope He lets me stand close by when He welcomes her home. I’d love to see that.