My husband is reading my book today.

I'm downstairs painting the kitchen. Our kids are alternating between shooting baskets and running through the sprinklers out back. Music is playing.

And my husband is reading the words I've kept hidden in the center of my heart. He's reading the book I've been creeping downstairs to write every morning around 5am. The story that makes me cry no matter how many times I've read it.

He already gave me his blessing to write whatever I want to write. To say whatever it is I need to say.

But I needed him to read it before it becomes final.

A minute ago he stopped me mid-roll to whisper gently in my ear, "It's beautiful" before he went back upstairs to keep reading.

People ask me sometimes what my book is about. And usually I freeze. Never quite sure what to say.

What IS it about??? Addiction? Marriage? Childhood traumas? Practicing medicine? Motherhood?

But today as fresh white paint covers the old, I finally realize what to say...

My book is about healing.

It's about how life is complicated and messy and hard. Yet sometimes the beauty of an ordinary moment quite nearly takes my breath away.

It's about how every single day we are becoming.

Fresh and new. Stronger than before. A little more the person we already are in Him.

My book is about surrendering the idea of a 'perfect' life and discovering beauty in the mess.

Today clean white paint is covering the grime and that old dingy gray.

I'm painting.

And healing.

And believing there is beauty right here amid the rubble.