The Gift of Limitations

January 15, 2024
“Within the boundaries we resent there is a life that is limitless,” according to this gentle and lyrical outing from Hagerty (Adore). As a strapped-for-time mom of seven, the author realized that focusing on all she couldn’t do kept her from appreciating such moments as “how the sun hits the crown of my baby girl’s head in spring” and “tasting how caramelized onions make a dish that much better.” Describing how she sought to put her trust in God that “what is within reach... is going to be good,” Hagerty invites readers to savor their own everyday blessings; embrace their fallibility (“I settle into being a mother to seven whose needs I can’t all meet... rather than resisting or building a life, a schedule, or plan against it”); and accept the presence of grief, because “what we want to erase and move past and overcome, God often wants to walk through with us.” Hagerty gracefully challenges the notion “that we can be in more than one place at once and have it all,” and readers will be especially affected by her raw insights into parenting four adopted children (“I welcome the whisper into my heart, You were never meant to be enough for them. No parent is”). This will be a balm to Christians who feel overextended.