When someone complains about a long day, I have to laugh.

You’ve not experienced a long day until you’ve lived through an Alaskan summer. On the longest day of summer, we have 19 hours of sunlight. The sun slips behind the horizon and then pops back up. Summer is one long day.

I’ve lived through many, many, many, long days.

Baby days were the longest! My daughter was colicky, and I remember thinking I would never sleep again. She’d wake up screaming in the middle of the night, and I’d haul her to the basement, so she wouldn’t wake the rest of the family. I’d sit with her draped across my knees, bouncing her up and down while I watched Five Mile Creek on the Disney channel. Fortunately, she always cried about the same time (1-3 am), so I was able to keep up with the adventures on Five Mile Creek.

The day my husband graduated from seminary should have been an exciting day, but it was another long day. We had invited tons of friends and relatives for the exciting culmination of years of hard work. Then two days before graduation, I miscarried. I remember attending my husband’s graduation, standing there trying to appear happy when in reality I wanted to collapse in a moaning heap on the floor. Trying to put on a happy face during the graduation party. The day felt endless to my shattered heart.

I recall the long days when we first moved to Russia. I evidently read missionary biographies very selectively, as I thought missionary life would be glamorous. That first year I daily juggled 5 hours of language class with 3 hours of homework, helping my children adjust to a new school and culture, cooking everything from scratch, and washing clothes by hand. Let’s just say we all learned to wear clothes for more than one day. Have you ever tried hand-wringing out wet jeans? My wrists still ache from those long days.

Then there were those long days of trying to plant a church. Week after week of hauling songbooks, Bibles, musical instruments to our rented meeting hall and setting up for the service. A home always full of people, countless meals served, and ministry at all hours of the night and day.

When I look back at those long days, a favorite quote by Gretchen Rubin comes to mind.

“The days are long, but the years are short.”

It is so easy to take a snapshot of our current season in life and feel like this is our permanent profile picture.

Right now, you might be a mom of preschoolers with greasy hair scraped back in a ponytail, wearing a shirt bearing the stains from lunch, and Eau de Spit Up wafting in your wake. It seems those days will never end. I’m here to testify – in another year (or two) you’ll have a new profile picture.

Through the years, I have held weeping mothers and cried with them, prayed with them. Mothers of preschoolers, moms grieving as their children leave for college a continent away, women in culture shock, and women who have miscarried. These weren’t pretty snapshots – but I can testify, through God’s grace, a year later the picture looked different.

I’m loving my current profile picture. Two happily married children who are following the Lord. Adorable grandchildren. A large capacity washer and dryer. The 20th anniversary of the church we helped plant in Russia. An exciting new ministry in Alaska. The years have flown!

Yes, it feels like the days are long, but remember, the years are short. There will be new days, new profile pictures, and new memories in the years to come.