By Larissa Darter 
There’s a quiet space no one really talks about in motherhood: the in-between.
Yet I spend a lot of time in my thoughts here; maybe you do too.
Not the beginning, with its tiny newborn cries and foggy-eyed wonder.
Not the end, when the house quiets and the calendar clears.
But the sacred, shifting middle—the in-between—where you find yourself holding a toddler whose feet no longer fit into the baby shoes, but not quite big enough for the next size.
Wiping away tears from a daughter too old for diapers, yet still small enough to curl up and fall asleep in your lap. A boy who is trading his dinosaurs and plastic military toys for video games, who stops asking for hugs, but never turns them down when you ask for just one good one. Walking beside a son too tall for the elementary playground, but not yet ready to navigate middle school lockers and changing friendships.
This is where I find myself—and maybe where you are too.
Motherhood is a thousand tiny transitions, and most of them come without notice or warning.
No one throws a party when your child suddenly doesn’t want to hold your hand anymore.
No one sends a card when the bedtime routine shortens, when the last bottle is packed away, or when you realize this may be the last summer you’re the center of their world.
It’s the in-between where joy and ache hold hands. Your heart swells with pride for who they simply are, becomes next-door neighbors with the teenage years and tender momma prayers. I find myself spending most of my time here, in the in-between.
We celebrate the milestones: solid foods, sleeping through the night, potty training, first dates, driver’s licenses, college acceptance letters—and we’re proud. We post the pictures, share the awards, and buy the cake to commemorate.
But if we’re honest, in the quiet moments, we also grieve.
Not because we’re not proud, but because change, even good change, carries weight. We sit in the tension of what was and what’s coming, the now and the not yet.
Did I prepare them enough?
Will they be able to handle what’s ahead?
How did we get here so fast?
Did I give it everything I had in those fleeting moments?
And those swirling questions in our heads can make us captive to fear, regret, and worry. But if we pause long enough, we’ll notice we’re invited to something holy:
faith. God whispers, “You’re not raising them alone.”
He says, “Hold it tenderly. Pray with expectancy. Live confidently, it will be so.”
As a mom, I’ve learned I can resist the new stage—and sometimes I do. I want to cling tightly to what I know, what I’ve nurtured.
But if I hold too tightly, I risk squeezing out the growth God wants to do in my child, and also in me.
So as I find myself living out most days here, in this in-between, I’m learning to live with open hands.
To hold gently what I’ve been entrusted with, and lift it back up to God, whispering,
“This was Yours all along.”
Because motherhood was never about control. It’s about stewardship, surrender, and sacred release. The delicate dance of the in-between.
by Stephanie Gibbons 
by Whitney Fleming 
