Uneven Ground

Dear Fellow Pilgrim,

Someone told me today, “We all grow at different times.” And though my lips said yes, my heart quietly whispered another response:

But what comfort is that?

I know those words are meant to soothe. They are offered with kindness, with gentleness, perhaps even with hope. And yet if I am honest, they landed heavily inside me. Because there are days when I do not merely feel as though I am growing slowly. There are days when I feel late. Late to adulthood. Late to healing. Late to becoming.

And perhaps that sounds strange coming from a woman nearing forty, a woman who holds children in her arms and carries all the visible signs of grown-up life. But some days my soul still feels young and uncertain, like someone just stepping into the hush of early adulthood while everyone else seems to have arrived years ago. And though I know I am supposed to receive these moments with self-compassion, sometimes it feels suspiciously close to self-pity dressed in softer clothes—a kinder way of saying: You’re behind, but at least you’re trying. And it is hard—so hard—not to judge myself for this.

So I wandered in thought and found myself, as I often do, back inside the classroom of memory. Back among chalkboards and crayons and tiny chairs. Back to the language I once knew so well as a teacher. There is a word in education: scaffolding. Perhaps you know it already. But if not, allow me to unfold it gently.

In classrooms we see it plainly: some children arrive at kindergarten already turning pages and shaping letters like tiny miracles. Teachers smile. Parents celebrate. Others arrive having never held a book at all. And some, dear pilgrim, walk into the classroom carrying burdens much heavier than backpacks. Some arrive hungry—not hungry for learning, hungry for food. Their eyes drift not toward the whiteboard but toward the clock, counting the minutes until lunch. And suddenly reading readiness feels very far away.

Would it comfort them to say, “Don’t worry. Everyone grows at different times”? What a lonely kindness that would be if left there. Because teachers know something important: children do not simply need time. Sometimes they need scaffolds.

In construction, scaffolding is temporary support—a structure built so workers can reach places too high to touch alone. In education it works much the same way. It is support offered tenderly and intentionally, so a child can reach alongside peers and participate fully. And as I sat thinking about this today, something in me stilled. Because suddenly I wondered whether life itself resembles that classroom far more than we admit.

We speak as though everyone begins on level ground. But they do not. Some are born where the earth feels firm and sunlit. Their paths are smooth. Their footing steady. Others arrive where the ground is uneven from the very beginning. Some learn first to survive before they ever learn to flourish. Some walk uphill while others stroll. Some walk barefoot where others were handed shoes. Some must first survive the terrain before they can even begin the journey.

And I found myself wondering: should those who began in valleys be shamed for not dancing on mountaintops? Should I?

No one would say yes aloud. And yet quieter judgments often linger around us—the pity disguised as praise, the applause for those farther ahead, while those still climbing carry silence like a stone in their pockets.

But perhaps this is where the mystery begins.

Because God sees the scaffolds. He sees the uneven places. He sees the gaps no one else notices. And He does not arrive carrying a red pen. He does not stand over us as Examiner. He comes instead as Gardener—as one who knows how deep the frost was, how late the thaw arrived, how hard the ground had become. He does not demand harvest where soil was never tilled. He lifts. He teaches. He builds. He fills what is lacking, even in a woman whose body bears the age of motherhood while her heart still feels unfinished.

And perhaps this is not failure after all. Perhaps this is pilgrimage. Because scaffolds are not shameful things. Though temporary, they are holy. Mercies placed along difficult roads. Gifts for weary travelers.

And so I think I will stop scolding my slow growth now. I will stop mocking the unfinished places. I will stop measuring my path against someone else’s springtime. Instead, I will honor the God who found me there—and stayed. And I invite you, dear pilgrim, to do the same. Encourage the one behind you. Reach for the one beside you. Look toward the one ahead only long enough to say: Glory to God for how far we’ve all come. Because in the Kingdom, the last are not forgotten. Often they are the most tenderly carried.

The ground is not level. But with Christ, somehow, it becomes so.