When you got a covid-dog, I got a covid-blog. For two years you fed, walked, and groomed as I observed, edited, and published.

Your dog pulled you on walks; my blog pushed me to look through the lens of hope—even in the darkest hour.

Summer probably has you on a wild ride, packing in more in a week than in one covid season.

In the midst of social requests and family adventures my soul's requests are getting louder: to go slower, with less; to be still, in quiet; to pause, in peace. And when I listen, I welcome joy.

I've never left a funeral without more gratitude for my life and a desire to suck the marrow out of every day—to embrace all of humanity with affection and hope.

The veil between life and death is even thinner when you lose someone you never imagined your life without.

You become vigilant to accept the things you can't change, to change the things you can, and to pray for the wisdom to know the difference (from the Serenity Prayer).

There was chai tea, turkey buns, pies, games, and a campfire on that perfect fall day.

At this covid-friendly, outdoor, family Thanksgiving we'd never guess that six weeks later our dad/grandpa/husband would be fighting leukemia.

Through my dad’s cancer journey this winter I held on to the hope of visiting with him around campfires this summer.

Now, grief has me longing for those first seconds after waking, when it is all just a bad dream.

But instead, I wake to a stinging reality, This Too Shall Last—a book I read this month about finding grace when suffering lingers.

In this post, I reflect on K.J. Ramsey's perspectives as I share my wrestling with suffering, goodness, community, and hope.

This idea of clinging to Jesus is not a theological platitude, it is a deeply personal journey of faith, that brings the intimacy, vulnerability and connection we long for.

Do you need a way through?

“…there isn’t a light just at the end of the tunnel, but there is Light Himself with us now who leads the whole way through.”

Voskamp opens WayMaker in a surprisingly vulnerable way, sharing an awkward and painful dance towards intimacy as a newlywed, paralleling the vulnerability required for the wedded connection our souls desire with our Creator.

Hidden away in our storage room is a massive bin of time capsules. These are my journals consisting of messy writing, desperate prayers, and useless details, along with my dated day planners holding menial tasks, including which days I washed my hair—thank you dry shampoo!

But they also chart a path through the terrain of a heart growing from a child to a woman and a wife to a mother.

These bound pages tucked away as keepsakes are intricate maps revealing struggles and successes.

January has been full of video calls, rapid tests, lifting my mom’s walker in and out of my van for her hospital visits with my dad, and racing out of the hospital parkade to get home too late after visiting my dad.

Even if your year is beginning in bliss, with the wind at your back, at some point we all experience a season of struggle or crisis—let’s not mention two years of a pandemic!

I’m so grateful there were many helpful things already established in my life to guide me forward in this season.

As I reflect on these 4 next right things in crisis, consider how you can be prepared when trouble comes!

Our Charlie Brown Christmas tree stood in our bay window this month crooked with weeping, gaping branches.

It was the year of tree shortages.

But there in the sparseness of our sad Christmas tree was a message that didn’t need sprucing up.

It was happening again.

She was shut down like a clam, no budging, no words, no engagement. This was the perfect opportunity to practice what I was learning and I could hear author Jennifer Kolari’s wise words:

Connect before you correct!

Mirroring the emotions of my children is not my first instinct.

Drilling down on the outward behavior, the unintentional disrespect, and the time being lost is more natural. I want to make everything right as fast as possible.

But this time I didn’t rush the process.

This time I made space for her to breathe as we slowed down together.

I asked questions, reflected on her emotions, and mirrored her feelings. I created a safe place.

When the beginning is marked with plus signs, flutters, and first breaths, the end is oh so quiet.

Like the final time I held my toddler to breastfeed, or when I unknowingly stuffed a dirty diaper down the diaper genie for the last time, or when the crib slid out the door in pieces on Mother’s Day weekend.

My sixth baby is turning three this month and over the last year, I have said goodbye to a decade of birthing babies.

One of the first times we hung out she whipped up stacks of pancakes, so the kids and I could stay for supper since my husband was away on a backcountry trip.

Lindsay’s casual hospitality was refreshing and I learned a lot about her big heart, as I asked questions about their family’s fostering and adopting story.

Today you get to eavesdrop on some of the questions I asked at our playdates and glean some great tips if you are on the journey of fostering and adopting, or desire to support a family on this journey.

A word slithered in and wrapped around my chest just before Mother's Day weekend.  Some of you know it too well.

Cancer.

My heart twisted into a knot along with my aching back. Rain poured outside as I sat inside with my tears. It wasn't fear or despair; it was reality.  A deep sadness.  My beautiful mom was waiting for hip surgery, not a lumpectomy! 

As I caught my breath Sarah Clarkson's words in her new book This Beautiful Truth: How God's Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness, spoke to my soul.

Many nights I'd knock on my parents' door to process my heart's questions or struggles. One night, as my parents were quietly praying for me, I knocked on their door. The Holy Spirit had convicted me to apologize after a rough day.

In the safety of our homes, we get to teach our children how to handle freedom and choice!

But first, we need to manage our anxiety so we can protect our connection.

“The purpose of the fast is not to simply step away from distraction but to exchange those distractions for real-life devotion.  To whet your appetite for God so that you turn to Him—not online distractions, food, alcohol, or anything else—to satisfy your hunger!”

While sugar and social media are two common soul distractions, the heart message in both books is about recognizing where we go to fill the God-shaped holes in our souls.

This is much easier to read than to practice day after day! There is both a physical and spiritual tension when we fight the pull to numb out with a favorite snack, mindless scroll, or the latest version of a ‘savior'.

Last weekend sixty beautiful ladies sat physically distanced across our church sanctuary to take in IF:Gathering. This women’s conference is simulcasted into thousands of homes and gathering spaces across the globe every year.

We were challenged to hope and trust in the Lord through all the ‘even if’ places in our hearts.

It was like I was in my teens again, taking in a missions or youth conference where the message to pursue personal revival, and live with an urgency to share Christ and disciple our generation reverberated.

Has Holy Spirit been shining a light on an area in your life?

At our last Homeschool Moms' Night In a mom shared about changes she made in her life during 2020 after the pandemic started. We all longed to reach through the Zoom screen and give her a hug after she shared so beautifully her testimony of not just weight loss and paying off debt, but of getting her life back!

What struck me about her story was how her husband and her recognized areas of their lives that were not reflecting what they valued, and together they took steps to make changes. They didn’t blame shift, even while acknowledging there were people in their lives who were enabling them, but they set boundaries and chose change!

A friend gifted me the book Surprised by Paradox, by Jen Pollock Michel, this past Christmas.

Given our culture’s struggle with triggering conversations lately, I was intrigued.

Division, dissection, and discrimination define the polarization that’s bathed our world in anxiety and hate this last year.

Though we try, hot topics don’t usually fall into black and white categories, because real life is a prism of complexity.

There is rarely one answer and one right way.

I was reading from the Jesus Storybook Bible during our morning homeschool time a few weeks ago when we came to a part that reflected on Jesus welcoming the children.

In these pages, we were asked to imagine how we’d behave around Jesus and how He would treat us.

My drama background took over and I decided to play the part of Jesus!

Each kid ran and jumped into my lap as I spoke words of affirmation over them, and offered silly compliments all with big exaggerated expressions. I was surprised by my joy and their delight. It didn’t matter the age, all six kids wanted a turn leaping into the lap of “Jesus” and experiencing His welcome!

I felt convicted.

For the first part of 2021, we are unwrapping what it means to live soulfully—which includes the body, mind, and spirit.

My intention was to get into some of the nitty-gritty of fitness and nutrition in this post, but on a walk last week my mind traveled in another direction. 

A direction I feel God smiling on.

The internet is stuffed full of links, articles, research, and apps on every fitness and nutrition plan you could imagine.

So before I share my sliver in a pie bursting with options, let’s get to the heart of fitness and nutrition—the why.

2021 is the year we get our lives back—right?

Even if a vaccine relieves our world of the coronavirus restrictions, the global heartache present before this pandemic is the real threat to our lives!

It started with the neglect of our souls.

John Eldredge observed this soul pandemic and offers “everyday practices for a world gone mad” in his latest book Get Your Life Back.

The sun is setting on a year of change, loss, heartbreak, division, and depression as well as a year of resiliency, gratitude, healing, unity, and hope!

Individuals and communities pivoted, created, innovated, and grew through cancellations and restrictions.

I cried a little as we visited with friends on new year’s eve last year because I didn't have a ‘word’ for 2020 but mostly because I didn't know what I needed or what God had for the next year!