“So what do you do? Are you working right now?”

Every time I hear this question, it triggers a little anxiety. Since deciding to step away from my work as a nurse to stay at home with my kids, it’s taken me a while to be fully at home in my response to this question. I would find myself telling people what I did before motherhood, or that I’m also trying to do this personal side project with writing and lettering. Something to prove to others that I’m worth knowing and have something interesting to show for my life.

I threw a plate at a wall yesterday. It was, granted, a small plastic plate from my kids’ kitchen, but it’s safe to say that I was raging mad. The day had gone not at all as I had planned. Both my kids had fallen sick over the weekend, and so I kept my daughter home from preschool and we cancelled the plans I had set up while my husband was out of town for the week. My normally easygoing son was screaming bloody murder every time I put him down, my daughter seemed particularly demanding and selfish, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to solve some frustrating and scary chronic health issues going on with my daughter. Add some PMS to the mix, and by the end of the day, steam could have been coming out of my ears, ya’ll. It was not pretty.

One of the hopes that I have for this new year is to actually live like the things that I believe are true. Reading through my last 10 years of blog posts reminded me of what a perpetual struggle it has been for me to maintain an integrity between the freeing truths of the gospel and the practical ways that I live out my daily life. I say that I believe that God will supply all of my needs according to His riches in Christ, but I live in constant fear that I will be lacking and inadequate.

When my husband and I moved into our home 6 years ago, we inherited a full, robust loquat tree in our front yard. We knew very little about gardening so we never touched the tree until a few months ago when our neighbors asked us to trim it back.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. - Habakkuk 3:17-19

2021. I almost hesitated writing a reflection this year because it felt like nothing noteworthy happened, but my husband Eden reminded me that although not a lot of events happened, that this was a year of much work in my heart. And that’s worth reflecting about. So here’s to expressing those things and sharing them, in hopes that it could help someone, even if it’s just the future me reading this in a year.

Back in the summer of 2020, I ingested a bit too much caffeinated passionfruit tea for my pregnant self and found myself wide-eyed and bushy-tailed at 2:30am. After a couple hours of trying to return to sleep without success, I started to pray and unexpectedly found myself in some of the sweetest fellowship I have had with God in a while.