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.

For those of you who take your deepest breaths in nature and love getting your hands in the soil in the spring, I am right there with you!

This is such a hopeful time of year as we witness the seasons change and feel the sun’s warmth.

Currently, a large portion of my time is devoted to seeds. Purchasing seeds, sowing seeds indoors to get a head start on the season and caring for seedlings. I will always be amazed at the capacity held within a tiny seed and marvel at the miracle of a seed transforming into nourishing food or beautiful flowers.

How imaginatively creative is our God who designed life to grow from a seed!?

“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.

Have you heard the one about the mom who can’t sleep and runs on coffee before noon and wine after noon? Well, it’s not funny to me. Far too many mothers are chronically stressed and sleep-deprived. I’ve had enough. These mothers deserve support, not to be left to suffer alone.

If you’re a mom who wants to drink coffee and wine daily—absolutely no judgment here. However, you should not feel like you must fuel with caffeine and alcohol just to get by.

Moms deserve to sleep well, to enjoy life, not suffer through it.

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!

Last month my three girls came across the kindling for our next family adventure—our audio version of Anne of Green Gables!

I was tickled by how taken they were by Anne ‘with an E'.

Their delight and questions grew as they flipped through the storybook my mom brought back from PEI a few summers ago.

I decided to present them with the DVD set I had tucked away.

Before Dressember, I was extremely unaware of the global state of slavery and human trafficking. I was oblivious to the 40 million people who were being enslaved through sex trafficking, bonded labour, slave labour, forced marriage among many other types of slavery. I had no idea that out of that 40 million people, one-quarter of those were children or that the average age of being manipulated in sex trafficking is between 12 and 14 years of age.

Christmas was magical growing up. There were family gatherings, special traditions, piles of gifts and food, and a focus on the gift of Jesus Christ. I couldn’t have asked for more.

But in the last decade, I have found the ‘more’ something to fight.

While it is sad many Christmas traditions will look different this year, during a pandemic, a quieter Christmas sounds like a gift to me!

In recent years I’ve felt more dread than anticipation when opening my online Christmas folder.

Last month as I engaged in our church’s commissioning prayer at the end of the online service and cried “here I am Lord” on the hotel room floor, I began to grieve for those unconscious on the battlefield—asleep to their purpose, drunk with addiction, dead to life, without vision.

Some of the very children who shone the brightest are under a dark cloud of deception.

Is your laundry system working?

In most areas of life, a good system relieves overwhelm.

I came across the Fly Lady many years ago and appreciate the practice of daily contributions to keeping my home in order. This doesn’t mean everything is perfect all at once, but it means I have peace of mind knowing my home is being consistently maintained throughout the week.

With eight people living under one roof laundry could be a big deal—but it isn’t!

The world shut down just days before a romantic night out, where I envisioned holding my husband’s hand as we swayed and sang to For King & Country in concert. I was also excited for a spring weekend in Vancouver with my sisters.

If we made a list of canceled, closed, lost, or missed things because of COVID it would be endless.

Curveballs fly on the news, triggering fear but when one hits home we learn a new level of surrender.

Control is illusive—stringing us along until something snaps.

One year ago this Sunday, my husband Benj hit the pavement in the golden hour of the Costco parking lot and our son Gavin broke his femur. This is how Gavin (4) retells what happened:

"Daddy was running too fast with the shopping cart and it fell over.  I got hurt but Hudsy didn't.  I had a big cast on, that's all."

That's all and then that’s not all.

A decade ago, I left a short-lived teaching career and welcomed my first baby. Making a home-based life didn’t feel natural in those early months.

I struggled to grasp at elusive forms of control—a jail of my own making.

I anticipated birth would be a challenge I could conquer; yet, twenty hours of intense back labor and over three hours of pushing left me reeling (the hardest of six deliveries and the catalyst to midwifery care and home birthing).