2025 -- A letter to myself

It's the last day of 2025.  I rarely sit and reflect in the way I used to.  My shelves are lined with ink stained journals and there was a long season of blogging where my words poured out onto the virtual screen sharing my innermost thoughts.  I haven't made space for intentional written reflection, probably because of insecurity or fear.  

2025 was all the things.  I felt really truly grounded in many ways.  I had strict limits on the news and social media and that contributed to an overall less frantic mind.  Turns out you can check the news once a week and almost nothing changes.  The world is still on fire and the goodness is still persistently present.  This year I began to attempt to intentionally practice the Sabbath.  From Friday at sundown to Saturday  sundown, I could only do things that brought me joy.  The first two weeks I felt unsettled.  What brings me joy? What do I do if I am not working or organizing or cleaning or pretending I carry the weight of the world? It felt unsettling to be at rest. I tried a bubble bath and a massage chair and I played in the dirt.  I didn't make it happen every week, but at least internally, I knew I wanted to.  Progress.  

Work was really great this year.  I still have regular melt downs about how I can't hack it. I get myself to a place where I just want to run away and have weekends free and not feel like I have to say something meaningful every week, but then, someone hugs me at a funeral and someone shares their faith story with me and I hear children sing about Jesus and teenagers lead devotions and it all comes flooding back.  The countless years of singing around campfires and feeling that overwhelming soul drenching presence of the spirit in every part of my body and then I know again I can never leave it.  I'll keep working on balance. And asking for help.  Neither of which is my strong suit. 

And this year, I had so many incredible humans who loved me and supported me and challenged me to do better and be better.  I would have taken this as judgment in the past, but to know that people really want you to grow and succeed and that sometimes it is really hard to change and that it hurts to admit you are clueless and that you can't grow into who you were meant to be all by yourself.  But these folks just kept showing up and sticking with me through all of my mistakes and blunders. I'm so insanely grateful and so lucky.  

My family continues to be my true joy.  I am so in love with my husband.  I can't stand it when people bash their spouse. I know that every marriage is hard, but I wake up every day and look over at this gentle soul that I am married to and I literally have a tear in my eye every day.  He is my safe space.  And my kids..  they are so unique and incredible.  My son takes after my husband and is gentle and kind and strong.  My daughter is truly herself and follows no one, but occasionally, I can hear her lead effortlessly and offer the most wise advice and manage a room with confidence and I grin quietly at her strength and stamina. She works hard and feels deeply and she is a beautiful force to be reckoned with. 

But none of that really matters to me as much as when they both crawl into bed with me and call me mama.  I always fear that those days will come to an end and maybe they will, but I will never get enough of them.  I want to hear every detail of their lives and their thoughts and I want to know if their socks hurt or if their heart hurts or if I screwed up, so I can do better next time. 

I started back in my doctoral program this year and I absolutely love it.  I love to learn and I love to grow.  I have read thousands of pages of literature about leading change in the church and in my own life and in the world and it is so exciting and fulfilling to me.  I'm about half way through a three year program and I just love it.  

I continue to struggle with all kinds of demons.  I wrestle with insecurity in almost every area. I don't trust myself and I fear rejection.  Maybe I always will. 

But, I am learning to love my life instead of always longing for a different one.  I love my early mornings of quiet prayer and coffee.  I love the pounding of my feet on the treadmill and lifting heavy weights.  I love my garden and wildflowers.  I love sitting on the back porch with Paul naming the birds and taking a loop around the property checking on the weeping willow and the fig tree.  I love that we had a mesmerizing screech owl take residence in our yard this year and that we got to see the tiny little babies.  Nature is amazing.  I love our hot tub and our friends.  I love the sunrise on early morning drives to church. I love that a beautiful little fawn walked right up to me this year trying to see if the world was safe enough for him to cross the boundaries between wild and domesticated. Same, little one. Same.

For the first time in many years, I realized it was okay to be a joyful person. There were several years when joy was being attacked as toxic and fake and, I don't know, it felt like I couldn't have joy if people were struggling and so I started to hide it and squash it and I think it really harmed me to not be myself.  I love my life and I love people and I want to freely enjoy what I have been given and it doesn't make me insensitive or uncaring to the trauma of the world if I'm happy.  

I think one of the greatest parts of this year was Jesus.  Again, in order to always be appropriate or to be liked or to fit in or WHATEVER, I have always kept my faith in the "acceptable" range. Like there was a pH test for normal Christians and I HAD to say at a 7 because I would be too apathetic or too Luke warm or too Crazy Christian or something, but seriously.  No matter whether you think he walked on water or rose from the dead (which I do.. honestly most people have seen some kind of miracles in their lives..), it doesn't really matter.  The way he lived is the best way to live.  It's SUCH a great standard.  Love people.  Help the poor.  Include the outcast. Stop being selfish.  Realize that there is more to life than your own small sphere.  Be humble. Live simply.  I could go on and on.  I have been ridiculed and sidelined my whole life for my faith.  My kids didn't get invited to Polar Express parties so we don't ruin anyone else's fun and I was definitely the outcast at the cousin table.  People literally avoid saying certain words around me or recoil when they find out I'm a pastor, but you know what,  it is AWESOME to want to love people even when they are jerks. It is great to have accountability when you are being an idiot and it is so freeing to not be bound to the rules of this world.  I can give my money away and I can love queer people and I can believe that immigrants shouldn't be abducted and put in camps. And I can believe all of this because I have a standard of belief and behavior that isn't based on any administration or human authority.  I will always believe that the greatest leaders are humble, willing to admit their flaws, that they are faithful to their spouses, that they forgive others to the best of their ability and they do their very best to lift others up, especially their enemies.  

And so, this year has been a good one. A hard year of learning, but a good one.  I'm going to hold on to the redwood trees of Yosemite and the breathtaking sunrises at the Outer Banks and I'm going to soak in the beauty of my own back yard and revel in the friends that intentionally make me a part of their lives in small and large ways and I am going to continue to work my tail off to make the church, or at least the one I have influence over, the most loving and kind hearted and giving place you can find because I want everyone to know what it feels like to be loved well and to live a life that follows how Jesus lived.

I don't know what 2026 will be like.  I have some great things planned and some high hopes, but I'm not anxious or afraid.  I am anticipating a year full of more friendship, more love, more family and more beautiful moments that take my breath away.

Thank you for loving me and letting me love you.

Happy 6 years to me!

Yesterday it was 6 years.  I let the tears flow as I trekked up an ice filled path on a solo hike.  I was listening to When Breath Becomes Air,  which is the memoir of the life of a neurosurgeon who died of lung cancer.   Listening to the book wasn’t intentionally planned on the anniversary of my entrance into the world of brain cancer, but I was grateful for the opportunity to feel deeply as I was forced to face my own mortality again.  The tears flowed for so many reasons.  

They flowed because I was so darn grateful for a body that has been through so much and can climb to to the top of a 3,400 ft.  peak in the middle of winter, alone.  I am grateful because I have had the last 6 years to live and so many people are not afforded that luxury.  I am grateful because my children were surprised that I could climb so high and that I was strong enough to complete the hike.  I was grateful because the trail was pure hell.  It was a sheet of ice, frozen mountain run off.  I had to break all of the rules of hiking.  I had to walk off of the path most of the time.  I used trees for supports.  I should have had crampons but I didn’t.  I didn’t even pack any water.  Despite the cold, despite the terrible path, I just kept going.  There were many times that I considered turning around.  It wasn’t a loop trail and there wasn’t anyone else on the path so no one would know the difference, but I wanted to see the view from the top.  I wanted to prove to myself that I was still alive. And so I kept going. 

It still feels surreal when I think back to those days, weeks, months, even years.  I have very few memories of the day my brain exploded.  I only remember  being in the ICU behind a glass wall at PENN wondering why I was there, thinking that those rooms were for sick people.  I remember the endless shots of heparin in my abdomen and I remember being completely surrounded by people that loved me every single second of the journey.  

I lived in a strange cloud of confusion for a very long time.  My brother shares that an area conference minister came to visit me.  I had never met him before, but when he showed up I sat up straight in my hospital bed and entered into ministry mode, greeting him with all of the formalities of my office.  It makes me laugh to think about it, but it reminds me of how deeply our identities are embedded in our souls.  How deeply my desire to serve my Lord is etched in my unconsciousness. 

To be in a posture of receiving was a foreign state for me.  To have no forum, no study, no authority, no ability to manage or organize.  It was all an uphill climb for me.  I was in unfamiliar territory, humbled, grasping for Paul and holding him tightly as my only sure thing.  I still cling to him.  He is my rooted oak, my steady guide.  

Oddly, Jesus was not the rooted oak I clung to.  No, instead, God was an omnipresence of solidarity.  God was the knowledge of love, the solid rock, the surety that I was never alone.  

God’s promises all came true for me.  Everything I had said, everything I had sung, everything I had preached was true in those dark days when I had to take an electric scooter through Target because I simply could not stand.  God’s people showered me, I mean drenched me in love.  I was covered in posters and cards and casseroles and childcare and prayer.  There was so much prayer all across the entire globe.  God made sure I was covered every single second and I felt all.  It was the biggest warmest blanket of community and care and hope that I never knew existed.   

I have come to learn that self sufficiency is my love language.  If you want to show me you love me, show me you can take care of things.  It’s a terrible mantra, but it is how I have survived. 

And so I learned to shower again, to cook again, to put words in order in sentences.  I wanted to graduate quickly from PT and OT.  My striving and my incessant desire to succeed served me well in recovery.  If anything, I was disheartened that I wasn’t one of the cancer patients that ran a marathon during chemo.  Yup, that’s how my thought process works.  I wanted to win at chemo workouts.  It’s a lot, but it’s true.  

After 6 years of clean scans, my mind is quiet more frequently than in the beginning, but I still find myself (as in just yesterday), googling life expectancy for a stage three malignant brain tumor patients.  There are never answers and the googling just invokes anxiety, but it is part of the journey, wanting to know how much future you’ll get, as if any of us have any guarantee for tomorrow.  

I often think that I am no different than anyone else.  We are all going to die and there are things that kill a bit of each of us every day.  I simply have a hatch in my skull for repeat craniotomies which brings the subject of death to my mind more frequently than the average person, or at least I think it does.  

I would be lying if I didn’t second guess every odd pulse in my left arm and fear that it is a seizure.  I  would be a fool if I denied that my frequent short term memory loss incidents don’t terrify me.  (I lost my keys in March inside the house. I still haven’t found them).  

I am still learning.  I am still learning that this impacts my whole family.  My children were terrified when Covid arrived because they heard that those with cancer were high risk.  My son was afraid to see anyone because he thought he could be the reason I would pass away.  I had a cold in October and joked that I would die.  Both of my beloveds froze in panic and fear, as if the unspoken weight that they carried every day was just unveiled by my joking.  

I thought I was the only one carrying the burden.  

I was wrong.  

We carry our burdens together. 

If that isn't the gospel, I don't know what is. 

And so I have made a commitment to myself and to my God and to those around me that I will keep going.  I will keep taking every step I can take, no matter what the weather.  Some steps will be hard and I will slip and fall, but I won’t give up.  

I won’t give up because there is joy to be had, even in the painful days.  I’ve been accused of being a joy junkie.  I love joy.  I really truly want everyone to sing kumbaya every day and dance in a circle and share their favorite Bible verses (this is in my dream land where everyone has a favorite Bible verse).  I want everyone to join me in the party that I feel so privileged to throw every single day. I want everyone to dance in the kitchen to Silly Songs with Larry.   I want everyone to feel that even if they are behind the locked glass doors of the ICU of not knowing what’s going on in your body or your life or you heart that there is a life on the other side of the pain and confusion and that even if it is hard, even if it is often hard, it doesn’t mean it isn’t good.  

And so in a cathartic and emotional moment, I climbed a mountain on a trail covered in ice and cried about the death of someone else because it reminded me of my own strength and my own journey and that there is a view waiting that is worth the effort.  

Happy 6 years to me.  

Maundy Thursday

We baked our own bread today for our Maundy Thursday table service.  This has never happened before.  When the kids were little I dreaded baking with them because it always turned into a screaming match of who got to pour or hold or stir.  Still to this day the kids bicker over who gets to use the stand mixer and who uses the hand mixer.  Seriously children, we own TWO mixers.  That itself is a reason for joy and gratitude.  I guess that will come later in life.  

Luckily this bread recipe didn't require ANY mixers.  And when I realized at noon that we were supposed to make our bread and I checked the recipe I had set aside and realized it required the dough to rise overnight, a quick google search resulted in this fantastic afternoon recipe that would be the answer to my lack of preparation.  

By God's grace we had enough supplies for each child to make his/her own loaf of bread and in just a few short hours, voila! we had two beautiful loaves fit to be broken at the table of the Lord.

Easter Saturday

I’m trying to hold the passion story in one hand and the Easter story in the other and it feels really hard today.  It’s honestly probably what you are supposed to do on Holy Saturday.  The sting of the cross is still so real.  The texts of beatings and nails and blood still sting.  The pain of the world is so present and so heavy in my chest.  

In my oh so human attempts to keep this story as our primary story in this season, we sat at the table with our brightly colored plastic Resurrection eggs and read stories of horror.  I wanted the kids to work on their Bible skills so I bribed them with a Hershey’s kiss for each verse they found on their own without using the index or getting some help from me. Candy and plastic and miniature whips and nails.  I’m trying to hold the passion in one hand and Easter in the other and it feels really hard.

We opened the crescent rolls and got out the marshmallows and I remembered the days of leading dozens of preschoolers through the activity of Resurrection rolls.  We wrapped up the marshmallows in the dough and I kept thinking about incomplete metaphors and how no children’s activity could ever fully teach the feeling of sacrificial love.  

But I pressed on so that they know the story.  So that they have it in their tool box, in their well for the days when they are without hope.  For the days when Friday is all too real and Sunday feels as though it will never come.  

And we wrapped it all up and covered it with butter and cinnamon sugar as if anointing and embalming were ordinary activities.  I hope someday they ask why.  Why did we do all of these endless crafts and activities and why did we wrap marshmallows covered in butter and cinnamon and bake them on the day before Easter?  I hope they ask why.  

And then, just like always, the last egg in the set is empty and the band of dough no longer holds a marshmallow and we celebrate for one small minute that there is hope, that the promise is still true, that he is not there as they thought and that Jesus is never as we expect him to be. 

As I clean off the counters again I am struck by the “He is Risen” Dollar Store wooden sign set up against a brightly colored Easter egg candle.  I’m trying to hold the passion in one hand and Easter in the other and it feels really hard. 

Especially in these days.  Here we are all snug in our home, working on our own laptops in our own separate rooms.  We are healthy and safe and our biggest worries are when the ice cream runs out or we can’t agree on a movie to watch.  And outside of these walls the whole world is falling apart.  

I force myself to watch the news twice a day.  Twice is all I can handle.  Every time they go through the roll call of the healthy twenty somethings who have died in under a week or they mention the infant who passed away or they show the pictures of the doctors and nurses and elderly who are all doing their very best in the face of tragedy and death and trauma.  Every time I see these things and hear these things I am wrecked again by the pain of the world.  Twice a day is all I can handle.  When they mention makeshift morgues and mass graves and people dying alone in their New York City apartments, having to be carried down five flights of stairs after they are found.  Twice a day is all I can handle.  

It feels like it’s all the cross.  It feels like it’s only whipping and flogging and betrayal and thorns.   It feels like Sunday will never come.  

And so I try to remind myself that these are the reasons I pull out these plastic eggs and these are the reasons I keep baking crescent rolls wrapped around marshmallows.  Because our children need to hear the stories of hope.  They need to know that in their darkest moments, in the moments when they feel forsaken and forgotten and betrayed that there is a God who will rise for them.  There is a God who will rescue them and restore them and seek them at all costs.  And I hope and I pray that by telling them these stories again and again that someday, by the power of Jesus that they will claim this as their story and know that the empty egg, the empty roll, the empty tomb, the promise of life, full and beautiful and wonderful life is for them.  

New Years 2020

We were so lucky to spend New Year's Eve with our great friends the Yeslionis Family.  It's been almost 13 years of ringing in new years together.  We love to share stories of when the kids were babies and we pretended it was midnight at 9 AM and then put them all to bed!!  Now they stay up far past us and we had to yell down to the dads and kids to stop yelling at ping pong at 2:30 am!  I am so grateful for friends that are easy to be around.... friends that you don't have to explain yourself to and friends that just understand.   

I hope and I pray that this is a year that we accept where we are, love who is in our path and seek ways to be peaceful and connected to our world.  

Christmas 2019

19 is definitely too many pictures for a blog post, but how can you capture all of the preparation and joy and peace that happens in the Christmas season?

Things have been so calm, perhaps a little too calm for me!  It's a good calm.  It's a calm of being thoughtful and praying and resisting the temptation to buy more or be more.  I truly had to resist this urge this year and took solace in friend who reminded me that when I think I need more that Jesus is enough.

The kids thoughtfully picked gifts for each other and lovingly wrapped them.  They baked cookies and built gingerbread houses and lit the advent candles. (Yes, they did it all by themselves which if I was still a momma of littles would give me all of the hope for a life without tantrums and hyper vigilant supervision.)

 It was all so beautiful.  

On Christmas morning I was a little sad because there was no WOW or over the top excitement.  And now a week later, I am sure that feeling is what I actually wanted.  I actually wanted a feeling of contentment, of knowing that we have enough and God is good and we are surrounded by so much love that we need not look anywhere else for our joy. 

Both kids gave me relational gifts which made me so happy.  Maeve gave me a calendar of things we can do together and Noah gave me a mug he made at school and gift certificates to go running together.  

And so, as I begin the process of taking down the decorations,  I can feel so keenly that my cup overflows and I am so grateful.  

Our names of Jesus Advent Calendar.  Candy Cane the elf made a few appearances in the devotion and Maeve's favorite name was Bread of Heaven (Go Figure)

Maeve got first chair in the Christmas concert!

All decorated

Candy Cane gave the ugly doll a haircut

Still waiting!

My favorite cookies.  People and angels all mismatched and broken.  Cookies of true humanity!

Christmas Eve Worship

Slankets!

The kids got ukuleles (and Paul is learning too!)

Christmas morning.  The light of Christ shines!

I haven't written anything in ages and I miss it.  The kids told me that when they are on school laptops and they google their own names that my blog posts come up and they love to read the stories of our family.  Looking back on a Christmas Eve years ago made my heart so happy and I realized that I should at least try to keep our day to day stories alive.

So here we find ourselves in Advent 2019.  It feels appropriate to begin again in Advent.  It has been such a beautiful season of preparation here.  We have so enjoyed decorating together and hanging the tree and welcoming our elf and lighting the candles each night.  My heart is so warm with joy, a deep, abiding joy and I am so grateful.

The Children's Christmas musical at church was  "Wise Guys and Starry Skies."  Maeve was a baker.  The musical was so moving.  One young boy sang a song, "My gift is me," and I was moved to tears.  The ending line said, "May our hearts be Christ's throne."

Making Gingerbread Houses

Our Advent Devotions this year are from Sweet Melee and they involve reading another name of Jesus every day and learning about the name.  The kids wanted "I am" to come first because then they could make sentences.  Maeve's favorite name is Bread of Life.  And of course, one day, the elf took the place of The Word on the chain of names.