No. Why does this always happen? I thought sourly. Right when I’m about to hit it hard and gain the momentum that I need.

The night was long with little sleep. With the morning hours came new mercies… that I refused to see.

Have you noticed that God is always pursuing your heart in the most personal ways?

Even, or maybe especially, when you feel like you don’t deserve it?

Watermelon juice is steadily dripping down my kids’ bare bellies, our water hose is working overtime in the backyard, and the excitement for popping fireworks is palpable.

I love Summer.

“I thought I would have this figured out by now,” my shame-filled thoughts told me.

I struggled with it over a decade ago, and it has been subtly trying to rear it’s ugly head back up in my life. I tried to wrestle with my thoughts alone…

Have you noticed the wildflowers lately?

I’ve always been drawn to the beauty of a wildflower - a tiny masterpiece in the most unlikely of places. Wild and free, growing without the help of human hands.

“It’s not enough. How can it possibly be enough?”

The words are rummaging through every crevice of my brain as I sit here at my computer typing this to you.

Weak and tired, but mostly frustrated.

If I’m being honest, those are the words I would use to describe the way I have felt over the past several weeks.

Do you ever get the feeling you’re behind?

Maybe like me, you are not even sure what you are behind on, or what invisible thing “out there” you are competing with, but somehow you just feel…too late.

The New Year brings me both exciting hope for a fresh new thing, while simultaneously overwhelming me with the thought of accomplishing (and possibly failing at) those “new things.”

Thumbing through another “Country Living” magazine, my Grandmom and I would be deep in conversation about everything from the birds that were flying by her giant living room window to the latest version of drama unfolding in my young life…

A peek into the original vision of how this space came to be…