Have you found yourself this year just wanting to go back? Back to normal. I don’t know exactly what that would be for me. Moments before the COVID shutdown in our home, I was sitting in a few months of transition out of a faith community we started and a position we had held in vocational ministry for twenty years.

I recently came off an amazing three day staycation with my husband celebrating 20 years married. It was a change of scenery. Moments of full presence and uninterrupted conversations. It was good food and drink mixed with massages and long hikes, without a ton of kids in tow. It was fun. It was bliss. And then it was over.

“Sadness does not sink a person. It’s the energy that one spends trying to avoid sadness that does.” So what do you do when you are sad?

Recently I caught myself saying a small little statement that I once would have prided myself in. I was hanging up the phone with a friend when the last words out of my mouth were, “Get ‘er done.”

She has been in my life for forty-some-odd years. She whispers to me often. Somedays are better than others. She isn’t always welcome, but she doesn’t seem to care. She invites herself everywhere and intrudes on my pretty good life.

It was 4:30 pm on Monday evening. Monday. Just beginning week two of my daughter’s freshman year of distance learning high school. Week one was hard. But I had hoped by now that with a week under our belt we would have a fighting chance on this Monday. To my disappointment, I went downstairs and found my daughter staring blankly at a google classroom on a screen.

I sat in the third row. It was church. Church in my house. We were fortunate to gather with our family of fourteen and worship together. The pastor’s message took us through Psalm 23. One that is common to most even if you didn’t grow up in church. The part that fell fresh on my ears was verse 5.

“You give me all I can drink of you until my cup overflows.”

“Be the kind of woman that when her feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil says, “Oh NO. She’s UP!” ~Joanne Clancy

Anytime I am up early working on who I want to be I can’t help but look at Proverbs 31. I want to take a look at verses 10-31. I won’t write them all here, but I encourage you to look them up later.

I did it. We did it. God + Me + a team of incredibly gifted and faith filled women hosted an incredible online event this past Saturday called the Significant Conference.

A short four months ago, there was no plan for Significant. With the disruption of COVID, the thought of an in person live event seemed pointless. Beyond that, my family had just embarked upon a big transition just a few months prior as we resigned from the pastoral leadership of the church we planted. I’m not doing Significant.