I may not be hitting post as frequently, but I am writing more than I ever have. The truth is, for the last three years I have been working on a personal project.

What I’m finding about motherhood in this season is that it is a delicate balancing act of loving my boys well and pursuing my calling.

Sometimes discouragement lingers heavily on a regular Tuesday morning.

I’ve been in a hurry my entire life, it seems. My mom jokes that I’ve been running as long as I could walk.

Homeschooling was not the path we always planned to take for our kids. I remember having conversations with Matt early on in our marriage.

“Write what is true” I exhale at the keyboard waiting for divine inspiration to strike. But the truth is….I’m irritable and tired. I want to write something encouraging for moms in light of Mother’s Day that is also not completely cliche. I DON’T want to talk about politics (or hear or read about them for that matter) but if I am being honest, it’s what is plaguing me the most.

Summers for kids are pure magic. Summers for adults trying to keep the magic alive for their kids are…less magical.

I acknowledge that your yes to their life very likely opened up a world of “no’s” in your own life.

Years ago, before kids, when Matt and I had all the time in the world, we began a weekly rhythm of celebrating Shabbat.

With our words we bear our souls, say I’m sorry, tell our kids we love them; we fill books and write songs and give speeches and make campaigns.

It’s Friday morning and I am running through my mental checklist for the weekend ahead.

It’s been a season of waiting in so many ways. Waiting for direction in life decisions, waiting for breakthrough in a hard situation, waiting for a dear friend’s loved one to awaken from a coma after a bike accident.

You don’t need an hour long nightly ritual to ascribe meaning to the madness. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is determine going into the season what you have the bandwidth for.

There are two worlds. There’s this tangible one with sounds and shapes and tastes. It’s the ground we walk on and the air we breathe, the meals we share around the table, the conversations we have.

Sometimes, when my toddler is fully in a moment, he’ll close his eyes and squint up his face. I always wonder what he’s thinking in that moment, and it almost always makes me laugh to myself.

The moments I’ve been collecting lately lack all the luster and idyllic qualities I used to think were needed for holding onto something.

Lately I’m realizing that it does little good to try to separate the light from the heavy. They often take turns swooshing through our home like a Texas wind storm, keeping me on my toes. Just when I think I can settle into that warm spot beneath the sun, those looming clouds roll in fierce and without warning.

I find myself having to continually surrender these desires to the Lord, not because they are inherently wrong or misguided, but because if I’m not careful I will find myself building up my own cozy little kingdom–exchanging my pursuit of the eternal for a cheap imitation of Heaven on earth.

For the last year, I have been praying and dreaming up what it might look like to combine my love for photography and my heart for empowering women.

Speak truth…even if nobody else listens.

I hit a wall this past summer. We were nearing the end of our 7-week stay at our tiny house in the mountains of North Carolina, which although lovely, had been a jam-packed schedule of manual labor projects we desperately wanted to finish before returning to Texas.

I am going to share something with you that is giving me a lot of freedom these days.

I can still smell the wet buttery popcorn as we usher ourselves down dim lit aisles and settle into a nook of four empty seats.

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. '" - Mr. Rogers

I was told once that we should speak to ourselves like our own best friend.

Heated debates, political turmoil, another wave—It’s been a week. Heck, it’s been a year. I don’t think anyone would refute that claim. Thankfully this blog is not about any of those things. Which is how we found ourselves, two days before a presidential election, clinking glasses to Ella Fitzgerald at an intimate Jazz Age Murder Mystery in my parents’ cozy home.