Oh friends....the things I keep learning along the way are big and loud and soft and tender and sometimes really hard to quantify with words. I picked a weighty title for this series of letters on this blog.....but I am committed to being a life-long learner so for today, I think I will just give a top 10 list for the start of 2025. Here are some reflections of things I am learning along the way.
1. Love is a choice. Love is a verb. Love is a promise. Love is many things but one thing love is not, is this. Love is not a feeling. Feelings change quickly. Love, true love, exceeds any feelings and love is bigger.
2. Having a winter without snow is depressing and not pretty at all in Iowa. Even though it took until February for snow to show up.....it is still beautiful. I wouldn't want to live somewhere that snow was on the ground all year round....but I do love to see snow. It makes me love nature more....and that leads me to a special kind of worship of the Creator of nature.
3. Being a wrestling mom clashes deeply with being a trauma-informed mom. Being a mom of a child who is fiercely competitive stretches me in all the stiff and awkward places. If you see me wince in public....its legit.
4. It's ok to anticipate the holiday season with the wonder and excitement of a child. It's also ok to suffer and struggle through the holidays and feel a sense of relief when it all gives way to the less exciting, less busy season of winter.
5. When extra kredits get to their forever homes and check back in once in awhile to let me know they are doing well and happy and living their best life....well....that makes all the hard stuff worth it while they were with me. On days I feel I would never say "yes" again, these calls and visits make me think...."well...maybe".
6. Mental health is huge. Powerful. Equipping. Trauma-wise and resilient. Mental illness is the opposite of all of that. It is shadowy and dark and scary and destructive and feels helpless and hopeless until it doesn't.
7. Chicken and rice soup in the slow cooker all day in February is a gift while it cooks and a blessing when it's done. Recipe available in comments (I hope!-I'm gonna try share it!)
8. Eggs cost too much. I like eggs. I can't wait for eggs to be affordable again and I question the wisdom of killing the chickens who give us eggs. I question much of what we are being fed by the news these days but also, how else do we know what is going on? It's all super overwhelming these days.
9. It's Saturday night and I was confined at home today by sick kids who aren't even my own kids but still. I'm in charge of them and they are hugely contageous. I'm so sick of fevers and coughs and such....and tomorrow we won't go to church because we don't want to share the crud with all the sweet church ladies who show up no matter what. We will stay home again tomorrow and while I am an introvert and love days where I can stay in....I don't like feeling that I have to against my will. It's weird like that. I have learned along the way that it's not really about me....and it never has been.
10. Learning is life-long. Joe and I struggled through some math stuff this week and we learned that if we reach out to the teacher and take a position of humility we are then teachable. Once teachable, we can get answers that lead to confidence that lead to a felt sense of security for whatever comes next down the line....and that, friends, is worth sitting with for a minute. These are the things we learn along the way.
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