Faith & Life

Hurry Up and Wait

On chaos, silence, and the rhythm I did not know I needed.

Personal Reflection

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I am a busy person. I hate admitting that. But I have a big, beautiful family, a demanding and fulfilling job, and more opportunities than I can always manage gracefully. Lately I have been feeling overwhelmed and exhausted in a way that is hard to explain to anyone who is not living it.

Recently I had out-of-town guests for the night and we had planned to attend an event together, only for me to realize I had another commitment the same evening. Naturally I finagled a way to do both. And although it was not ideal, it worked. But life just feels rushed lately. Relentlessly, predictably rushed.

And then, suddenly, it doesn't.

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I came home this afternoon feeling guilty for abandoning my family to the pressures of work, only to find that everyone else had moved on without me. My daughter had a friend over and they were happily painting outside. My son and husband were helping my mother-in-law get settled into a rehabilitation center. My youngest was upstairs cleaning her room and preparing for a big tennis tournament tomorrow.

Everyone was fine. Everyone was occupied. Everyone was exactly where they needed to be.

And I was alone.

I had 97 minutes with nothing on my schedule, and I sat there in the strange discomfort of it, realizing I did not quite know what to do with stillness. Five hours ago, three different people had been texting me simultaneously. Someone needed advice. Someone needed a ride to the airport. I had been barely holding on. And now, nothing. Just quiet.

And the questions started coming.

Why does God, the creator of the universe, not have more order in the chaos?

Why does the rush of responsibilities come like waves crashing on the sand one day, and then feel like water still as ice the next?

Am I causing this? Am I the enemy of my own schedule, or is this just life?

And how do I make it better?

I sat with those questions for a while and did not come up with satisfying answers. But somewhere underneath the asking, I felt something quieter than an answer.

Lord, what are you saying to me in this silence?

I am here. Be with me.

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Not a dramatic response. Not a five-point plan for better time management. Just a presence, patient and unhurried, waiting for me to stop moving long enough to notice it.

And I started to think that maybe this is actually what balance looks like. Not a perfectly managed schedule where everything gets equal time and attention. Maybe balance is not a structure at all. Maybe it is a rhythm. Everything at once, and then nothing at all. Waves crashing, and then water still as glass. Chaos, and then silence. And through both of them, if I am paying attention, God is there.

I can cope with chaos knowing that silence will come.
And I can sit in silence knowing it is making me ready
for the next wave.
That may be the whole thing. That may be enough.

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I am not proud of how I handled the earlier part of today. I was rushed when I should have been present. I was distracted when people needed me to be still. But I am here now, and He is here now, and somehow in this quiet afternoon with 97 minutes and nowhere to be, that is more than enough.

Thank you, Lord.

Pray for me. I will pray for you. 🙏

A Personal Blog on Faith, Life & the Journey

Faith & Life

Nag Me

On persistent prayer, the widow who would not quit,
and what it means when God says: keep asking.

Personal Reflection  ·  Luke 18  ·  Exodus 17  ·  Psalm 121

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The readings today are giving me strong "be persistent" vibes — almost like God is saying, "Nag Me!"

Did you get that too?

Whenever I sit down to write one of these reflections, I usually read the readings weeks in advance and let them soak in. I try to discern what the Lord is saying to me and what He might be asking me to share. Sometimes that takes a while. Other times — like today — it feels like God is speaking from just a few feet away with a megaphone.

The message seems clear: keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking.

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At first, I hesitated. Really, God? You want us to nag You?

As a parent, I do not exactly appreciate being nagged by my own kids. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that sets in around the fourteenth time someone asks you the same thing in the same afternoon. So my first instinct was to push back a little on this reading.

But the more I prayed with it, the more I realized that is exactly the point.

Persistent prayer means we are not ignoring God.
We are acknowledging that He is the One in control,
the One with the power to change our situation.

And when we persist — rather than pulling a Sarah and taking matters into our own hands — we are actually obeying God's command to come to Him again and again. Call it nagging, call it persistence, but in the end it is an act of faith and trust.

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That thread runs through every one of today's readings:

Exodus 17

Moses raises his hands until Israel prevails. The moment his arms drop, the battle turns. Aaron and Hur hold them up for him. Persistence — even when it requires help — is the posture that brings victory.

Psalm 121

The psalmist lifts his eyes to the hills and looks constantly to the Lord for help. Not once. Not occasionally. Constantly.

2 Timothy

Paul urges Timothy to remain steadfast in the truth, to be persistent in season and out of season — whether it is convenient or not, whether anyone is listening or not.

Luke 18

The persistent widow who will not give up, who keeps coming back to the judge day after day until he grants her justice. Jesus holds her up not as an annoyance, but as a model of faith.

Each one is a reminder that God honors perseverance. Not because He needs to be worn down — He is not like the unjust judge who eventually gives in just to get some peace. He honors persistence because persistence is a declaration. It says: I believe You are listening. I believe You are able. I believe this is worth bringing to You one more time.

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So go ahead. Nag God. Bring Him the same prayer for the hundredth time. Lift your arms even when they are tired. Keep knocking on that door.

He is not annoyed. He is waiting.

Pray for me. I will pray for you. 🙏

A Personal Blog on Faith, Life & the Journey

Faith & Life

He Only Has Good Plans

What my son's college journey taught me about trusting
a Father who already knows.

Personal Reflection  ·  Matthew 6:8

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"For your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

Matthew 6:8

This was a tough few weeks.

My son has been working incredibly hard toward a dream: earning an appointment to the United States Naval Academy. Our whole family had been quietly picturing it — him in that white uniform, being whisked away on Induction Day for Plebe Summer, beginning something extraordinary.

When he found out he had been waitlisted, the disappointment was real. It felt, in that moment, like everything he had worked for had come to nothing. As his mother, watching that was hard in a way I did not have words for.

So I did what I do. I prayed. And the words I used were not particularly elegant:

"God, can't You help come up with a good plan for my son?"

The answer came back immediately, clearly, and with just a little bit of humor.

"I only have Good Plans."

Wow. Okay, Lord. I hear that.

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A few weeks later, something appeared that had not even been on our radar.

My son received an acceptance to the University of Georgia.

If you know our family, you know what this means. My husband attended UGA and has been a devoted fan ever since. Our entire family has been born and bred Bulldogs, cheering for this school through championships and heartbreaks alike. And here was UGA, showing up not as a consolation prize, but as something that made extraordinary sense. Housing guaranteed for freshmen. An Air Force ROTC program. In-state tuition.

It was not the plan we had been picturing. It was better than the plan we had been picturing.

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This is what Matthew 6:8 looks like in real life. Our Father already knows what is best for us. He already knows what will bring us closer to Him, what will shape us, what will open the right doors at exactly the right time. He is not scrambling to come up with a plan after ours falls apart. He had a plan the whole time.

He does not sometimes have good plans,
or usually have good plans.
He only has Good Plans.

Why do we ever worry, when we have a Father like Him?

Pray for me. I will pray for you. 🙏

A Personal Blog on Faith, Life & the Journey

Seeing God through other people...

Faith & Life  ·  Personal Reflection

I Want to Ooze

I want to be one of those people that when you see them,
or talk to them, or listen to them —
the Spirit of God just oozes out of them.

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I was praying about some things recently, and in the middle of that prayer, God started revealing a new truth to me about myself.

I struggle with vanity.

Oh, for sure. Case in point:

Exhibit One

I am completely obsessed with losing ten pounds, and have been for approximately ten years. Unfortunately I love food too much, and so every time I lose five pounds, I reward myself by immediately gaining five pounds back. It is an extremely efficient system.

Exhibit Two

I am extremely irritated when people do not notice some big accomplishment I have worked hard for. I suspect most people feel this way, but here is the thing — it is actually a form of vanity. We should want people to see God through our accomplishments, not ourselves.

Exhibit Three

The minute this realization came to me, I started writing this blog post — because I want everyone to be so amazed at how amazing I am that I am honest enough to admit I struggle with vanity. I know. I know. I have some serious issues.

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But for real. I am genuinely, sincerely interested in growing in love with Christ. I am truly exhausted by all the noise and clutter of this world, and I am ready to let go of the stupid stuff.

(I say all that while holding tightly to all my gadgets, accessories, and La La Land.)

I want to be one of those people who really shines with the Holy Spirit.
One of those people that after you speak with them,
you feel lighter and more joyful.
One of those people who does not care what the world thinks —
only what God thinks.

That is the person I want to become.

I am going to have to spend some more time praying about this. I can already tell it is going to take a very long time to make even an inch of progress. But I suppose acknowledging the problem is where it starts.

I will get back to you on this.

Pray for me. I will pray for you. 🙏

A Personal Blog on Faith, Life & the Journey

 Faith & Life

Do You Still Have Dreams?

A conversation with my daughter reminded me that dreaming is not just for the young. It is for the living.

Personal Reflection

I am 48 years old. And I still have dreams for when I grow up.

I know how that sounds. But recently I shared some of those dreams with my 15-year-old daughter, and her reaction confused me. She looked genuinely surprised. Not dismissive, not unkind, just truly caught off guard. As if she had never considered that someone my age would still be sitting around dreaming about what life could look like someday.

And that got me thinking.

For the record, here are some of those dreams: I want to study in Rome, earning a Master's in Theology, living and breathing the Eternal City. I want to travel the world, not just visit it. I want to book one of those year-long cruises that sails everywhere, slowly, with no agenda. I want to step away from my career and try something entirely different. Maybe work in the travel industry, or give VIP tours at a theme park. Something low-stress, full of joy, and completely new. Something that makes people smile.

I am happy where I am right now. Deeply happy. But contentment and dreaming are not opposites. In fact, I think the most contented people are often the biggest dreamers.

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I do not blame my daughter for her reaction. She is fifteen. In her world, adulthood probably looks like something you arrive at, a fixed destination where the dreaming stops and the living-it-out begins. She has not yet learned that the destination keeps moving. That is part of the gift.

But I want her, and all of my kids, to know something important: dreaming is not a young person's game. It is a human thing. A God-given thing. Scripture is full of people who received their biggest callings later in life. Abraham was seventy-five when God told him to pick up and go. Moses was eighty when he stood before the burning bush. Anna the prophetess was well into her eighties when she finally laid eyes on the Messiah she had spent her whole life waiting for.

God does not retire His plans for us at a certain age. So why would we retire ours?

"Life with God is a great adventure."

Pope St. John Paul II

That phrase has lived in my heart for years. A great adventure. Not a safe, predictable march from point A to point B, but an adventure full of surprises, plot twists, and chapters you never saw coming. And the beautiful thing about adventures is that they do not end just because you have already lived through some good ones.

I think of Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That was spoken to a people in exile. People who thought their best days were behind them. God's response? I am not done with you yet.

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Here is what I want to teach my children: Stay curious. Stay hungry. Keep dreaming and dream big.

Not because dreaming guarantees you get everything you want. Not because life owes you a Roman adventure or a world cruise. But because the posture of dreaming, the openness, the hope, the willingness to imagine something beyond what you can currently see, is itself an act of faith. It is saying to God: I trust that there is more. I trust that You are not finished. I trust that this life is worth showing up for, all the way to the end.

My daughter surprised me with her reaction. But honestly? I am glad she did. Because now we are having a better conversation. Now she knows her mother still has big, wild, beautiful dreams. And maybe, just maybe, that gives her permission to hold onto hers too, for the rest of her life, no matter how old she gets.

Life is an adventure. Say yes to it.

What are YOUR dreams, the ones you have tucked away for someday? I would love to hear them. And if you have stopped dreaming, maybe today is the day to start again. Pray for me! I will pray for you. 🙏