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There’s a version of my life that looks nothing like this one.

In that version, I cared about job titles and designer labels like they defined me. I sat in meetings, more worried about whether or not I came across competent, passing some test unbeknownst to me to prove I was capable. I answered emails around the clock, calling it dedication, responsiveness, loyalty when really it was my lack of setting boundaries dressing it up in professional clothing. My worth wasn’t felt, it was calculated; against goals, ranked by performance, measured by the size of my paycheck and by these standards I felt I was failing. When I looked in a mirror, I saw a little girl, running from a statistic, chasing stability, looking for an anchor against the uncertainty she’s always known.

I woke up to a failed marriage, went to God as if I were Peter frantically waking Jesus up to alert him of the storm I was in, as if it were sudden, but it was in the making almost immediately after we said “ I Do” and our ship was sinking. When we separated, I felt a quiet acceptance as though I was telling my former self “Peace, be still”. Suddenly the question “how do I keep up?” soon became “what am I actually building?”.

I had to surrender.

However, being the multitasker I am, I got my hands in some soil while I waited for a clear path to magically appear. I found myself in my forties, preparing for a divorce, unemployed and a mother to five. I reflected on COVID, and how we watched the world panic-buy, its way through empty grocery shelves (me included), realizing how dependent our family had become on big business, food systems and the government. A clarity of uncomfortable awareness happened. I knew very little about where our food came from and how many miles it traveled before reaching our table. Ultimately, realizing how fragile these systems are beneath its glossy, convenient surface.

During that time I measured my worth by how well I showed up for my home, my kids, and yes, my marriage. But, no matter how much I gave, I still felt like I, me wasn’t enough.

I heard God yell, (not a whisper) “plant a garden”. and so I did! In between depression and growing cucumbers I never imagined that my forties would feel like a beginning. Here I was with two kids graduating high school, questioning who they would become and I was right there with them asking the same questions they were looking for me to answer. That's not what we're told life would look like at this stage. We're supposed to be settled by now, rooted, arrived. But there I was, starting over in ways I hadn't anticipated, sitting with a question I thought I'd outgrown:

how do I become self-sufficient?

how do I become a provider?

what do I spend the next 20 years of my life doing, so I can retire?

do I have 20 years left?

how do I focus on what matters most; my family, when I feel I live to work, not work to live?

One word settled deeply into my spirit: Surrender.

I didn’t want to just endure life’s disruptions. I wanted to become a mother who thrived and could provide in the truest sense of the word. I wanted my children to know the source of their food, the value of labor, the dignity of working with their hands, and the encourage them to not only question the status quo, but to make a beautiful dent in it. Not followers of culture, but creators within it.

I started reading the ingredients on labels at the grocery store. Initially skipping this step when walking down the chip aisle! I noticed on average 10-plus ingredients in a loaf of bread. Which explained why we only ever had to buy bread every week or two. I could only pronounce maybe three things on the list and recognize even fewer. So I started buying less, but buying better. I traded convenience, for intention.

I baked our bread. I used our KitchenAid to churn butter from cream. We planted a vegetable and herb garden in our backyard, nothing dramatic, just soil and seeds and the quiet satisfaction of growing something. Taking our wickers baskets in the morning on a weekend to harvest tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, corn, beans and cutting my own sun flowers with my littles were some of the most satisfying days in my life. That backyard garden turned into a few 150-feet row crops in Bastrop, and those row crops eventually turned into a conversation with God and myself, that ended with us packing up and leaving the city for the Texas Hill Country.

And then, chickens happened. And MORE chickens happened!

Time moves differently out here. They help collect eggs. And yes, boredom, when it comes, they want a screen, and sometimes I give in, but almost always they’ll soon use their imagination and they’re off playing like I once did in my youth, outside or in my room with whatever toys I had while I’m tending to animal singing Old MacDonald except every animal ends with Chicken, hopefully soon, Goats, maybe one day cows.

I homeschool not just for academics but for sovereignty in what we learn, how we learn it and how we spend our time. It took awhile but I now know, I am more than a grade, a pass or fail and so are they. They are growing up learning the kinds of skills that we used to pass down quietly between generations; canning, soap making, candle dipping, bread baking, butter churning, cursive writing, all of the lost arts, not because they don’t matter, but because convenience made them easy to forget. I am in the business of remembering.

If you’ve read this far, I have a feeling you’re asking some of the same questions I was.

Who am I?

How am I being provoked to purpose?

What can I appreciate in this moment God has me in?

How is the holy spirit using me?

The reality which sounds cliche, is that life is incredibly short. There is SO much death happening and we only see what makes the news. People are dying younger with each generation and I can only attribute that to environment. From the air we breath, the food we eat, to even the thoughts we think. Maybe you’re in a season that’s asking more of you than you expected, one that’s quietly dismantling who you thought you were supposed to be. Maybe you’re already on the other side of it, building something intentional and wondering if it’s enough.

It is. Keep going.