Sucess

I have been thinking a lot about success this summer. My daughter works so hard at softball and loves it so much. When I watch her play, I want so badly for her to be successful - throw lots of strikes, get big hits, make great plays in the field, and win. Especially when she pitches, I get nervous and feel a pit in my stomach. I don't really know where this feeling comes from. On some level I couldn't care less how she does; I love her just the way she is and no athletic performance could change that. But I also deeply want to see her be successful and praised. 

I feel this for myself sometimes too. I want people to acknowledge my hard work and abilities. I want measurable results, even if it is just being able to say I checked everything off my to do list for that day. I don't want to struggle with new situations or bad habits. I want everything to come easily and for me to be seen as a success.

But I know God's Kingdom doesn't work like that. God desires intimacy with us and for us to be sanctified. These things don't come from everything going well for us, but from struggle, heartache, and humility. Jesus calls us not to pursue success, but to take up our cross, take the lowly position, and follow Him. 

I wish I could share with you a five step plan for keeping success in its proper perspective and focusing more on growth in Christ, both for ourselves and for our children. But I can't. I don't have this figured out yet. Instead I keep coming back to the things that get mentioned over and over around here: pray, read the Bible, express gratitude, be patient with yourself, and be willing to share your struggles with others. 

Grief During Seasons of Change

I am sure it comes as no surprise to anyone who has lost someone close to them, that during the whirlwind, stress, and excitement of our move, my grief has been stirred and has come to the surface in intense and surprising ways. It’s annoying, disruptive, and healing. It is hard to know what to do with my feelings. We are filled with gratitude about all we have accomplished during our time here and all God has planned for us in the future, and yet we would trade it all for just a few moments with Oliver.

One of my most intense grief responses in months, or maybe even years, came earlier this summer at church. Our pastors have been preaching through 1 Thessalonians. We came to 1 Thes 4:13-18. I knew the verses immediately, and they have brought me much comfort in the past:

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

These words give me hope and encouragement now as I read and type them. They are such a vivid picture of the reunion that is coming one day. But during the sermon, tears started streaming down my face, and it was everything I could do to keep from sobbing. In that moment all I could think about was if Jesus came back even in just a few hours, it would be too long. I felt like I couldn’t wait a minute longer to be reunited with Oliver. I was shocked and embarrassed at the strength of my feelings and my inability to keep my composure and see the hope in the passage.

I share this experience with you today because I have learned it helps to name my feelings and get the words out of my head, to remind myself and you that although the tears feel yucky in the moment but they are ultimately healing, and as a testament to the truth that grief doesn’t follow a linear path, rather it ebbs, flows, and surprises as the Lord wisely leads us.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

I Want to Remember This: We Did It!

In June we packed up our house, loaded a U-haul with the help of friends, drove to our new house (while our daughter stayed in our empty house with my mom to play in a softball tournament), drove to our new house in the Upper Peninsula, unloaded with the help of my husband's parents, and unpacked and organized. The unpacking and organizing went pretty slow this time. In some houses we have moved into, everything finds its place right away, and in other houses it takes more effort to get things put away. We also weeded the garden and planted more seeds and some plants. Then we headed back to our old house to clean and watch our daughter play more softball. 

We were able to spend a long week together at our new house over the 4th of July. We unpacked and organized some more, made some curtains, installed some shelves, weeded and planted again, harvested our first lettuce, remembered Oliver on the 7th anniversary of his death, hung out with family, and visited the beach several times. It was so amazing to be together in our new house. We have been dreaming of this moment for a really long time, and we are just in awe that it happened. God has been so faithful to us all our days. 

We are back at our old location one last time to finish up work and softball. In just a few short weeks we will be back for good, ready to put down roots and watch God continue to work in our lives. Thanks for following along on this series! I am looking forward to having some time between softball games to write more about what has been on my heart during this season, not just recapping the to do list! Love, Janet

We made a strawberry pie to help remember Oliver.
Every year remembering him has looked a little different.

Ash loves our new home!

It looks like a real garden! So far the critters have
left it alone.

Getting ready for my first harvest. 

We are only 15 miles from Lake Superior!

I Want to Remember This: Memorial Day Weekend at Our New House

We spent Memorial Day weekend at our new house. We worked hard on lots of big and little projects and had fun too! When we bought the house two years ago, it was furnished. On this trip we were able to move everything that we weren't keeping out to the barn and host a yard sale. Now we are ready to move our things in, and we were able to meet a lot of our neighbors at the sale. We also prepared our garden plot and planted tomatoes, onions, beans, rutabaga, lettuce, kale, carrots, chickpeas, cilantro, potatoes, gladiolas, marigolds, and nasturtiums. We'll try to plant more things throughout the summer. Finally we cut down an elm tree that had died in our yard and surprised ourselves by also cutting it in lengths, splitting it, stacking it in the barn, and burning the remaining brush. Most of the time I was too busy to take pictures, but here are a few! 

A walk along Lake Michigan during our drive.

Discing our garden before planting. The leaves had just started
to open on the trees when we were there.

My daughter and I made chocolate graham crackers and bought
milk chocolate with caramel for smores!

I Want to Remember This: April 2026-mid May 2026

The past month and a half we have been busy living life here while also prepping things for our move this summer. Time is going really fast all of a sudden. We are mostly excited, but there is definitely moments of apprehension about all of the changes to come. The list of what we accomplished since my last post is pretty boring, but here it is:

1. Lots and lots of softball! My daughter played in four tournaments this spring. She had a great time, showed some character when her playing time wasn't quite what we expected, and improved and grew in confidence each weekend. Her grandparents were able to visit for one of the tournaments too. She is looking forward to her summer season starting soon. 

2. My plants grew like crazy! Between my daughter and me, we mostly kept them watered and healthy. Some of them we planted at our current house, and some of them we will keep to plant in our new house. As long as I can fit them in one car, I don't have too many, right?!? 

3. I did it! The thing that I couldn't do in March. I waited for a warm sunny day and sorted mementos, craft supplies, and homeschool things. I kept some things, threw some things away, and set some things aside to give away. I smiled and cried, felt regret and happiness, and then relief when the sorting task was done. 

4. We did a first pass through the house, packing up everything that wouldn't be used in the next month or so. It's annoying to live in a house with boxes along the walls and everything in a bit of disarray, but it feels good to really be started on the task of moving.

5. My husband got to visit our house in the beginning of the month. He built a wardrobe in our bedroom, prepared the garden, cleaned up the yard, and lots of other tasks to get the house ready for us after a long winter. 

6. My daughter and I finished her 9th grade year. She worked hard and grew a lot. I am excited to see what God has planned for her and me in the years ahead!

7. We sold some furniture and other things on Facebook marketplace that we won't be using in our new house. In the past when we have moved, we often didn't know what our next house would look like and knew that we wouldn't be staying long. This time we have had the house for two years and hope to stay for a very long time. It has given us the opportunity to only move and keep what will work well in our new place. We met a lot of nice people while selling our things and only encountered a couple of annoying people.

8. My daughter and I painted her bed frame and a dresser. It was really easy compared to the table I did last summer, until the top coat we put on caused the paint to crack! Thankfully we hadn't put the top coat on the bed frame yet and we had another dresser. Round two was a success. They turned out beautiful, and I think they will look really nice with the pine paneling in her new room. 

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us - yes, establish the work of our hands. Psalm 90:17

I may have shivered and wore my winter coat
for most of the softball season, but that didn't
stop me from enjoying ice cream with the team
after some victories!

Field trip to the Home of Clara and Henry Ford

Field trip to Greenfield Village

My daughter's braces are off! Time for hard and sticky
treats!

The wardrobe my husband put together for us.

I Want to Remember This: March 2026

In March my husband got his military orders for his next assignment in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We knew they were coming, but it was so nice once the orders arrived and our move became official. My daughter and I spent some time Wisconsin with my family helping my mom make maple syrup and visiting with my brother and his family. We were supposed to be gone for five nights but ended up staying for seven because a blizzard dumped two feet of snow on us!

Here's what we were up to this month to get ready!

1. With orders in hand we were able to reserve a U-Haul, purchase some plane tickets for move-related travel, and start planning out lodging for June and July when we will be back and forth between locations. 

2. I tried to clean out my craft closet and an overflowing bin of keepsakes. I failed. I got all nostalgic, wanting to keep everything, and barely had a plastic shopping bag of things to throw and give away when was I done. I am going to have to try again another day when I am in a different mood. I know it is OK to keep things, but I also know that I rarely if ever regret getting rid of things that I am just keeping piled up in the basement. 

3. My daughter and I grew our plant collection! I think I am most excited about having my own space to garden. I might be going a bit overboard when I consider that my house in the UP is still covered with feet of snow. 

4. The majority of my time is still focused on homeschool, supporting my husband in his job here, dog walks, softball practices, and getting ready for Easter. April will bring more of the same, but I also have plans to start boxing things up! And trying again with sorting through the craft closet...

Cooking down syrup!

My daughter loves helping care for my parents' animals.

That's a lot of snow!

Dog walks!

Homeschool science. These beans have been 
in my pantry for years!

Overflowing plants!

My neighbor in the UP sent us this photo of the road in front of 
our house on March 19th. Our driveway is supposed to be through
that wall of snow!

My daughter and I have slowly been adding to 
our Easter decorations over the years!

Time is a Gift

I have been reflecting on time a lot lately. It's probably no surprise that I am thinking about it. All of a sudden I am sitting in the passenger seat while my daughter drives! The move that seemed like it would never come is mere months away. I realized recently that if my son were still alive, we would be touring colleges right now. My sister's birthday is in a few days. She passed when she was 33 but would be turning 41. It seems impossible that so much time has passed.

It can be tempting to think of time as a thief. However, I try to remember that time is a gift. If time has stolen anything from me, it has given it back to me more. Memories, moments, second chances, one day built upon another until I am here. Today. With so much to be thankful for.

In the book One Thousand Gifts, author Ann Voskamp spends a chapter on time, concluding that: "Giving thanks for one thousand things is ultimately an invitation to slow time down with weight of full attention...Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time: When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. And when I'm always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter. And time slows." (p 69-70)

This theme is found throughout the Bible, with the Psalmist praying "teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). I am also reminded of the study I am participating in this year on the Isrealites during and after the Babylonian exile. I shared earlier in the year how I was surprised to find that their exile ended. Now as we near the end of the study, I am also realizing how far they still had to go after the end of the exile and how much time all of the rebuilding took. It took two years for the first wave of returning exiles to rebuild the foundation of the temple, about twenty-three years to rebuild the temple, and approximately ninety-four years to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Even after these ninety some years, Jerusalem remained sparsely populated and the Isrealites continued to be ruled by foreigners. Rebuilding was slowed by sin and opposition, but rebuilding also takes time. God was working in the hearts and lives of His people, leading them, guiding them, and preparing them. God uses time in our own lives too, more concerned about our sanctification and the growth of our faith than slowing down or speeding up time to fit our desires. Time in God's hands is a gift.

As I continue to mourn what was and what might have been, as I stand in awe of God's continued work in my life, as both my mourning and my awe remind me our days here on earth pass both too quickly and too slowly, I take comfort in the fact that God is everlasting. He holds our lives in His hands. And He invites us to spend eternity with Him. I'll end this reflection on time with a final quote from Ann Voskamp: "In Christ, don't we have everlasting existence? Don't Christians have all the time in eternity, life everlasting?" (p 64).

My daughter is taking a cake decorating class!

Waiting for my husband to get home!

My daughter and I have been adding Easter crafts to our collection
for the last 8 years or so.

I Want to Remember This: February 2026

February was mainly a month of doing the work we are called to here in SE Michigan. I homeschooled, attended Bible study, brought my daughter to softball practices, and sat in the passenger seat while she learned to drive. I attended a few basketball games of cousins who live nearby and ate cupcakes my daughter has been making in her cake and cookie decorating class. I took the dog out for walks, shoveled snow, packed lunches, experimented with a few new dinner recipes, and tried to keep up with the dishes and dog fur. A highlight of the month was getting to watch my daughter play at an indoor softball tournament.

We did get to do a few things to get ready for our move this summer:
1. I ordered our seeds for our garden!
2. My daughter and I planted petunia and vinca seeds. We’ll start more in March.
3. I ordered a wardrobe for our bedroom.
4. I brought two boxes of books to our homeschool co-op’s free table. Two people shared at lunch the following week how they found a just right book that they passed on to others.

I think that is it besides a little planning!

Psalm 74

My daughter and I attend a Bible study on Wednesday mornings, studying the book of Psalms. Rather than read the Psalms in order, we are looking at them thematically. One of our recent themes was Faith in Times of Disaster. One of the Psalms we looked at for this theme was Psalm 74. In this Psalm the author, Asaph, asks God a series of questions about the destruction Jerusalem and Israel experienced at the hands of their enemies. For example, he asks:

How long will the enemy mock you, God?
Will the foe revile your name forever?
Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Psalm 74:10-11a

Our study material summed up the questions asked in Psalm 74 like this: "How could You let this happen to Yourself, God?"

I don't often think about the disasters in my own life in this way. But it was a helpful exercise to stop and do just that. I can trust that God will work good from Oliver's death because Oliver's death will not reflect poorly on God. God will be shown merciful, faithful, and victorious. He will be shown to be a God of hope and restoration. This question grows my trust. Maybe it will help change your perspective in a helpful way too.

I Want to Remember This: January 2026

The majority of my blog has been about my grief journey after losing my son Oliver unexpectedly 6 1/2 years ago at the age of 10. I wrote about the lessons God had taught me along the way, and as God continues to teach me and heal me, I try to continue to share. This work is important to me because writing out my thoughts and feelings has helped me process them and find contentment and because I long to share the hope that I have received with others who are hurting.

I have also shared a little about homeschooling and some general life updates. The life updates are about to pick up because my family and I are about to go through some big changes! If the Lord wills, this summer we are going to be moving to the home we purchased in the UP two years ago, where my husband and I hope to settle long-term. This move is something we have been hoping, praying, and planning for our entire marriage. It is hard to believe that it is finally going to come to pass. And so while we are trying to stay focused on finishing our time at our current location well, our thoughts have also turned towards getting ready for our move. Seeing I have this little place on the internet, I figured I might as well document this transition.

Here's what we have been up to in January to get ready:

1. We spent two weeks around Christmas and New Year's at our house in the UP. We closed it back up for the reminder of the winter for what will hopefully be the last time.

2. Typically one of the first things we do to get ready for a move is start eating down all the food in our freezer. We don't have to do that this time because we are only moving a one day drive from our current location and have an upright freezer waiting for us at our new house. 

3. I packed up our Christmas stuff in the first boxes of our move! I also got rid of some Christmas things we don't want at our new place and started going through decor pieces, curtains, and similar things, trying to figure out what we will use in our new house and what we have picked up along the way that we don't need anymore. It will be nice not to have a box full of curtains that don't work at our current place that we are hanging onto just in case they work in our next location. 

4. I made a huge calendar and to do list with all of my daughter's softball stuff and our tentative moving dates on it. More so than any other move, we are going to be in and out of both locations for quite a bit of the summer, rather than having a firm break from one before moving to the next.

5. We started to research and plan for our garden. Last year my husband broke ground, and we planted a few things along with a cover crop, most of which got eaten by deer by the end of the season. This year we are hoping to plant more, with a goal of seeing what grows well, how much we can reasonably care for, what we enjoy caring for, and hopefully get a tiny harvest to get us excited for the years to come.

6. My husband found a snowblower on marketplace for his tractor to help us deal with the lake effect snow that is common at our new location.


Words can't express how excited we are!