The anticipation of Christmas has been replaced by new year resolutions or choosing a word for the year. I am itching to sit down with a fresh journal to pray, think and hear God for 2024. My good intentions are superseded by my present conviction, however.

During this long school holiday, packed with celebration and summer heat, the best place for me to be is present with my children. The oldest turns 16 today and doesn't have many school holidays left. Our 4-year old's special needs require extreme availability, energy and pro-activity when therapies aren't available.

Yesterday was American Thanksgiving - my favorite holiday! Here's an excerpt I wrote on Thanksgiving 2014 while serving in rural South Africa.

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"She called me to tell me she was hungry. Like a child who comes home from school and cries, "Mom, we don't have anything to eat!" This child hasn't had a mom to cry to since she was 12, when she found herself alone in a shack with her 8-year old brother.

Celebrations are the punctuation of life.

Mornings, evenings, weekends, months, and years whiz by like a dizzying run-on sentence. They can feel like they drag on and on. Then suddenly it's over, and you've missed the point.

For me, gathering around meals, birthday cakes, Christmas trees and midnight countdowns create causeways of remembrance. We create intentional spaces to look at each other, look back, give thanks, look ahead, and look around. I'll always do the extra dishes, spend the extra time, and go the extra mile to punctuate a life that sees, remembers, attunes and gives thanks.

I have a birthmark on my left ankle that looks like an oversized freckle. My mom taught me the special mark made me "me". When I was a little girl, a store employee tried to help me when I wandered away from my mom in a Texas-sized Walmart. I knew I wasn't supposed to talk to strangers and my birthmark showed who I was. So I sealed my lips tightly together and fervently pointed to the dark brown spot on my ankle. Believe it or not, the employee couldn't help me. I was still lost, struggling to prove who I was. I was found when my mom came and said I belonged to her.

Sometimes I worry about our "YES" to remain in South Africa.

Chris and I wholeheartedly know God has authored every step of our story, and we are right where we are supposed to be. It is our joy to love and lead Southpoint Church.

I worry about the repercussions of my kids growing up without their grandparents, cousins, and extended family members. I wonder what it's like for foreign soil to be your only familiar soil.

Our church is learning what it means to be rescued, redeemed, restored and to rejoice in Christ. On Sunday, my husband said, "I want you to come face to face with what it means to be rescued by Jesus." He shared about "ugly-crying" at the gym recently when he heard musician, Zach Williams' rescue story.

Old Testament Bible stories are filled with content little boys dream of - giants, bad guys and lots of weapons. My 4-year old insists on "solider stories" and knows, "God's team is the good team".

Chronicles 20 tells the story of King Jehoshaphat's response when huge enemy armies marched against him. The king was terrified, sought the Lord for guidance, and ordered his entire kingdom to fast. The king prayed a humble prayer that resounded with truth. His kingdom belonged to God, and God had worked out bigger problems than this before.

Cape Town is a bucket list city, flaunting breathtaking mountains, beaches, and even a few famous roads. One roadway you can't miss is an unfinished bridge that rises above the heart of the city and abruptly stops mid-air. Construction began in the 1970's, and there are no plans to finish it.

I took this picture of Wyatt for the boys in the background.

We've been in an extra-challenging season, learning to new sides of Benjamin's PDA profile of autism. I've been posting brotherly bonds and family adventures as a banner over us. We're still doing the things that matter. We choose these moments to mark us.

Christian music was new to me in 2006 when Casting Crowns released "Praise You in This Storm". The band recently re-released their song with a fresh take, and it hit different this time. Not because of the different style, but because I'm in a different storm.

According to the "Teacher" in Ecclesiastes, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." ( 3:1) He begins with, "a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot.." (Eccl 3:2) And carries on until the reader and the Teacher himself are whirling with the question, "What's the point?"

We work. We hope. We try. We toil. We laugh. We weep.

Blessing Offor is a Nigerian-born singer, songwriter and musician. He was born blind in one eye and with compromised vision in the other. Blessing's parents made a gut-wrenching decision for him to move across the world from them at the tender age of six. Their sacrifice was to save his vision through first-world medical care.

We are "church people". My husband's favorite part of the week is preaching, and I was called the SiSwati word for "Sunday" in the community I served previously because of my passion for church.

Last Sunday, I was in the kiddies class with our 17-month old. I noticed our 4-year old wasn't dancing front and center as usual. I found him heaped on the floor with a despondent look. I knew he desired to participate, but autism was shutting him down instead.

I was up late recently, rattled by the twists and turns of parenting a child with special needs. A teething baby demanded comfort just as I started to settle. One hour of sleep later, it was time for a new day to start!

There was a redeeming moment in that nauseatingly caffeinated day…

I would love to powerfully connect with God every single morning when I rise to give Him the first part of my day. Sometimes I'm tired, distracted, or find that I just don't know what to say.

I like to think I've learned a "hack" to connect my intention to commune with God to my distracted, sleepy reality.

I've been reaching out to the generous hands who have held us on the mission field. I am always surprised to pick up right where I left off with college roommates, childhood teachers, mentors, and friends from lifetimes ago. It's been refreshing to give thanks repeatedly and remember how God has provided.

God put a picture in my mind before I had children. I was sitting on the floor with piles of laundry, toys everywhere, and everything out of order. I could almost feel the chaos in the scene. In it, God whispered, "Daughter, you never have to live in chaos."

This week, my youngest children danced and played in our back garden. They were lovingly tucked into their safe, warm beds every night while I kept careful watch over them with baby monitors. Meanwhile, a few kilometers away, our city was in utter disarray.

A violent, week-long taxi strike in Cape Town kept hundreds of thousands of teachers and learners away from school and employees away from work. Kids just like mine lost parents as the strike became murderous.

Our missional family has the benefit of being keenly aware of God's miraculous provision each month when bills are paid and food is on the table. God gives us what we need, when we need it. Not more or less. When we've tried to increase our monthly support to fully cover our needs without those "please, please, please" eeky squeaky prayers, the funds don't come. There's always space for a miracle in our budget. The real miracle is knowing we need God and finding Him in our need.

My primary job description looks more like "rodeo wrangler" than "mom" with three boys. People often tell me I have my hands full. A common, heartfelt question pointed at me is, "Are you getting any 'me time'?" I always smile back and say, "Of course not!"