I grew up in Texas . Country music was always on the radio, and my family played penny and nickel poker when we got together. Maybe that's why Kenny Rogers' lyrics played through my mind on Wednesday when I just didn't know what to do.

Have you heard about Words to Live By!?! Read this short blog for everything you need to know about it. Chris and I are passionate about this discipline. I promise… it will change your life! I want to share my 2022 Words to Live By with you to encourage you to write your own! Mine my change over time as I settle into declaring them out loud daily, but here’s what I’m starting with. You can click the button below for a list of declarations that you can use to make your own. I used this list and a few other resources I’ll share below as well. Let me know if you’ve written yours too!

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is sweeping through South Africa - not very dangerous, but very contagious! Many are traveling and visiting family, so Chris made the call this week to have church online only to protect our volunteers and members. The goal is to keep everyone safe and healthy so we can enjoy Christmas together as a church and with our families!

The boys and I stayed home and watched “Daddy on TV”. Benjamin stood directly in front of the TV for part of it, screaming, “Daddy said Jesus! Daddy said Moses!”…

I texted a friend at the end of a peaceful Sunday to ask how I could pray for her. We were both looking at the week ahead with bulging eyes at the tasks laid out before us. We decided to spend the first five minutes of every day this week listening to a worship song and offering our day, tasks and plans to God as a spiritual act of worship.

I finally feel like myself again after spending a few weeks under the weather. It feels incredible! When I finally started to come out of the haze, I remembered I had let go of a precious habit. I have prayed with at least one friend every week for years…

Written on Monday, June 26

It's a new day in South Africa! President Ramaphosa is leading us carefully out of a month-long level 4 lockdown. People can gather in small groups, and kids can go to school with some extra precautions in place. Lifa was JAZZED to go to school this morning. Benjamin, however, lives his best life on lockdown with his brother's full attention.

I hope to write more about this soon. I shared vulnerably with our church and the Help Club Moms live on Thursday night about it. Last week in South Africa - the violence, injustices, and outrages circumstances that people I love found themselves in - it got to me. It hurt my hoper. I wrestled and struggled in a way that I never have. I poured my tears out and confessed my low place to my husband. I wrestled through it with his compassion and care right next to me.

It's still raining! We're still in lockdown! We're getting creative - and using A LOT of exclamation points!!!

Day 1 of this rainy lockdown was verrrrrrry long. That night, I knew things were going to have to be different - for the good of the people. Life looks different right now, so we have to live it differently. We have much larger workloads than than we did during our first lockdown, and both kids have very different interests and needs. And also... RAIN.

I'm a food tracker. In many seasons over the last 7ish years, I have used an app called My Fitness Pal to track what I eat. It started in an extraordinarily hopeless season of life when I just needed a win. There was very little I had control over at that time, but I could control my caloric intake. I set a calorie goal, and it became a game - a way to win every single day. An unexpected journey toward health began from that desperate game as I started losing weight and feeling better. VERY slowly, I started making intentional changes and realized that I was capable of so much more than winning a game of numbers and food portions. I could re-wire myself - mentally, physically and emotionally.

A story about the story: I wrote this article last week for Help Club for Moms, which is why it sounds a little more generic (appropriate?) than most of my other personal stories. BUT I wanted to share it with you here and tell you this one frenzied moment I begin with - and the way God met me in it - has intrinsically changed me. Forever. I think I said the same thing to Chris every night when we got into bed last week: “I’m becoming different from that one moment. I think God is doing something in me.” Isn’t He good? So, as you read today, I want you to take heart that God can change everything about you in the moments when you don’t even like you.

was learning that He created and commanded order from the very beginning. Check out Genesis 1 and 2. Literally, the very beginning. This week, I poured deep into the Biblical narrative of God’s created order. I spent 3 evenings teaching moms about it and felt like I was just scratching the surface.

Last night after Benjamin was asleep, I was preparing the teaching I was going to do for Help Club. I popped my head into Chris’ office and found him deep in thought, scribbling notes and sending messages at the same time. He was watching President Ramaphosa’s “Family Meeting” speech regarding the 3rd wave of COVID-19 in Africa. The president was wisely saying, “The massive surge in new infections means that we must once again tighten restrictions on the movement of persons and gatherings.”

Church was amazing this Sunday! We expected a quiet morning as rumors of a third wave of COVID rippled through the nation. I took my place next to Chris on the front row ten minutes after the service started. Several new families had poured in the door at the last minute, and I was helping them get their kids checked in. Chris leaned in to me when I joined him and asked, "Is it empty in here?" I whispered that I couldn't see any open seats.

Chris Ladd and I could not be more opposite types of human. Some key differences are played out most obviously in the kitchen. When were dating, and our differences were intriguing and charming, we loved to try new recipes together after Lifa had gone to bed. In marriage, we view our differences as strengths to work together… and also the very things that make the hair on the back of our necks stand up. We now do zero cooking together. Sometimes we even take turns being in the kitchen! We consider it finding a way to win.

We’ve had major highs, breakthroughs, wins and worship in the last few weeks - at the same time as debilitating exhaustion, strain and pain. And there’s been some plain old medium stuff.

We cut back on things we didn’t have space for - like blog writing, cooking big dinners, and some late night international meetings. We learned new things - like how to high school, the maximum physical capacities of our people, and how to find God’s sweetness in the medium things. Activities pulled us further apart, but intentionality brought us closer than ever.

“You can’t give God your heart and keep your body for yourself” Elisabeth Elliott

A friend recently asked me, “If your children were taking care of themselves the way you do, would you be happy?” Mic drop. How would you answer that, mama? Ten years ago, my answer would have been very different than it is today!

We all know 2020 has been a very different kind of year. As I think ahead toward this holiday season, I see that I am different too. In a year of forced isolation, I have nurtured a stronger faith, healthier marriage and wider community than I could have imagined. 2020 pulled out the weeds, slowed down the traffic, and kept us home to do the hard work. We get a fresh start for the holidays. All the old rules and old ways are out the window!

Yesterday I shared that I was trying to think of a few small steps to change my overall direction - to keep priorities in order and my head on straight. Tomorrow I am experimenting with “No Phone Friday”.

Have you ever tried to make a change with no idea how to start? But you knew you needed to change? Whether it is health, marriage, family, or a bad habit, big changes are daunting. The minute I look at the whole enchilada of transformation awaiting, I feel overwhelmed and would rather curl up into a ball than start that ever-so-tricky and usually unrewarding step one.