We all get to the “WHY” crossroad in our faith journey.

Why do bad things happen? Why did Jesus say He works out all things for the good of those who love Him when life looks like this?

This week at church, Chris shared why he still believes despite all he’s been through. He gives practical and powerful truth for you and your why too! Check it out! His teaching starts at 23:30.

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.

I carried tension with me everywhere I went yesterday. I didn't know I was doing it, but I found myself over-stimulated, extra sensitive, and compelled to check in on friends I haven't heard from much since lockdown started….

This is a message that changed me. This is something God has been doing in me for the last several years, and I’ve been able to teach it many times to moms around the world in the last few weeks. Just last night, I taught this to an international mom’s retreat through Zoom, and got to encourage women fro Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria, America, Canada, South Africa and the UK. The spoiler alert is…

I was unsettled at the beginning of the week, looking for comfort, peace and something to make me feel good as we began another week of level 4 lockdown. I turned to God again and again, while simultaneously turning to my own abilities, lists, plans, comfort food, coffee, and on and on.

My husband bared his greatest life struggle in his sermon on anxiety this Sunday. He was even more candid than I expected with the painful details of his battle and the toll it took on our marriage. The first 5 years of our 5 3/4 year marriage were the hardest of our lives. We were hard-pressed on every side, literally facing life and death.

Covid cases are escalating wildly again in South Africa. Borders are closing. Boundaries are being drawn in every area of life.

I submitted our last set of documents to our immigration lawyer yesterday to apply for mine and our youngest's visas. Here's to hoping Home Affairs doesn't close again and borders won't stay closed too long! We'd hoped we were at the end of our 6-year stint without seeing family, but we will just wait and see.

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.

I've been breaking social norms for the last few weeks when people ask, "How are things going?" Instead of the anticipated "Fine," I've been exclaiming things like, "Shockingly good!"

If you've been reading the Call to Worship or my blog for a while, you might know our family has been running fast and hard after the things God has spoken to us - only to hit wall after wall. For years, we've armed ourselves with verses like Isaiah 40:31, yet I still grew weary from running and faint from walking.

Yesterday, Benjamin and I went to a nearby park for a playdate. We had a very unusual encounter as we were getting ready to leave. It went something like this...

A dear friend bared her weary soul to me this week and said, "I don't even recognize myself anymore." Another storm and another crisis had rocked her family's world. Her soul was taking a beating. She wasn't responding the way she wanted to. She couldn't find the strength to be who she wanted to be. She could hardly stand the juxtaposition of hope and hurt.

I love weightlifting.🏋️‍♀️ We rent a weight set so I can exercise at home, and I train virtually twice a week with a personal trainer. I have gained surprising strength in the last year of training. It has NOTHING to do with my abilities and everything to do with consistently showing up and the calculated pushing of my trainer, David. The past few weeks have been full of extra meetings, deadlines and event planning. I had to cancel training sessions to make room for urgent needs.

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 were born to hope. To believe in something, to seek something, to continuously become… If we get our eyes stuck on what’s in front of us, our heart set on what it within reach, we are missing something… Someone eternal.

This week, I was CRAZY tired. I planned my entire weekend around taking a nap while Benjamin slept. Guess what… COULDN’T SLEEP. While the rest of the house was super peaceful and resting, I was busy cracking away at my keyboard.

The weekend approaches with promise. It's virtually impossible to begin a weekend, or any season of life, without expectation. We approach wedding days, due dates, holidays, mealtimes, and Saturday mornings alike with a picture of what it will be, a definition of what it should be, or a dream of what it could be.

"This world is crazy! Do you see what's happening around us?" The Bible is filled with stories of the world being just as crazy (maybe more!) than today's world. In the Old Testament, God responded with mass destruction to wipe away the bad so there could be good again.

Then Jesus came.

My husband looked at my crossed eyes today during the inevitable afternoon slump and asked how I was. We had just squeezed in a meeting with our immigration lawyer before going our separate ways for the day again. I smiled and said, “I am so good!” I was still wearing a COVID screening sticker from the hospital where I’d just been to see Benjamin’s paediatrician after another night of high fevers. (He is fine!)

I tried to write you a blog about 89 times. Eventually I just sat down on the floor with my kids, and told you what I had to say on video. Today it’s a vlog! If you have about 8 and a 1/2 minutes to spare, check this out!

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31 NIV