This life. This life as a fire wife. This life as a mom. This life as a human. This life as a daughter of the most high king. This life as a Christ follower. This crazy, crazy life. It’s wonderful. It’s heartbreaking. It’s complicated. It’s joyful. It’s so many things all rolled into our every day.

Today I walked into the living room and my high schoolers were seeing who could name the most countries in 15 minutes. This made me chuckle because just yesterday they were acting like barbarians. All I could think at that moment was this famous line from the movie Forest Gump, “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” 2025 has thrown us many curve balls thus far. But I know that God has not left us alone. He will never leave us or forsake us and I know that He will use every curveball, every piece of chocolate for our good and His glory. He brings beauty from ashes. He makes broken things beautiful. He brings restoration. He makes things brand new.

See this picture? This is what is happening under the bridge on one side of the street. The water is flowing, fast and loud. On the other side of the street under that bridge, the water is calm, twinkling like diamonds sit on the surface under the sunlight. Sometimes our lives are calm and our kids are naming countries. Other times, the floor gets pulled out from under us and we just need to hold on tight and brace ourselves for a bumpy ride. But even in the midst of crazy we can find calm or the calm can find us. In all of our crazy circumstances, in every twist and turn in this crazy adventure of life, I can be sure of this, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still.” Exodus 14:14