Lent has come before the year has even begun. A mom friend asked me if Landon would join a summer camp with her son yesterday. Are we already planning summer? It still feels like January to me. 

For some time I have been mulling over what to do with this ole blog. I am concerned about the capabilities of the inter webs these days and am leaning towards more privacy. I enjoy writing. It helps me organize my thoughts and is a placeholder for remembering. I am also a creature of habit. I will continue on with the spotty posts but will most likely go private soon. I will share access with those I know, please just ask. 

Family birthdays, community restoration, fires, so many spring sports, knotts, family flu, snow, bible project, church. It's all there, like it is for everyone. Sorrow and joy, confidence and fear, the known and unknown, all intermingling and woven together in the tapestry of life. 

He Is

The circled area is our school. The yellow is the fire.

School chapel

7 days into the new year, I was finishing up my BSF meeting and got a call from the kid's school that they were evacuating due to a brush fire. By the time I got there the magnitude of the situation became apparent and the little brush fire had a new name - the Palisades Fire. The air was smoky and there was a frantic feel in the air. Parents were parking at the local grocery store and running up the hill to find their kids who were walking down busy streets filled with cars hastily evacuating. The next few days, our class group chats were full of people's pictures of where their homes used to be. I'll never forget it.

It's been two weeks and now that the smoke has cleared and the school tallied, 142 families and 15 staff lost their homes - half of the school. The entire Palisades community has been lost. A miracle of all miracles, the fire burned right around most of our school. Some buildings were burned but, for the most part, saved. It has been something to be so near to such grief. To hear the intimate details and walk alongside so many families who have lost everything. Everyone from school is safe but, as someone said, just behind the immeasurable loss of life, is the loss of the proof of life. 

I have no reason to complain since my home is standing. The school is setting up in a temporary location for the remainder of the year. By the time they go back, they'll have missed a month of school. I won't lie, having them home, and scrambling to figure out a patchwork of homeschooling, has been hard. 

The irony that I just posted about joy is not lost of me. January came and tested whether that newfound joy was actually in Him. Do my words still ring true in the most grievous situations? My heart is broken for our community but my faith is not. I trust Him because I know Him. 

He is El Roi - the God who sees every bit of our trials and triumphs.

He is Jehovah Rapha - our healer who is faithful to restore, renew, and make whole in every season. 

He is El Shaddai - God Almighty, strong enough to handle every situation.

He is El Elyon - the Lord Most High, nothing is higher or greater or stronger than Him. 

He is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble. The Lord of Armies is with us and the God of Jacob is our stronghold. Psalm 46

In the upside down kingdom of God, loss brings gain, death brings life, and sorrow brings joy - so we hold on because this is just the middle of the story. As Katherine Wolfe so poignantly once said, "And still we show up and press on. There will be treasures found in 2025 too."

2024 JOY 2025

Somewhere in the chaos of raising tiny humans I lost my joy. One year turned into two, two years into three, and here I am five years later wondering where the joy went and where the time went too. 

But it needs to be marked that 2024 was the year I began to regain my joy. At first it was pockets of it - a belly aching laugh here, a moment of sparkle there, but inch by inch, one step forward and two steps back, I hesitantly say out loud that I think it is returning to me. 

Many factors helped but the main thing, friends? He has stabilized me with the essential Truth of the gospel. I had to catch up to knowing God - understanding His heart and His ways and then letting that Truth change me. He changes how we see things and how we view people. He removes the need for praise and the debilitating sting of criticism. He heals hearts. He revealed my legalistic mindset and replaced it (is still replacing it) with love and grace. 

On my birthday three different people remarked how they have noticed I am a different person. There could not be a greater compliment! God’s Word has proven true once again - for He has begun to give me the fruits of the Spirit that I had little of before - gentleness, patience, peace, and joy. Julianna Joy - He is returning my name to me. 

Do you remember Cain and Abel, the brothers? Cain was the oldest son, the strong one. The one who was to receive the inheritance and the blessing from his father. Abel’s name in Hebrew is Hebel, which throughout the book of Ecclesiastes means meaningless, a vapor or a mist, here for a moment and then gone. But God took that earthly identity and He crushed it when He gave Abel the blessing instead of Cain. 

We are all Abel’s - and if we choose God we will receive the blessing too. 

“My whole source of joy is in you!” Psalm 87:7

“The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy. Psalm 126:3

So I close out 2024 and gingerly step into 2025 with joy - who knew! I’m choosing to cherish my husband and enjoy my kids, study the word, laugh with my friends, lean in to my church community, and all the while, asking God for wild hope in this new year, and praying that with whatever comes, He will continue to swap out my garment of despair for a spirit of joy.