The past few years have been…interesting…and I’m sure the whole world would agree.

There’s been a lot that has gone on for my husband & myself…the obvious one has been the Covid-19 pandemic. It had a huge impact on our small business, our stress levels, & our daily lives. But since 2020, we’ve also dealt with a few other struggles- an infertility diagnosis, dealing with & healing from marital struggles, decisions about growing our family through fostering-to-adopt & IVF treatment, & now pregnancy & preparing to welcome our first little one!

The past 2.5 years have brought a lot of stress but God has absolutely used it to rip out a lot of the weeds in my heart that were choking out my faith & reliance on Him. Over the next few weeks & months I’ll go a little more in-depth on each of the struggles He used to re-shape my heart. I enjoy sharing about these struggles not as a way to seek pity but as a way to share encouragement & share the lessons & blessings Christ has taught me through them. Here recently, He’s even corrected a misconception I held about myself. Up until recently as I would share my testimony through these struggles I would always say “God used them to show me who I had become without Him in my life,” but in the past few months I realized I was lying to myself by saying that. That sentence implied I was some kind of perfect little angel before the past few years, that I was in the right through everything beforehand…which…trust me, I absolutely was NOT. In reality, God has used the past few years to show me who I have always been without Him- selfish, bitter, angry, jealous, resentful, lustful, & so much more…but He is changing these things in my heart, bit by bit, stripping away the layers of things that don’t belong in order to make me more like Him. It’s not easy, it’s been really incredibly painful, but I am so so so thankful for it & I’m looking forward to sharing with you.

Be blessed, friends.

“We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

Romans 8: 28 & 29, CSB