2 Things I Won’t Be Bringing With Me into 2025
I have been a Christian, Christ-follower, “Believer”, whatever you want to call it… for a very long time; as long as I can remember actually. I have “walked the walk,” and “talked the talk," (I actually feel super cringy even saying that) but one of my biggest pet peeves is when Christian‘s over spiritualize EVERYTHING (can I get an “AMEN?”)! So in writing this, I am not trying to over spiritualize or bring condemnation into this at all. Just feeling inspired to share and wanted to set the record straight…
It has also been my desire this year, in 2025 to begin to write again. A little known (or perhaps unknown) fact about me, back in the day I used to have a lifestyle blog where I talked mainly about very personal topics like this and throughout the years I have pulled back from that for many different reasons. And this year, I felt very… convicted isn’t the right word… maybe, challenged to start writing again and share some thoughts.
So here goes…As I have been reflecting on 2024 and looking into the New Year, I will be honest with you, I have been very discouraged. I have found myself feeling seasonal depression coming on very strong and developing feelings of resentment and bitterness towards people that I love.
Without getting into it too much I will just say that at the end of 2024 I experienced something extremely painful within a close friendship. And through it, I realized that I wasn’t OK. And that I had lost a lot of trust in myself and in the Lord. And if I’m being TOTALLY honest… I even felt tempted to give up on my walk with the Lord all together or at least throw in the towel for a little bit.
THING’S I HAVE IN MY CART….
And yet, I continued to get up each morning for my quiet time and I would just sit there. I wouldn’t open my Bible, I wouldn’t journal, and I didn’t even wanna talk with the Lord. My own thoughts felt unsafe, my church felt unsafe, my friends felt unsafe. Nothing felt safe.
And recently, while I sat in the early morning hours before the kids woke up, doing everything in my power to not grab my phone and begin scrolling on social media to numb out any thoughts going on in my head… I was extremely convicted by two different things: one being this place of discontentment that I’m currently in. And I’ll explain why…
For 13 years, while living here, in Central Illinois I struggled greatly with feeling very discontent with where we live. I don’t like the weather, the landscape or the activities (to name a few) and was dying to get out. I wanted to move for years and felt like if I could just get away from here, I would be happier.
Well, that dream almost became a reality at the end of 2023, when Guy landed a job in Michigan near my family. However, that door was quickly shut, and we were back to square one. The funny thing is, that when that door was shut, I felt more peace and contentment than I ever had. It was like the Lord had blanketed me with this grace. I felt like for the first time, I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was a wild feeling and an even wilder season.
This grace “covered” me for the rest of 2024; that is, until the end of it when like I said before, I walked through an incredibly hard and defeating situation. Feeling sad, confused, and angry; it ultimately created this “flight response“ in me where I just wanted to get away, run away. It felt safer to do that than to sit in the pain. And there it was again, that spirit of discontentment.
It flooded in more quickly and more sneakily than I imagined it could. And through it, it created feelings of resentment and bitterness towards those that I love. It stirred an anger in me that began to manifest itself in the way that I parented. And ultimately it made me feel extremely discouraged and depressed. Affecting everyone and everything in my path.
Why am I sharing all of this? You might be wondering? I am also starting to wonder… Lol! Bear with me!
As I sat in my discomfort and in my pain this morning, reflecting on the way that I had treated my husband and my kids over the last several weeks, I realized that I had once again begun partnering with the spirit of discontentment that plagued much of the last decade of my life.
And in it, it created so much hurt for those that I love the most. I replayed conversations and interactions I had with my kids and husband over Christmas break and realized just how unloving and dysfunctional my words and my actions had been. And I felt the Lord urge me to repent for partnering with this spirit of discontentment and apologize to my family for the way that I have been acting.
It’s really quite a humbling thing to do as a full-blown adult to show up as a parent and admit that you were not just wrong but out of line. It was an extremely sobering moment, but so beautiful as I watched my kids so graciously extend their arms of forgiveness to me and tell me how much they love me.
And secondly… I won’t go into much detail about this one as I feel like it’s pretty straightforward. But over the last several days as I have wrestled with this discontentment, I have also noticed that it had really upped my cussing game. I laugh as I write that but it’s true!
I grew up in a family that never cussed, and as I became an adult, didn’t really cuss either, but DEFINITELY had my moments… you know the kind where you stub your toe or are in a heated argument and want your words to really sting. Those were my moments to really let the cuss words fly!
And it’s not that I looked down upon those that did, it was just that it wasn’t something that I struggled with a lot. And I don’t say any of this to bring shame or condemnation to any of you Christians that do cuss, but I felt really convicted about the amount of cussing that I had been doing over the last several weeks and the way that I was doing it in front of my kids.
I began to really think about what cussing is and the origin of it. And I kid you not within the next couple of days I began getting several suggested reels coming up in my IG feed regarding the origin of curse words and the power behind them. Which made me feel even more convicted. I talk to my kids all the time about the power of our words and how extremely intentional we need to be when it comes to our words and here I was not practicing what I often preach.
And this morning, which is really the moment I knew I had to share this; while I got ready for the day, I was listening to a podcast by Kris Valloton where he shared that the Lord had recently convicted him on this very topic. And it just reaffirmed once again that the Lord was speaking to me and reminding me that our words do truly matter. We aren’t perfect people, we are going to mess up, we are going to fail, we are going to struggle and we are going to let other people down. Heck, we’re going to let ourselves down, but what does matter is that our heart and our intentions behind what we do and what we say are honoring to the Lord.
It can be so easy in this day and age to get wrapped up in what is culturally acceptable, but that’s not what we’re called to do or to be. In fact, we’re called to be set apart (Romans 12:2). I don’t fully know why I felt so strongly about sharing these thoughts with you…maybe I’ll delete them later LOL!
But maybe, some of you reading this can feel encouraged and seen. Maybe these words will affirm some things in your own heart. Maybe you’re battling that same spirit of discontentment and need to search inwards for where you might need to repent. Remember, He knows better than we do about where we’re supposed to be!
Anyway, that’s all for now… Stay tuned for another extremely vulnerable and transparent blog coming… who knows when but hopefully in the near future!
