if i could give my 28th year a few benchmarks, it would be these: 

• to stop
• to reorient 
• He ennobles

to stop 

28 was a year that i reached the end of myself in a new way. i’ve spent the last 5 years in and out of therapy learning more about who i am, my story, my trauma responses and doing the interior work to better engage with reality as it happens. it has been wonderfully beneficial and has helped bring isolated parts of myself and my story into communion within me and with God. there is always work to do, and the practicals of this work have changed everything…it’s helping me to serve from a rightly ordered place, to be more generous with myself, with others and to be more free with God. 

this year, in more ways than one, was about bringing that interior integration into my exterior life.  i was invited to stop – stop working in environments that were emotionally draining, lack boundaries, and don’t help me flourish professionally. stop doing things that don’t bring me life and start engaging with people who are fun and free and on the journey to a full and abundant life.

to reorient

pretty recently, in my journal, i wrote, “something has changed within me.” (thank you to those who get a wicked reference)

around Lent, i realized that in my stopping God was inviting me to reorient my life to one that is based on leisure. what a change!? to be before i do. it’s something i’ve known to be true for a while and this year, in a new way, i have taken it to heart. God in His kindness invited me to rest and to go slow. when i started feeling back to 30% i was ready to serve again, to lead the people of God, to speak – and God still asked me to remain, to abide, to rest and to wait. so i waited. (most times impatiently) i frequented the beach, made friends and kept up with old ones. i baked all the time, started doing art projects, hosted my favorite people in my home and took life slow.

in this place of rest and solitude, there was a space opened within me to to receive anew the blessing God pours out upon me. and this gift has me resting securely in His goodness, His trustworthiness, His kindness, His providence.

He ennobles me

hm. what a gift. to be called to a newer depth. this is where i end my 28th year. the Lord desires to speak something new and i don’t know what it is yet. how thrilling :’) as Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati says, “Verso L’Alto” toward the heights we go. 

i’m deeply grateful for the last year of life and joyfully look forward to the next. here’s a poem that came as a fruit of prayer in May. i hope it blesses you.