Balance

 I made a goals board today (my nieces tell me it’s a vision board, but I can’t get my brain to call it that. It’s for goals so it must be called a goals board), and am so happy with how it turned out. I’m hoping this type of visual will help me remember things better and keep me on track. It took hours and hours and so much frustration to get everything together for it, but it was really fun to create after the prep work was done.

I usually have a hard time narrowing down a word for the year. I have a group of friends who get together every year to share their word for the year, and I love hearing what they choose and why, but it’s not really something my mind comes up with easily. But for the last few months the word balance has popped up in my conversation and bible study so frequently that I’ve started to love looking for it. So for now, balance is my word for the year. 

Proverbs 16:11

A just weight and balance are the Lord's: all the weights of the bag are his work.

I love making smaller, achievable goals. I have a tendency to make too many goals or unattainable goals, and it ends up being defeating. But now I realize that although I might need to add a few difficult goals, I need to also add a few easier ones for encouragement. Once I see smaller goals completed, it makes the bigger goals feel possible.

The two most difficult goals on my list this year are for my kids: imagination play and dropping the to-do list to say yes to the girls. I’m already telling myself defeating things about these two. “I’ll never be able to do this. I hate imagination play. I need to finish my list because of my OCD. I’ll be so stressed. Blah blah blah.” But this week, we’re on vacation for the holidays and I’ve managed to force myself to say yes 3 times, skip cleaning the heck out of the bathrooms, and I’ve played “mother and daughters go shopping and berate the shopkeeper”. Aaron was the shopkeeper and he ended up nearly dead and had to repent to God over his exorbitant shop prices. He was selling used throw pillows for $1,600. I also played “teen daughter is ugly to her kind mother”. Luna was the kind mother and I was the ugly teenager. I tried to be as obnoxious as possible and Luna said, sedately,”Honey, mothers still love their kids even when they’re being disgusting little brutes.” I had to come out of character to laugh my head off at her vocabulary. 

The girls were so happy to play with me. I wish it was easier for me to keep that happiness at the front of my mind. This is just one area in life that I want to be more balanced in. Less rushing to get things done, and more slowing down to say “sure, I have time to play with you just for fun.” But I already feel like this goal is the one where in three weeks I’ll be saying,”What goal?!?!”

I was a voracious reader as a kid. We’d go to the library every few days and come home with stacks and stacks of books. I read everything I could get my hands on, including the entire dictionary and a set of 1960’s encyclopedias. For fun! I don’t really remember playing as a kid, I remember sitting in a tree while reading a book. But as an adult, I pretty much stopped reading for a decade or so. Now I have really poor memory and really poor focus. So last year I set a goal to read one book per month and ended up reading around 32 books. This year I set the same small, achievable goal of 12 books for the year, and I secretly hope to hit 40. But if I only hit 12, goal achieved. It’s perhaps a little bit of a cheat, but no one can convince me there is a better way, haha. Rachel read 99 books last year and it was a low year for her! I’m so impressed!

Some of my favorite books from last year were:

-Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. A memoir about Bryan’s work as a death row lawyer in AL. This book was gripping and terrible and amazing. It had some gut wrenching prison abuse scenes, so be warned if you try to read it. 

-Testimony by Jon Ward. A memoir about Jon’s life growing up in Covenant  Life Church and seeing it spiral into Christian Nationalism, placing politics before God. This book is about current events, and was hard to put down. I’m always shocked when I hear Christians advocate for Christian Nationalism so it was very eye opening to see how his former church family took that direction.

-The Great Sex Rescue by Shelia Wray Gregiore. This book dismantles a lot of commonly held church beliefs about marriage and sex. I was taught every single thing this book refutes and cried super hard the entire time I read it. It was genuinely life altering to see it laid out so clearly, in a way that I had not been able to voice myself at the time, and I felt raw of spirit for months afterward. It’s changed how I read the Bible. It made for some very interesting conversations between Aaron and I as we realized we grew up being taught very different things, but that had somehow never come up between us until I read the book this year.

-Fairytale by Stephen King. This is one of the best fiction books I’ve ever read in my entire life. Unlike his other books, which I don’t recommend, this one isn’t horror, it’s just fantasy and a fairytale. Don’t read if language offends you; it doesn’t bother me and this book has a lot. Sidenote: if you want a truly wonderful, family friendly fairytale, please read Ella Enchanted by Gail Levine. It’s nothing like the atrocious movie! It’s so sweet and adorable.

-How God Sees Women by Terran Williams. This book compares the doctrines of complementarianism and egalitarianism. One of my goals for this year is to finish this book. It’s theology and not a quick read. I felt very impatient when I started it and tried to speed thru. I had to stop and now have reread the first 6 chapters 4-5 times. I try to look up every verse reference (he uses a different translation), and every source which is time consuming but fascinating. I don’t know yet if I can recommend the entire book, but I can recommend the first 6 chapters and wish everyone would read it. Out of all the books I’ve read this year, this one has been the most helpful and has answered a lot of my doubts and questions about God. 

Jeremiah 29:13

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

I began counseling with a christian therapist in November. I have fretted over who to choose for literal years, dragging my feet. I finally chose my therapist based on her online picture, haha! Her face is what I’d call “kind and experienced”.  There were other counselors online who met my criteria, but they had grumpy eyebrows or weren’t smiling and that was intimidating. I was nervous that she wouldn’t be able to handle narcolepsy which makes therapy more complicated. I prayed anxiously and wrote out a lot of stuff about narcolepsy for her. But during our initial interview she told me she specializes in EMDR and the neurological side of therapy, not so much talk therapy. Then in our first session, she opened with prayer, after asking permission, and was so genuine. And then in our next session, she discussed having “neurological and cognitive balance to draw us closer to the Lord”, using her hands to depict a balance. And when she said the word balance, I relaxed and thanked God for her. My goal with her is to learn to manage panic attacks which I have several times a week, and to move past the seemingly eternally lingering depression from Daphne’s birth- which I’ve had truly significant recovery from, but would like to see the rest of it kicked out the door. I’m also excited to work with someone who knows so much about the physical brain since mine is not okay (send thoughts and prayers).

Wrapping up with the rest of the verses I put on my board. They all hold special meaning for me right now, and have been really encouraging to me throughout the last year. I’m carrying them forward into 2026 (also send thoughts and prayers that I can memorize one single verse because no matter how hard I try, they fly away from my memory as fast as Daphne runs from me when she needs to go on the potty but really prefers her pull-up).

Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Micah 6:8

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Proverbs 19:17

He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again

Matthew 13:24-30

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.