In every good marriage, there’s a worrier and someone who is not easily rattled. In mine, I take the position of the worrier, and Sam is the one who is always telling me to let things go. Even if you’re not married, you probably know whether you’ll end up being the worried one or the other half who will constantly be telling your spouse to take a breath and change their perspective.

I am dissatisfied. I don’t want to be but I am. It’s so easy to fall into a habit of discontentment. As a young person, I was taught that there would be so much to accomplish in all the areas of my life. I was praised by others constantly for my potential, talents, and promise. Naturally, as you grow older and make decisions in your life, it feels like that endless potential you’re told about when you’re in school grows limits. And that's a hard feeling to grapple with. You think to yourself: I’m almost x years old! I thought I’d have accomplished this by now! I thought I’d have this much in my bank account! I thought I’d be in a much easier place! Where did all that potential go?

I am learning that with every major milestone in life, there is one common denominator: thank you cards. And after the birth of my daughter, Piper, we’ve gotten so many gifts from so many people that it’s hard to keep track anymore. So much so, that I decided to finally buckle down and take care of sending out thank you cards off of a very inconsistent list Sam and I started putting together once the packages started coming in from everywhere. As I was going through a list of people at least an arms length long, something extremely obvious occurred to me. Thank you notes are considered a nice touch, if not a common courtesy. If you get a gift big or small, you thank that person for it and a thank you note sends a specific message of deep gratitude.

I’ve served as a worship leader for 13 years. It doesn’t feel like that long in my brain, but I started serving on my youth worship team when I was a freshman in high school. Over the years, I’ve served on multiple teams,both in the lead and in the background, at a handful of different churches with lots of different beliefs. There are a lot of different worship songs that spark debate amongst worship teams, especially now that worship songs are going under the microscope in terms of: is this worship to God, or man-centered worship under a problematic theology? One song that seems to be debated more often, I’ve noticed, is “Blessed Be Your Name” by Matt Redman.

2020 has been a year of hard knocks. I don’t care who you are, but I don’t think anyone had an easy year. Some are jobless, some are mourning the loss of loved ones, and some are living in day-to-day fear, loneliness, and frustration. It was a year of missed plans, disappointment, and cancelled travels. It might seem, as we approach Thanksgiving, that there is not much to be thankful for. Instead, we may want to hide in our homes, order in, and shake our fists at God for all the things that aren’t going for us.

July 4, 2015, is a day that will forever be impressed upon my memory. Ironically, on the biggest holiday for our nation, I boarded a plane and left everything and everyone I’d ever known behind to live in Cape Town, South Africa. While I had always dreamed of going to that breathtaking city– and it had taken a year of planning to get there– I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that I had actually made it. It was only after the automatic doors opened and I stepped out of the airport, that I realized exactly what was actually happening. There I was, exhausted and desperate for a shower after an entire 24 hours of travel, when I was greeted by the three, beautiful mountains that make up Cape Town’s city skyline; three mountains that would very quickly become the familiar backdrop to one of the biggest adventures I’ve ever had.