Hello reader friends. It’s been several months, not that I expected for it to be. But sometimes life happens with such speed and force, that we are wise to pause other endeavors and lean into it, no?

For a personal update, we wrapped up our homeschool and college school years in November, and headed back to the States for the holiday season. It was a trip of stress and difficulty, and also of meaningful time together and grief and gratitude. Half of our family tested C*vid positive, and could not return when planned. But now, at the end of the first month of 2022, we are home in South Africa and all together again. We are grateful for the opportunity and privilege to be with our families this year, and grateful to be back and settling into our normal routines and rhythms.

A new year always offers a certain energy and clarity for me; what is this year going to bring? What goals might I set? What will we do as a family? This new year, I am entering with a sense of timidity. It’s difficult to put words to our last year; still pain a bit fresh, and grief very real. Still sore from loss, sore from life. Certainly this year must be better than last year, whatever that means. Right, God?

But who are we to bargain with God? I do not know what this year holds any more than we knew what last year would hold. And perhaps it was a gift that we did not know. It’s a gift that we do not know. Rather, we entrust this year to God, we entrust our loved ones, our families and marriages and churches and ministries and work all to God, and we seek to be faithful in this day.

So here I am, on this side of 2021, easing into 2022 with a face toward faithfulness, finding God gently nudging me toward fresh goals, fresh hope, fresh movement. Asking him for wisdom, for direction, for faith, for encouragement. And trusting that he will be with us, whatever 2022 might hold.

Peace to you today, friends, wherever you find yourselves.