Gee Thanks 2025

And buh-bye. If you never come around again, it will be all too soon.

Too cliche? Too Pithy? Too "Oh, woe is me"? As much as I would like to say the title and first line is a bit hyperbolic (because we authors neeeeeeeeever use hyperbole), I, well...can't.

2025 was by far one of the hardest years of my life, and I think I can say with certainty, it was the hardest year my husband and I have experienced in our marriage. I would love to sit here and type how we lived out James in counting it all joy, but I am not so sure I did. Not at first for sure.

What's odd is the year started out really great. I was furiously working at getting my second manuscript, City of Truth, ready for publication as we were on an accelerated schedule. Everything was business as usual for Jordan and the kids, except for the fact Jordan was making some extra money on Saturdays selling beef at a farmers market in Oakton.

As great as the markets were for some extra income, by June things were starting to get a bit harder. We weren't seeing as much of Jordan as we needed and all of us were feeling the strain. With his work at NCF as the worship leader, his full time job, and the markets, we were only getting a few hours a week of quality family time. Something needed realigning so we decided to take a 6 week sabbatical starting in June. Looking back, I think this is where things shifted.

A week after Father's Day, we found out I was pregnant with baby no. 3. In many ways a surprise due to my age and us not really trying (but also not not trying) to get pregnant. We had many conversations leading up to this point of wanting as many babies as the Lord had for us, but when this pregnancy hit, things felt...off. From the very start.

After having Amos in 2021, I suffered horrific Post Partum Anxiety (PPA), which never resolved and then after I had Tabitha in 2023, I was hit with debilitating Post Partum Depression (PPD). The combination of both sent us down a path of recovery for at least a year and a half, which by the time I was pregnant again, I felt I finally had a handle on. This was after months of deep prayer, figuring out what routine worked best for me so I could function, and also using medication to take the edge off so I knew what was reality and what was hormonal.

I had a lot of fear when I got pregnant with our third. What would our finances look like? How would we fit three in a two bedroom townhouse with no basement? How would we get three car seats into the van? Would we need to move before the baby was born or around a year after? How was I going to manage a move while pregnant or after? I mean have you ever thought about the logistics of house hunting, packing, purging, prepping your kids and their emotions, and all the small minutia of a move while pregnant? It's terrifying!

Beneath all that though, we were thrilled. We knew God had a plan no matter what and all we had to do was pray into it. Beneath all that, something was gnawing at me. This pregnancy did not feel right. None of it did and in the back of my mind I was afraid for the worst.

Which, sadly, was our story in July when I went in for my first ultrasound at 10 weeks and found the baby had stopped growing at 7 weeks. The night before the appointment, I was overcome with a wave of fear and I asked Jordan to pray. My heart of hearts knew something had happened to this little life in me and I was so nervous. When the ultrasound tech finally found the baby because he was hard to see due to how my uterus is tilted, I knew. There was no heartbeat and no movement of his little limbs like we saw on Amos' 6 week ultrasound at Shady Grove.

My heart shattered. Jordan rushed home from work and we had to explain to our kids they would not be meeting their little brother this side of eternity.

I say little brother because in my crying out to God in the aftermath, I was given a picture of our son in heaven. Perfect, beautiful, full of life, playing in a fountain while Jesus watched, beaming. Another prophetic minister in our church had an image a few days later of our son singing in the choir in Heaven and what's crazy is we never told them my vision. So we took that as confirmation and named our precious baby David Alexander.

I also wish I could say the sorrow of our year started and ended with David, but it did not. My body would not release my son and at the end of July I had to undergo a D&C. About a month or two after, a close friend of mine from the church I attended before Jordan and I met, died suddenly and horrifically, leaving behind a husband and two girls not much older then Amos. At the same time as her death, my father AND father-in-law underwent their own medical scares and I found out one of my last two living Aunts had to enter hospice care.

This all happened before Thanksgiving. We were feeling the weight of everything emotionally, spiritually, and financially. There were pockets of joy in the midst of it all, but also a grief so heavy it broke me in many ways. I had sought (and still do) the Lords face in all this, and while I can say the experience of last year has softened me in so many ways I needed to be, it is still not something I wish to undergo again.

As we rounded out the year, I received Book of the Year for my debut title, City of End , from Christlit in the UK, which was by far the most humbling award of my career.

On its heels, my husband and I had an amazing ministry opportunity come our way which for whatever reason did not pan out. Every step of the way seemed a sure thing and then was no longer. This loss of opportunity felt too much to bear on top of everything else we endured because during the process, we swept the dust off of a lot of dreams we had which felt unattainable until this chance came along. When the opportunity vanished, a big part of what I felt we lost were our hopes and dreams again. It isn't to say this will never happen for us, but this loss in the midst of us feeling like we were hearing otherwise from the Lord was foundation shaking for me. Life felt like a complete contradiction.

BUT. God.

He used all of it. All of the yuck of last year from loosing David, loosing Scilla, loosing a ministry opportunity. He showed me areas of my heart where I had harbored resentment, idolatry, lies about myself, offenses towards my husband, core beliefs which needed to be remade into heavenly truths. All of it! God used all of it! And I believe he will continue to use the pain and grief of last year for his glory.

My son might be in heaven, but his story is not finished. He is a part of my testimony as surely as Amos and Tabitha are. He has a purpose and I may never know why God brought him home instead of entrusting him to us on earth, but the beautiful thing is I do not need to know. I need to hold my son close to my heart and wait for the day when we finally have our playdate.

My word for next year is OVERFLOW. I am claiming this to be a positive overflow instead of a negative, but I know - as I have walked through the fire just recently - God will use this word only for my good.