What I learned in 2025

Reflections on 2025

What a year this has been.

Within the last 12 months, I navigated a new job shift, moved, and became pregnant with our second child, Jack. 🙂

So much has happened within this last year; so much growth (and growing pains), goodbyes and new beginnings, waves of energy and exhaustion, and all the precious and challenging moments that come with being a parent.

Currently, I’m on our couch in the living room with a cup of warm, green tea. It’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m 33 weeks pregnant. Everything is starting to ache. I feel like I’m constantly in a daze. I’m surrounded by plants I’ve brought inside to overwinter and Kleenex’s from a nasty cold we’ve all been fighting. There’s a pile of laundry on my right.

My 3 year old is on an afternoon outing with my husband. So here, in the brief quiet before the craziness resumes, I’ll share some lessons learned in 2025…

My family is so much bigger than I once thought

Families are so wonderful. And families can be very messy. This year, I’ve navigated a particularly challenging season within my own family, filled with some difficult conversations, ruptures without full repair leading to a confusing kind of grief. In this time, I’ve also been surrounded and encouraged by other “family members” who extend past my blood relatives. I have been encouraged, held, and my tears have been wiped away from some beautiful people who I hold so close. The body of Christ has held me, and I’ve experienced what it means to live within the family of Christ.

What’s more, I know that one day all will be made right. As one of my “extended” family members shared with me, in heaven, all of our family relationships will be perfected, and this will go on for all of eternity… making the confusion and heartache in this present world seem like just a blimp. 

When things feel so broken, I’m reminded there’s grace for us all, and there is hope for us all. 

It’s exhausting to do it “my way”

I’m an enneagram One… (thankfully with a strong wing Two).

So, I want to do things right.

I love rules.

Especially my own rules. Even if they don’t always make sense, or are realistic…

In pregnancy, this means that I don’t take certain things because of how they “might” affect my baby.

When I was pregnant with my first, I did all the things “right” according to my own ideas at the time.. I didn’t take any Tylenol, I didn’t drink coffee,  I took my fancy prenatal vitamins and ate Greenwise organic chicken breasts as a midnight snack. 

I did everything I could to try and control, to avoid bad outcomes, only to realize shortly after becoming a mom that nothing is really within my control.

This time around with my second, I’ve bended a bit. I’ll drink some coffee and I often skip my vitamins…

And then, something really big happened that forced me to really let go of control. To let go of doing it my way.

About three weeks ago, in the middle of the night I started experiencing such an intense pain on my right side. I was in so much pain, I started to vomit and couldn’t hold anything down. We packed up the car with my 3 year old and went to the hospital at 2:30am. After various tests and an ultrasound later, we didn’t have any answers yet the pain still persisted. I was sent home with instructions to take Tylenol and muscle relaxers and a few other things to try and ease the pain.

Days later, the pain still persisted. I couldn’t keep any food or water down, and I didn’t know what was happening. We went back to the hospital and after more tests, they diagnosed me with something called Hydronephrosis in pregnancy (swelling of kidney due to trapped urine), which is very common in pregnancy, but my case was intense. The only thing to do was to provide pain management through low-dose narcotics and lidocaine patches until it passed.

Let me tell you, I never once thought I’d take a narcotic while being pregnant!

It was not my first choice, but the pain was so intense. I let go of my pride, said more prayers for protection, and took the medications as prescribed. My dear mother came down to help me, organizing all of the medications that needed to be taken at each hour, and slept in my bed with me through my sleepless nights. Finally, early one Sunday morning the pain finally stopped and I haven’t had a return of it since. 

I wish of course this didn’t happen, but at the same time what an exercise it has been to release control. As my dear friend told me in the midst of it all, it’s exhausting to try to do things our way, all the time. Sometimes, we’ve just got to let go and surrender and take the treatment that’s offered.

China makes great plant containers

Earlier this year, we moved into a new house and I wanted to decorate it in a very special and intentional way. Our new house is also very small and we don’t have lots of space to store things we don’t use on a regular basis.  

When unpacking China from our wedding 10 years ago, I held pieces of China that we’ve never used and probably will not use for a long time. At least not until we have a much bigger kitchen and a big family over for holiday meals.

Rather than putting it away in our already cramped attic, I decided to use them in ways that I saw fit.

I planted plants inside of them and sprinkled them all around my house. I also made some candles with the smaller pieces. 🙂

Now, I get to enjoy my china set and a whole new way!  And… I saved on decorations and freed up some attic space.

I can be sensitive to the season I’m in

I love the work that I do. And sometimes this means I jump into things really hard and really fast. At times at the expensive of my own well-being and my families needs. 

This year, as I prepared for my second child to come into this world, I made the decision to step back from my therapy work. This work has been very meaningful to me over the last 7 years, but I found it was just too much to hold with everything else.  

One day, I hope to start this work back up. But I’m in no rush. 

We’re all in different seasons, and our work can look differently depending on which season we’re in.  We can start new things when we’re ready, and let go of them when we need to.

Others opinions don’t make me who I am

This year, I’ve also (gradually) learned the simple truth that others’ opinions of me don’t make me who I am. Meaning, I am not what people think of me. Sometimes, there is alignment in what others think and perceive, and who I really am, but other times, there’s not.

And, that’s ok.

I have the courage to be misunderstood.

I have permission to be gentle with myself.

I have freedom to let go of trying to control what people think.

I am free to be magnificently me, with all my quirks and oddities, with all my weaknesses and strengths, with all of who I am and where I am. I am not bound by what others think or how they perceive of me.

And neither are you.

The best things are found at Goodwill

My daughter has had some hard times at her daycare recently, and to help her out, I took her to a local Goodwill store and we picked out a new stuffy for her for $1. It’s her stuffy that she now takes to school who encourages her and helps her when she’s feeling sad.

This little stuffy, who she named “Coffee shop”, has become one of her very best friends. She takes it everywhere and wants to show it all the new things. It’s a joy to watch her love on this little blue dinosaur and to see how this little dinosaur loves her back.

All for only $1… sometimes the best things in life are the really cheap ones.