Contact

I didn't go looking for Jesus.

I went looking for childcare.

I need you to understand that. Because if you think this
story starts with me on my knees in a beautiful moment of surrender with
worship music playing in the background — it didn't. It started with postpartum
depression, cabin fever, two babies under two, a husband who was working so
hard he barely had time to breathe, and a woman who had convinced herself she
wasn't getting enough affection from the one person who was doing everything he
could.

But before I get there I need to back up. Because this story
actually starts when I was 14.

I was baptized at 14. I loved Jesus. I knew who He was. I
believed what the Bible said. I went to church. I had faith the way you have
faith when you are young and the world hasn't gotten complicated yet and belief
feels simple because you haven't been through anything that tests it yet. That
was real. I don't want to discount it. But loving Jesus and being IN love with
Jesus — I would learn later — are two very different things. One is a decision.
The other is a collision. And my collision didn't happen until I was 26.

By 26, I was a wife and a mother. Two babies back to back —
Irish twins — and my body had been through more than I had given it credit for.
And then came the postpartum. Hormones completely off from two pregnancies so
close together. Cabin fever. A husband who was pouring himself out at work and
coming home empty and I was pouring myself out at home and going to bed empty
and somewhere in the middle of all of that I had convinced myself the problem
was affection. That if he would just — but he was. He was doing everything he
could. I just couldn't feel it through the fog.

After the two of them there had been a pregnancy that didn't
make it. A miscarriage that my body would not process on its own. And if you
have been through that you know that the physical pain is only part of it. The
other part is something I can only describe as shame — not because you did
anything wrong but because of the way people look at you. The pity in their
eyes that they are trying to hide but can't. The not knowing what to say so
they say the wrong thing or nothing at all. The loneliness of carrying a grief
that the world doesn't quite understand the mental load of. I felt that grief
in my body and in my bones and in the silence of rooms where people loved me
but couldn't reach me.

I carried that quietly.

A friend invited me to a Bible study.

She mentioned childcare.

That was the whole pitch. Not faith. Not God. Not a
spiritual awakening. Just — two hours where I could sit across from another
woman and have an actual conversation without someone needing something from my
body. That was the door I walked through. And I want you to sit with that for a
second because I think a lot of us are waiting for the right door. The
spiritual door. The ready door. The I-have-it-together-enough-to-show-up door.
And He is over there using the childcare door. The desperate door. The I-just-need-two-hours
door. He is not waiting for you to be ready. He is using whatever door you will
actually walk through.

So I walked through it.

And it felt like home.

Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet way. The kind of home you
didn't know you were missing until you sat down in it and felt your shoulders
drop. There were women there who were real. Who said real things. Who weren't
performing. And for eight weeks I showed up — not for God yet, honestly — but
for that feeling. For the childcare. For the conversation. For the two hours of
being a person and not just a mother.

And then it ended.

And I went looking for it again.

That's when I found the church. Not on a Sunday. I wasn't
ready for Sundays yet. I showed up on Monday mornings and Wednesday nights like
someone sneaking into a relationship they weren't sure they deserved. I was
thirsty in a way I didn't have words for. I just knew that whatever was in that
room I needed more of it. I needed to be near it. And then one day it clicked.

I fell in love.

Not the way I expected to. Not in a lightning bolt moment.
More like the way you fall in love with someone who keeps showing up. Who keeps
writing you letters. Who keeps saying things that feel like they were written
specifically for you because — and I know this now — they were.

I had loved Jesus since I was 14. But at 26, I fell IN love
with Him. The difference is everything. One is knowing someone exists. The
other is not being able to imagine existing without them. The Bible stopped
being a book I believed in and became a love letter I couldn't put down. I was
so thirsty for Him that I sought His presence the way you seek someone you
can't get enough of. I wanted to know everything about Him. His
characteristics. His humor. His heart. The way He loved people who didn't
deserve it. The way He showed up in the mess and the chaos and the ordinary and
made it holy.

That's when I started Bible journaling.

I needed somewhere to put all of it. All the things He was
saying to me in those pages that I didn't want to forget. I wrote in the
margins. I filled pages with questions and revelations and the moments where I
read something and had to put the Bible down because it hit me so hard I needed
a minute. It became my direct line to Him. And I still feel it when I haven't
opened it in a while — a specific kind of dehydration that I recognize
immediately. I get unrecognizable without it. He never moves. The water is
always right there. I just have to pick it back up.

And then my babies started to talk.

I want to be clear — prayer was not the first thing out of
their mouths. They were toddlers. The first things out of their mouths were
chaos and demands and the specific kind of noise that only small children can
produce. But they were the first ones in our house to pray out loud. And that
changed everything.

Because my husband and I — two people who had faith but had
never quite figured out how to make it loud in our own home — started praying
with them. Like babies. Toddler level prayers at a dinner table led by people
who were still learning to use forks. And something about the smallness of it
made it safe. We didn't have to have it figured out. We just had to show up at
the table and follow their lead. Our spiritual journey as a family started at
toddler level and grew from there. They brought the Holy Spirit into our home
before they knew what the Holy Spirit was. And I have never gotten over that.

Eventually my husband wanted to know where we kept going
during the week.

And I want to tell you — I did not lead my husband to
church. God did. He put it on his heart. He made him curious. One Sunday we all
went together and the kids went to their own classrooms — each one learning at
their own level, their own age, their own pace — and something clicked into
place that I didn't even know was missing. My husband sitting next to me. Our
children in rooms down the hall learning the same things we were learning. Our
family becoming something I could not have dreamed up if I tried.

And I tried. I had plans for my life.

None of them looked like this.

The car happened slowly.

I have always been a music person. I jam out in my car the
way some people pray in a closet — fully, loudly, without apology. And as I
grew in my faith my music started to change. Not because I forced it. Just
because the songs that used to fill me started to feel empty and the songs I
used to skip started to feel like they were written for me. And one day I was
driving and a song came on and I had to pull over because it felt like God was
in the passenger seat and He had requested that specific song for that specific
moment on that specific road and I was not prepared.

That's when the car became church.

Not a building. Not a program. Not a scheduled quiet time
with a candle and a journal and the right lighting. Just me and whatever road I
was on and a God who figured out that I was less distracted in there than
anywhere else. The conversations started as thankfulness. Simple. Grateful.
Wondering. And as I grew they changed. They got louder. More desperate. More
like war cries than quiet prayers. And I used to think that meant something was
wrong. But I understand now that it meant the opposite. The closer you get to
Him the bigger the target gets. The desperation in my prayers was a proximity
alarm. It meant I was close. It meant keep going.

So I kept going.

I was asked to lead Bible journaling classes at our church
on Monday mornings.

20 people signed up.

Then 20 more. Then 20 more after that. Three seasons in a
row of women sitting around tables learning how to open the Word and write in
the margins and find Him in the pages the way I had found Him. And I loved
every single Monday morning of it.

And then two things happened at the same time.

COVID hit. And we moved our class to an online group; and it
grew to 2k members (I saw God’s hand in ALL the growth).

Now rewind alittle before covid: I had been trying to open a
business.

I want to talk about the business first because I think it
is one of the most important parts of this story and the one I understood the
least while I was living it.

I was enjoying bible journaling and church but wanted to create
a business I could grow with Him.

I had been selected to open a crafting event franchise which
I was sooo exited about. I was going to be able to do bible journalling and
play Christian music anytime I wanted.

I had heard no 28 times.

28. From banks. From lenders. From every direction I turned
with a business plan and good credit and a real idea. And it made no sense to
me. We had great credit. The plan was solid. And every single door closed.
Every single one. And I was frustrated in the way you get frustrated when you
know what you want and you cannot understand why God is not opening the door
you are standing in front of.

He was protecting me.

If even one of those 28 lenders had said yes I would have
taken my family into debt at the exact moment a global pandemic was about to
make it nearly impossible for a new business to survive. His no — 28 times —
was not rejection. It was protection. It was Him standing between me and a
disaster I couldn't see coming. And I didn't know that yet. I just knew I was
itching to build something I could see Him in.

At that time, I received a letter stating that I had some money
in a retirement fund that had fully matured from college when I worked in the medical
field. It was almost like God said HERE YOU GO START SMALL. This money came from
a place I didn’t even remember signing up for. It was a blessing.

So I found a course on Amazon selling and I started
studying.

I got licensed. And then I did what any completely
unqualified person with a vision and no business background does — I stayed up
until 3 in the morning talking to manufacturers overseas with translation
issues that would make your head spin. Designing products. Figuring out
rankings. Learning a language I had never spoken before. It was not glamorous.
It was not fast. But eventually my WWJD bracelets were ranking on Amazon and it
was working and I was so proud of something I had built from nothing at 3 in
the morning while my family slept. And the best part, It was for Him; watching how
many people were searching and buying bracelets that glorified God. Stats
became awhole new thing for me. I was infatuated with see how many thirsty people
were out there searching keywords looking for Him.

And while that was running in the background I fell down a
rabbit hole.

Digital products. Website funnels. SEO. Automation. Ads. All
the things that sound boring when you list them and feel completely
directionless when you are learning them. I felt lost. I felt stretched across
too many directions with no clear destination. On top of all that, I was
becoming an Amazon influencer and teaching other moms how to make money from it
at the same time I was learning things I didn't understand why I needed to
know. I couldn't stop but I couldn't see where I was going. I just kept moving
because something in me said keep going even when nothing connected yet. I felt
stuck in a tornado just spinning around and I couldn't get out. Why was I even
in here distracting myself.

And then.

The devotional bracelets.

My sister-in-law showed me a bracelet that you could tap and
get a verse each day. I was hooked on another rabbit hole; how can I redesign these
and make them better?). I stayed up learning more about websites and
automations and how they work. Once I had that figured out, I designed them to
connect to a website that changes the verse every single day — built from
everything I had learned about automation. And I added devotionals and reflections
to help understand what you were reading and how it applies in you life today. I
then added my digital Bible journaling products to my bracelet link and it grew
even bigger. And I attached my Amazon links for the tools I actually use. And
one day I looked at what I had built and it was all one thing. The bracelets
and the website and the digital products and the Amazon store and the Bible
journaling and the 2K women in the online group who had come from the 20 women
at the Monday morning tables — it was all one thing. Every rabbit hole had a
reason. Every 3 AM translation issue had a purpose. Every piece of knowledge I
thought I was collecting randomly was a brick He was placing in something I
couldn't see the shape of yet.

And when I saw it — when it all collided — I just sat there.
He had a plan for me and even I couldn’t mess it up.

Because that is the thing about Him that undoes me every
single time. He knows me so well. He knows I procrastinate. He knows I am not
punctual. He knows I would have been overwhelmed if He had shown me the
blueprint at the beginning. So He didn't. He just kept putting the next thing
in front of me and letting me think I was just getting through the moment. And
while I was just getting through the moment He was building something I never
could have designed on my own. He worked around every one of my limitations and
used all of them anyway and somehow it became exactly what it was supposed to
be.

I cannot explain that kind of love. I can only tell you it
is real.

I need to tell you where I am right now.

Because this testimony doesn't end with everything figured
out. That is not how testimonies work. That is not how faith works. That is not
how He works.

Right now I am strong in my belief and completely in love
with Jesus in a way that is not casual and not performative and not going
anywhere. But I am struggling. I am in a season where getting to my church home
has been hard. Not because my faith is wavering. Because I walked into the
women's ministry and it felt like the behind the scenes of a pageant. Everyone
looked beautiful and polished and surface level and I kept showing up wanting
someone to grab me by the arm and say let me tell you what God did in my life —
the real version, the raw version, the version that would make me want to hop
in my Jeep and drive home saying WOW GOD YOU REALLY DID THAT FOR HER.

I want messy testimonies. I want the ones that sound like
the Bible. Because nobody in the Bible had it together. That is the whole
point. That is what makes it true.

So I pulled back. Quietly. Processing it in the car the way
I process everything.

And then my daughters — my teenage daughters who have grown
up in that church for ten years — started asking me to be more involved.

And I laughed out loud in my Jeep.

Because of course. Of course He would use them. He used childcare to get me in the door the first time. He used toddler prayers at a dinner table to start a family spiritual journey. He used a virus to multiply what I was building. He used twenty eight no's to protect me from a disaster I couldn't see. And now He is using my daughters — the very people I am trying to leave a legacy for — to pull me back to the one place I have been quietly pulling away from.

He is still in the passenger seat.

He never got out.

I think about my daughters finding my Bible one day.

After I am gone. Picking it up and opening it and finding it covered in my handwriting. My questions in the margins. My prayers on the pages. My arguments with God and His gentle redirects and the moments where I wrote something down because I knew I would need to come back to it. I think about them reading it and knowing — not because I told them, not because I
performed it for them, but because it is written in my own hand on the pages of
the book He wrote for all of us — that their mother knew Him.

Really knew Him.

Not perfectly. Not without missing shoes at church and feral hair and cereal for dinner and weeks where the Bible stayed closed and prayers that sounded more like bargaining than believing. Not without the miscarriage I carried in silence and the postpartum fog and the 28 no's and the 3AM translation issues and the seasons where I pulled back and the seasons where I got it wrong and the seasons where I was so dehydrated I barely recognized myself.

But personally.

Deeply. Completely. Chaotically. Fully.

That is the legacy I am building. Not a perfect faith. A real one. Written down. Left behind. For my daughters. For their daughters. For the woman reading this right now who came looking for something and isn't sure yet what it is.

He knows what door you'll walk through.

He used childcare once.

He is not above using whatever door you will actually open.

He is already on the other side of it waiting.

One day at bible study, I had won a christian Tee in a raffle. After wearing it a few times, I started to notice that it was a great ice breaker to bring Jesus in my conversations.

I thought what a great way to spread His Word. If people see what you represent, they either are attracted toward you or repelled against you. My goal was to surround myself with great Jesus loving people in my life as well as let others know who I represented. #noshame

If you are anything like me, than you are not perfect, but that's OK. "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own." Philippians 3:12

We fall short of His Glory on a daily basis. But if we surround ourselves in His Word, we will be redirected on the right path. So come surround yourself in His Word from head to toe with designs by me (your sister in Christ). Also don't forget to become apart of our Jesus Loving Tribe and lets grow our faith together.