A few years ago my pastor introduced the idea of asking God to show you a word or theme to focus on for the year ahead. This has been something I’ve continued to do, and I’ve found that this provides me a great way to focus my year. The word for this year is walk.

During the last week of 2021, I reflected on the past year. The fantastic things that happened, a few things I regret or am disappointed by and wish to learn from, remind myself of the places God continues to show up in my life, and then try to hone in on what He’s trying to say going into the year ahead.

Throughout most of my life, at least my adult life, I’ve looked for shortcuts or ways to optimize most things. I mean, who doesn’t like a good life hack! This has served me well in some ways, leading me to achieve quite a bit. But, unfortunately, it’s also cost quite a bit. As I write this, I’m coming out of what feels like...

Over the holiday weekend, me a couple friends found an Airbnb on a nearby lake only a couple hours from city. If you know us, we typically do much bigger trips, but this time we opted for something a little more low key and it was just what I think I needed. And it even included following the wrong directions and needing to drive an extra 2hrs! That’s a whole different story.

Although we were only there for maybe 24 hours total, they were some of the more restorative 24 hours I’ve had in awhile. It was a nice change of scenery, my routine was different, and we got to not only the outdoors but also just some fun conversations too.

After going the wrong way, we finally ended up there on Sunday night and got some dinner going. The Airbnb had an outdoor grill and so I took it as an opportunity to practice cooking with charcoal for the first time. Definitely a bit different than what I’m...

Often times I don’t understand what God is up to by taking me through things I’d rather not experience and often get frustrated with Him over. Then I’m presented with moments where had I not gone through that experience, I may not have slowed down enough to be quiet and listen to what He’s teaching and not be as equipped to represent Him well when helping someone else walk through their moments of not understanding. Though I don’t claim to always get it right nor am I expecting to always get it right going forward, praying that I would look at these moments to continue to build my trust and faith in Him and His purpose.

When you love what you do, the people you get to do it with, and the mission behind the work, it’s easy to get caught in that being your life. At least, that’s how it plays out for a lot of time for me. I have a strong desire to produce, to bring value, and move the mission I’m apart of forward. So much so that I frequently struggle to keep what I do and who I am, my identity, separated. And even when I had time off from work, there’s still other “work” to be done. This constant need to always be producing has led me many times to a place of just being depleted, unable to continue to bring my full self. I wanted to change that because I knew what I was doing wasn’t working nor sustainable.

So, over the past year or more, I’ve been working to embrace more of the practice of Sabbath. Taking a full day (as much as possible, though not always feasible) and letting myself turn it all off and...

I recently became aware of this idea of a “rule of life.” Though I encourage you to research it more, it’s your habits and practices that guide and impact your life, and we all have one, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

They’re not a list of rules to follow, but habits that help you be the best version of yourself. Something important I learned with this as well, is that if you don’t hit the mark every day, that’s okay.

As I processed this idea, I realized I had things I was doing that were both positively and negatively impacting who I want to be and how I want to go about life. So, I spent some time processing what I want my “rule of life” to be for this season.

Some of these things come easy to me, but I still list them because I think they’re crucial to my life, and others are still very much a struggle to do consistently, but I want to grow in them.

I am sharing these for a...