Tag: life

#56 – Strawberry Milk

My favorite treat as spring has spring and summer rolls on has been homemade strawberry milk! As a kid I thought this was something you made with Hershey’s Strawberry Syrup but as I began to learn more about Japan and Korea, I discovered the real strawberry milk. Strawberry milk, banana milk, etc. With real fruit flavor and I had to try it! But there is one problem, I can’t have dairy without making myself sick.

This is why my favorite strawberry treats – strawberries with whipped cream and jello pretzel salad are no longer treats I can enjoy. It’s a bummer but if I make the strawberry milk myself, I am able to enjoy it.

And so this year I find myself happily blending strawberries in a food processor. Straining the seeds with a mesh strainer and spatula over a measuring cup all for a spectactular little treat – strawberry milk!

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Quick Sketch – Teapot & Teacup

A tea set, one drawn from reality and one from fantasy. A picnic in my mind. Pencil and oil pastel on paper.

This teapot belonged to my grandma and I’ve always loved classic shape, delicate gold leaf lines, and romantic floral vignettes on the vessel and lid.

The tea cup and saucer, is a set inspired by flowers that I would love to own. It looks magical!

Candlesticks

I find inspiration abundant when I am at home, my “home” home. The way my mom decorates brings me happiness! From the colors to the textures, it is a layered cake. There are some pieces that are quite old and have lived full lives before they found their way here. Others have a story, a memory attached that I think of, or a purchase memory itself, on one of our many mother-daughter outings as a kid. As I look forward to the future of decorating my own house, the warmth, and joy I feel being here is something I cherish and hope to instill into the new home we are about to settle into.

Candlesticks of glass, metal, and wood drawn in pencil and oil pastel on paper.

It’s Not Busy Work, it’s Motivation in the Chaos

When I was a kid and honestly, into adulthood, I thought studying the Bible and understanding the entire story, the nooks and crannies of the book that get skipped over, well I thought it was a lot of busy work that I wanted no part of. Especially after those four years of academia, no thanks.

But then I saw people in my life, who did spend all that time being consistent in the Word have much less stress and worry, despite stressful and difficult things. It didn’t make sense to me. I just thought they were more mature than me or could handle life better, as each stress and challenge KO-ed me into a tailspin of anxiety. Maybe they were lucky? Tougher?

They might be, but honestly, since I decided to try their method and read the entire Bible from 2020-2021, I felt like I had a new well of examples to draw on when life got hairy. A reminder of God’s promises to think about instead of comparing my circumstances to others and questioning why this bad lot was happening to me. It sparked the faith and hope for a tomorrow that sustained me through the past two months.

It wasn’t an instantaneous change. I didn’t realize I had made progress until I put work in. Like with everything in life, building faith, learning to hope, and having a scriptural reminder to lean on during the tough days took effort and consistency. Like a workout plan, a garden, language learning, etc. It all takes time and practice. I think that is why there is such an emphasis on perseverance and courage in the Bible because in those moments that test us faith, hope, and peace arrive because you have taken the time to immerse yourself in the manner in which God does things.

It’s motivation in the chaos when nothing makes sense and even you are second-guessing your own choices. For example, the eclipse, which I mentioned before I wasn’t a fan of, but in the moment of the totality, unless you have the knowledge of astronomy to understand that the sun isn’t actually disappearing, it just appears blocked because of the orbit of the earth around the sun perfectly lining up with the orbit of the moon at the right time. Although I knew that was happening, the eerie feeling of the sun ceasing to shine in the middle of the day was bizarre! I knew it would come back and the eclipse would only last a few minutes, there was that little voice in the back of my head that was whispering doubt that everything wouldn’t be okay and the sun would get lost back there, maybe take a wrong turn.

That little voice of doubt lives in all of us. It comes out at the most inconvenient times! It has arrived and set up camp in my head through this whole house debacle. Through all the chaos, I was spending time in prayer but I was struggling to find time to sit down with God’s word and find new motivation. As a believer, reading the Bible is a source of refreshment, it feels like listening to a song which amps you up, I also do that too. (My current favorite is WORK by Ateez). I was worried through all the chaos that not spending time in God’s word would lead to me running out of gas and losing my heart to carry on.

In a recent post, I spoke to where I’ve been but all the chaos of our landlord’s decision to sell the house we lived in and offer us a sketchy deal on it was just the half of it, as we were looking for peace from her lack of boundaries and decorum, we were also looking for a new place to live. There were days when my landlord would dump a whole bunch of stress on my shoulders and then personally the details for our new house would throw down hurdles of chaos. Endless paperwork, the possibility of it not being possible at all, and having to find a new plan, it was a lot and I was surprised in those moments how scripture passages of encouragement from Psalms and Proverbs or stories of struggle by real people in the Bible would find their way into my mind. It would reinvigorate my drive to keep going. It kept me from quitting in frustration.

As a kid, things with my dad leaving us at an early age reinforced this narrative in my head that I didn’t deserve happiness or that the other shoe would always drop. Even though God provided a better life than I would have ever had with my narcissistic and verbally abusive dad, instead of focusing on the good, my brain has fixed on the bad. I have given up on so many hard things in life because I hit a bump in the road and just thought it was what I deserved. It sounds so silly to say it out loud. By digging into the Word over the past four years, that time of study has assisted me in pushing that voice down, in order to reframe what God has in store for me.

Things will probably get bad, over and over again. This world is fallen and can really suck sometimes. There will be jerks but there will also be good people. In life there will be times of joy and sadness, there will also be times of hardship. One setback is just a setback, not a lifestyle. I wish I had pursued studying the Bible sooner because I think there was a lot of peace available in my life that I refused to acknowledge. I did it the hard way, alone. It didn’t need to be like that.

Even if you are not a person of faith, I hope this encourages you to prioritize your mental health so that you will have a deep well to draw from on those hard days. You are not alone. I think you are awesome. ❤

What Does a Shadow do When the Shape is Gone?

Day breaks upon your expectant face, and the birds sing for you.

A cup of coffee and a table set.

Sunrises, newspapers, the melody of your voice.

I’m lost without your light.

Shadow, little, shy.

They tell me to keep going. Chin up, grow up but I still feel small.

Morning is not as bright. The bird’s song is hollow.

What is coffee if you’re not making it?

Little, shy. Goodbye.

—

And just like that, 4 years pass by?

A Strawberry Dress for 2024

In 2020, the Strawberry Dress by Lirika Matoshi blew up in popularity becoming one of the most iconic garments from the year. It still remains in my head when I think of a strawberry dress, a garment I wish to buy because it is so joyful. But at USD 490 it’s a bit out of the question for my budget at this time. Although I wish, it isn’t going to happen. But it has become an aspirational garment for me as a designer. I hope to make something with the same amount of joy, attention to detail, and iconic statement!

So when I was digging in my fabric stash this winter and found this interesting Swiss dot gingham, light pink trim, and flower buttons I knew one thing I had to make – my own take on a “strawberry” and “Sakura blossom” inspired dress.

Strawberry Blossoms

A perk of being on this small holiday of sorts from my life, and staying at my mom’s house means endless inspiration from her garden. Around Mother’s Day we went to a local greenhouse and found this hanging strawberry plant which beautifully displays its growing phases in lovely hanging tendrils.

I’ve been fascinated by the way strawberries grow, from blossom to fuzz ball, to fruit. I chose this little vignette as my first sketch because I liked how it displayed the life phases from new bud, to blossom, to fruiting, to baby berry, to unripe strawberry.

#55 – Where I’ve Been

On April 27, 2024, I was thrown a massive curve ball that set life in a bit of a tail spin that to be honest I’m not sure if I have still recovered from mentally. It was a lot!

In March I contacted my landlord to renew our lease for the next year, I like to do it two months ahead of the renewal date to make things go smoothly. In writing, she said yes, great. I thought, wonderful! Everything is settled for another year. At this point it was our third year living in the house and we were quite settled in, our landlord seemed pretty chill, and the house felt like home. I had set up a studio finally in one of the spare bedrooms, Kyle had a woodshop in the garage, everything was organized just right and the place gave me such a sense of normalcy where other rentals had not.

Shuffling the Deck

In April, my landlord had acted a little weird. She never followed up to sign a lease, which she is incredibly type A so I thought maybe she was busy? Then she asked if we wanted to buy the house, without any context if this was a serious request or a passing fancy. It was not the first time she asked, she did that in our first year and followed with she had no plans to sell. Odd, right? Well, on April 27 at 8pm she announced to me that she was not renewing our lease and we had three days to decide if we were buying the house from her at $210k USD or she was putting in on the market immediately, even though we had one more month on our lease.

We were flabbergasted to be honest. What? What! How did we get here? And who is this new pushy person trying to rip the rug out from under me? We took the three days to pray and consider if this was even possible, could we really afford that much? And why was the price so high for this small house, on a small yard that honestly needed some TLC after years of being used as a rental not a cared for home.

I think as humans we crave security, steadiness. The day before I felt incredibly steady. We had a place to live that was safe, with running water, heat, electricity, privacy. It wasn’t ours but as a steady tennant that paid rent and took care of it, I really didn’t see why they would want to lose that? I was clearly playing checkers when she was playing chess.

We decided to move forward with buying it in hopes that if we walked forward in faith that God would provide. Either the door would continue to close or it would slam shut. But another door would open. It may not be what I wanted but it would be according to His plan and He would provide an alternative. I clung to that as my stomach filled with butterflies that never really left. All month long.

Fact Check

That Monday I began the intimidating and confusing process of applying for a mortgage, and after what happened with taxes this year that became a little tricky. Those new tax penatlies for not filing quarterly had took a bite out of the downpayment we had been saving for and it was looking grim. I think those pre-approval forms are grim and confusing even if you are planning to do this, it’s just endless numbers, questions, terms, word vomit of legalese and bank jargon. With my head spinning as Rocket Mortgage said nada, my friend suggested I check out my bank and this is where things began turning around!

Irony of irony, I was matched with mortgage officer who grew up in the town the rental was in and he was friendly, knowledgeable and began to kick the tires on these unexpected shenanigans from the landlord. I learned it was going to be tight but possible if we wanted to buy it but that $210k was a ridiculous amount for what the house was and I was recommended by the bank to proceed with caution because on their end the math was not mathing on that price.

Things got a bit more interesting when the landlord began laying out the terms of how this was going to go. It began with stating that we were not using a realtor but a settlement company she knew with a number that didn’t work when I tried to call them. Next there was the timeline. She wanted me to write up a sellers agreement, until I began requesting an inspection and contingencies in case the value wasn’t as high as she insisted it was. She was giving us a deal you know, at $210k USD. It was a steal! She could get way more if she wasn’t doing this favor out of the kindness of her heart!

There was also the interesting niggle of the hand money, a concept I learned about this process which is where the buyer gives 1% of the list price to be held by the real estate company until closing. After the sale is final, the seller receives the money but not before. The landlord insisted that I give her a check for $5k USD to hold the house made out to her. Um, sketchy. Very sketchy. I told her several times that I couldn’t make contact with the settlement company and she wouldn’t give me the accurate contact info. Oh so sketchy.

But that’s not the end of the suspcious behavior. When I inquired what would happen if closing took longer than the lease, she promised she would never kick me and my husband out, we would just pay rent until the closing, pro-rated of course. This is where things changed though. I raised concerns over not being able to make contact with the settlement company, along with things about the house I knew were broken that the landlord had dodged fixing over the years. With her permission I had an inspection done, which she was quite disgruntled about when he found $40k plus of things that needed to be fixed that were now on the record. She began to get aggressive with me. I raised the need for things to be put in writing because under Pennsylvania law landlords are required to give a tenant 60 days written notice to figure everything out before a landlord can sell or remove a tenant. This enraged her, and she told me I was lying and her lease was above the law.

An hour later she showed up at the house and threw documents at our door which were quite interesting. There were some things that are not up to code in the house that she had acknowledged in the past and yet she seemed to get a very sudden case of amnesia. She gave us a “sellers agreement” that was just a disclosure saying that there was nothing wrong with the house, specifically lying about things she knew were broken. She signed and dated it. Next was a piece of paper saying that we were buying the house and were paying them rent for June until we closed on the 30th. This was also signed and dated.

We were told in an attached note to sign, date, and write a check that either she could hand deliver to the settlement or we could drop them off to the company (that I couldn’t make contact with) telling me of course she would get me the number. By this point, it was beginning to feel like harassment. From April 27 to this point it had been fortnight of her calling me and texting me almost daily with nagging about getting this settled as quick as possible or else. It was incredibly unprofessional and rude. I felt like a child instead of being respected as an adult with responsibilities and work I had to do. This lady’s only job is landlording and she had all day to contact me which was really frustrating because everything in my life was beginning to revolve around her wants and demands so that she could move to Florida, asap with a big chunk of my change in her pocket.

Door Shutting

Thankfully, I began to learn more about this situation from friends who are professionals in the real estate business and people in the community. I learned this house she bought with cash in 2010 for $105k that she flipped into a rental. Her number was $210k because she wanted to double her money plus a little extra from her $5k finder’s fee. There was no mortgage so all rent was icing on the cake. In the three years we rented from her, where she raised the rent, plus the hefty security deposit, she made $36,400 off us alone. This is where I could clearly see what made her tick. Greed. Because we could have easily done a rent to own, or figured this out in January, but the element of surprise was going to make her more money like a shakedown.

At this point it was pretty clear that any negotiation or talk was useless. This was a fools errand that I wanted no part of. Thankfully there was a new door opening a very exciting new door. But one part of it still remained, how would we transition from this place to our new home without drama? This ate me up for weeks. I am quite scared of confrontation and pushy people. My dad is a narcissist and uses the same tactics. Each conversation with her felt like it ripping up old wounds causing me emotional distress. My appetite was gone and restful sleep drifting beyond my reach.

But as all foolish people do, give them enough time and they will self destruct. That she did. On May 22, we received some very expensive mail. Mail from a lawyer on her behalf pressuring us to buy the house immediately, to pay her rent for June, and to send her the hand money. If not we had to get out on May 31. Even though the lease said we could continue paying her rent until we figured something out. She sent us four copies of that letter with postage at $8 USD a pop, I’d assume his hourly fee is quite steep as well. It was petty and it made us feel incredibly defeated. How were we going to do this when our new home would be settled in June? Do I need a lawyer? I knew she had no real power here because of PA tenant laws but this was beyond what I was comfortable with.

Sometimes the cost of standing your ground is too much for the mental toll it will take. I had stood my ground with my dad, and other narcists but this time there was too much at stake for someone who is who she is. Nothing was going to change her mind, it would only get worse. It makes me sad when peacemaking is not possible. I really think we could have had a different outcome here and brought this chapter to a close with mutual respect in place. I truly thought she was a nice person for most of our time renting. It was shocking to see how it all changed overnight.

Was she seriously going to make us move everything into a storage unit for a few days instead of working with us? The answer was yes. So we moved it all with the help of family and the provision of God we got it all done before May 31. I’m not even sure how we got it all done!

Now as I write this I am still waiting for my new house to close, but I sit here in the safety of family who generously gave us a place to crash until we can move in. I don’t know where I would be without people who love me and I hope that I will have the chance to pay it forward in the future.

Love Makes the World Go Round

What can I take away from this wild month? Well I’d say it has proved to me things I already knew were true. Money is the root of all evil. Foolish behavior and greed are good friends. Impatience and haste get us no where. Wisdom and love are worth more than money. Community is what makes life rich. God never drops us, His faithfulness prevails over the plans of man. Family and friendship are priceless. The United States house crisis is real and without God’s provision this story would have a different ending, which has made my commitment to donating to Light of Life even stronger in my mind because no one should fall through the cracks in the system because of someone else’s greed.

I’m sorry this was a bit of a long winded one, it was a long, chaotic story that I have been wanting to talk about since it started but didn’t feel comfortable until l was out of there. I hope wherever you are you know that you are loved, worthy, and have more value than all the gold in the world. ❤

#53 – Lemon Curd

In Portal 2, Cave Johnson has an iconic rant about lemons that may have been the inspiration for my Saturday plan – to make dairy-free lemon curd from scratch.

To clarify, no lemons were exploded. But they were zested, juiced, and combined into a luscious lemon sauce and baked into lemon bars. Tart, sweet, buttery, lemon bars.

“All right, I’ve been thinking, when life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade! Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager!
Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man whose gonna burn your house down – with the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!”

-Cave Johnson, Aperture Laboratories

But why did Cave Johnson speak so deeply to my mood on Saturday morning, one of the best times of the week? Well my dysfunctional family, of course. Communication is truly an art form, and for some relationships, healthy communication seems as easy as replicating a Michelangelo masterpiece with a butter knife. I am a member of that club. I feel like sometimes a conversation with my mom is doomed from the start. I call her and there is something in the air. A mistaken tone she finds in me, a lack of matching her extroverted, neurotypical energy.

The inability to recognize drama or harshness in her tone. My anxiety and frustration at being accosted by questions, picking remarks, or in general still not living up to whatever I was supposed to. It’s a mess, a mess that continues to respawn after numerous attempts to get rid of this and live a drama-free life with the mom that I do deeply love even if sometimes I get exasperated at her. This was one of those conversations, I did something and the verbal missiles were locking on me, which was really disappointing because it was supposed to be a simple conversation – what time are you coming up to celebrate my husband’s birthday?

Instead, there was chaos, my confusion at why there was chaos with questions followed by accusations of trying to fight and being told I was being a problem, gaslit into the aggressor when I held my temper in check and just asked questions. There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. I was being baited into a fight and it sucked. It was a conversational sucker punch. Some weeks I don’t even want to pick up the phone, I yearn to move far away from the possibility of hanging out with her, because I just want to be loved not picked at. Being lonely but happy feels better than being close and miserable. I feel like she brings all the drama-ma-ma-ma-ma and then runs away from me after her work is done.

In the screaming silence that followed the nasty encounter, I felt confusion, anger, hurt, sadness, failure, shame, disappointment, a building pressure of anxiety and depression, and the complex childhood trauma memories flooding back of her gaslighting me into thinking I was a kid with an un-teachable spirit, a stubborn child who spirit needed to be broken because seeing things differently from her was a sin.

I feel sorry for my mom because none of those things are true, and keeping me at arm’s length hurts both of us. We only have so much time on this earth, wouldn’t it be better to be laughing instead of arguing, smiling instead of crying?

I’ve learned there is nothing wrong with me. I’m neuro-divergent and God made me this way for a reason. There is beauty in being different, but she can’t see that. She sees me as difficult, and I in turn see her as small-minded.

Recently, I’ve turned to baking when I feel down in the dumps. For a while, baking was quite painful for me, after Grandma passed away in 2020. She was the one who taught me how to bake and that void made baking a chore. Since watching the Great British Bake Off, I’ve found my baking delight once again. We had a bunch of lemons on hand for a separate recipe, and since the rest needed to be used, I decided to make something I’d never made from scratch before. Lemon curd.

They make it on Bake-Off and I used to love eating lemon bars and lemon meringue pie as a kid, it was Papa’s favorite pie. We had it each year on his birthday. It was the bomb. The tart, lemony sharpness of the filling with the pillowy sweet clouds of meringue on top, slightly browned like a marshmallow with a flakey crust. Scrumptious.

Fun fact: My grandma dressed, acted, and looked a lot like Mary Berry. Watching Bake Off is like a hug.

And you know what, baking helped. I felt the tension melt from my shoulders as I zested the lemons and squeezed the juice into the bowl. The delicacy of separating yolks from egg whites required me to slow down, to breathe through the emotional stress. I made a cup of herbal tea and began work on the sugar and butter. After combining it came time to use the bain-marie to slowly temper the eggs and cook until thickened. The result was a dreamy curd that I was hoping for!

Out of pain, something beautiful came, and the next day I made shortbread for the lemon bars and layered the golden yellow lemon sauce into the pan for a delight I hadn’t had since childhood. Next time we’ll make that lemon meringue pie.

I’m glad I’ve learned coping mechanisms like baking, cleaning, stimming, etc so that I am not tempted to rage at my mom, clench my jaw, get drunk, or go on a shopping spree to fill the pain with stuff. It’s been a journey but through my tumultuous twenties, I learned that the dysfunction is never going away but who I am and how I respond to it are not beholden to other people and their poor behavior. And that is true freedom.

Have you ever made lemon curd? Do you like lemon meringue pie or lemon bars? What’s your go-to way to calm down after a stressful encounter? Thank you, dear reader, for coming along on this blogging journey with me. I’m incredibly thankful for you.

Finding Peace in Tax Season

In the United States, April 15th is our tax deadline. This is a date for me that has a lot of uncertainty. For most of my adult working life I have been a contractor which means your taxes are not taken out by your employer but instead you are responsible for setting aside the money in your savings that is paid out in a lump sum at the tax deadline. Now even though my job has changed, my husband and I are still navigating this setup and it has given us some uncertainty about how things are going to work moving forward in life, like how one saves for a down payment for a house when we aren’t sure how much we will be paying in taxes at the end of year, because our tax rates and tax laws seem to be shifting. It did this year for sure!

We were unaware that the laws had changed for all contractors, not just content creators, etc that you have to pay quarterly. I’m not sure how we were supposed to know to be honest because no information was shared although they advertise the tax deadline and tax services heavily from December to the deadline the next year. It’s been a stinging mistake because we learned there was a hefty penalty and a brand new tax rate that we were placed into, that we will not soon forget.

I think as humans, those big structures looming over us, like the government, cause a lot of anxiety in us because we want to believe that the social contract of Rousseau is what we are getting, but sometimes in those confusing moments like new laws and penalties without proper communication about it, it feels worrying. It took a lot of maturity and prayer this weekend to just accept that my frustration at myself and the lack of transparency was out of my control and that was okay. Like letting sand fall from my hands. As we paid our taxes for 2023 and then also unexpectedly had to pay for 2024’s first quarter, I had to accept that the money that felt like security was no longer mine, it was Caesar’s, and that’s the only answer.

And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.

Mark 12:13-17 ESV

The timing sucked and the surprise of paying both 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 in this economy felt like a bit of a free fall. I mean in life, I don’t love surprises. The good ones for sure are fun but those bad surprises can hang over us like a cloud and that’s what I didn’t want to have hanging over me. My husband’s birthday is coming up, and there are charities we support that I don’t want to let down. I’d like to continue dreaming about future plans, have extra money to be generous if someone needs help, or just not be worried about finances. To have that feeling of serenity in the changing sea of life.

Two promises repeated in my mind as we made our payments that helped me regain my peace, which honestly made no sense aside from God and his peace that surpasses all understanding.

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

Romans 8:28 NLT

 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

Matthew 6:26-30 NIV

I started thinking about the jokes people made on the day of the eclipse about going back to 2017, and where I was in 2017 with less than 100 USD to my name and no stable living situation, looking for a job as a new college grad and newlywed. It felt like my life was spiraling but then a year later I was stable with a job and a new life in Savannah. I think back to April 2020, newly laid off and with my husband’s employer looking at a complete NHL shutdown, none of it made sense, we just got back to normal and a savings, were we going back to square one three years later? And now in April 2024, I felt those same fears bubbling up.

Were we going back to that scary place? Was the rug pulled out from under me? How was God going to work this all for good? It’s funny to me now that this is the perspective I chose to focus on instead of thinking about how quickly God turns things around. In 2017, I went from rock bottom to a stable job and was ready for a big move in less than a year. In 2020, less than a year later, we were in a better situation than we left. If a big change happens, I need to remember to leave room for God to work instead of shutting down in fear and worry.

I find it to be no coincidence that I read a commentary days before that discussed the promise God makes in Romans 8:28. He works everything together for good, but He doesn’t promise it will make sense at the time, that’s where faith and leaning on His promises come in. We either choose to trust or we don’t, just like how we face trust issues with human relationships, we either trust people or we don’t. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s honest.

As the dust settled and we processed the tax situation, I realized that although the way things happened didn’t make sense as it was happening, it was going to transform our future for the good. I will never again have to dread that lump sum at the end of the year. With quarterly taxes, it’s manageable chunks, which will help us figure out a down payment for a house and what I experienced this time will never happen again. This was it and now I’m free. I also remembered that after these big financial “losses” happen God does something amazing with the smaller amount in ways that only He can. It’s happened over and over in these years since 2017.

Giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and God what is God’s is also an important part of this process. Giving back what God has given us to serve His kingdom according to what Jesus says in Matthew 25 and remembering His promise in Matthew 6 is how we plan for the future, on His promises. Being greedy and being unwilling to share my blessings with others is a one-way street to unhappiness. So how will this all play out? I don’t know yet but I do know it helped me find peace in this moment of uncertainty and being released from the dread of tax season is the answer to my prayers even though the process wasn’t how I would have chosen it to be, it will be okay.

 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25:35-40 NIV

I hope that by sharing this story, of my worries and my journey to peace that I will encourage you, reader in whatever you are facing right now. Life is such a rollercoaster and it is tricky in the tough days to remember it will get better. There will be brighter days. Financial stress is a tough adversary and I am still working through how to keep calm when it feels overwhelming.

Just remember you got this! 💪  Or in K-Pop speak, fighting!

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