Happy New Year!
I don't know about y'all but 2025 was a rough year here. With all new health scares and unknowns, our year was packed with scans, tests, pin cushion lab appointments, and waiting, lots of waiting. Unfortunately we are starting off 2026 the same way, but I am hopeful that after this first month or so of tests, scans, appointments, and pin cushion sessions, that we will have the final answers to all the questions we have and a way forward to make life at least a little more manageable. At least that is the hope.
My birthday:
My birthday was this past weekend on the 4th. It started with a lunch with my husband at Longhorn. Then we ran a couple of errands before coming home, taking a nice nap, and having tacos with our family. All of those things were good. What wasn't, was my body. My heart rate was high, I couldn't walk far without being out of breath. I had a migraine the entire day due to blood pressure issues the night before, and I just felt like something was wrong.
The next night, I dealt with a lot of blood pressure issues. It was high enough to think about a potential ER trip. Those are scary moments. The moments when you have to decide if you wake up your husband to drive you to the ER or wait it out and hope that you don't have a stroke in your sleep.
The toll it takes:
I have to tell you these kind of nights don’t pass without a mark. Even when nothing “happens,” something does. My body remembers. My nervous system stays braced. The next day carries a soreness that isn’t pain, it's just the aftermath. And those nights test my faith in quiet ways. Not whether God exists, but whether I can trust Him with a body that doesn’t feel safe to me.
Faith when you have a chronic illness (or 5) can be hard. I won't sugar coat it. I've had a personal relationship with God since I was a little girl. I've been through a lot of ups and downs and my faith has been hard won. And still, I’m finding it being stretched in ways I didn’t know I needed.
Small hope, not big promises:
Let me start this off by saying, I hate platitudes. When I am talking about hope, I'm not going to tell you
- Everything will be OK
- Just trust God
- God's got this.
What I am going to tell you is smaller than that, and more honest. The truth is, trust in God when you struggle every day to just survive, is a lot quieter. Trust doesn't require certainty. It doesn't mean that I am certain everything will be OK. In fact, I don't know that everything will be OK. I don't know that I won't have a stroke, a heart attack, or end up with cancer. What I do know is that during all of this, during the best days, and during the worst, scariest days, God is right there with me, holding my hand. He may not take it all away. He may not make it all better, but He is never far away.
What I'm carrying into 2026:
The kind of hope I'm carrying into 2026 is
- not loud
- not certain
- not polished.
Instead, it's
- showing up for appointments
- resting when my body asks for it
- trusting that I don't have to face the hard nights alone.
If you’re starting this year tired, scared, or already bracing yourself, I want you to know you’re not doing it wrong. You’re living in the middle of hard, real things.
So for now, let this be enough:
One breath.
One day.
One small step forward.
I’m holding space for you as this year unfolds.
And I’m reminding myself of the same thing I’m reminding you — we’re still here.
And for today, that counts.
With all love,
