Hello, my online friends. I appreciate each and every one of you whether you’re finding me for the first time or have read my work since I started six years ago.

I began this blog in July 2017; the year I turned 30. In that first blog (You can read it here), I admitted to having a “third life identity crisis” where I realized I had no idea where my life was going. A dozen life-shattering events have passed since then, yet I find myself right back in that questioning mindset.

Looking back, I had so many questions about my career, where we would live, and family issues. I was confused from all the different advice people gave me. And the more I researched, the more questions plagued me.

In 2017, I attended my first writers’ conference. I was half-way through writing my very first novel (an adult murder mystery entitled “The Judas Killer”). I’d just finished a successful play that I’d wrote and co-directed at the private school I worked at as an art/theater/culinary teacher. Riker was about to turn 4, and I desperately wanted to have another kid. Andrew and I were at odds about the timing for another child, or if it should come biologically or through our desires to adopt. Plus, Andrew and I had just visited Greenville, SC for the first time and had immediately fallen in love with the area.

So many, many questions.

In the years to follow, I did get a few answers. Those six years packed quite the punch. It brought the closure of the school I worked at, giving me more time to write. We moved to our dream location in Greenville. I had cancer that would eliminate the option for more biological children. We became foster parents on the path to adopt a sweet girl. Through complicated events, we lost that girl to the system and her abusers. It forced us to be content with our beautiful family of one incredible boy. I finished not one novel, but two novels, three picture books, two plays, countless short stories, dozens of blogs, and started five more novels. (Feel free to peruse through my past blogs touching on all these events.)

Through each of these life changes, I remember thinking I knew something. Or I thought I knew something. I tried guessing what God had in mind for my life. (i.e. oh, we’re supposed to be a happy family of 4. Oh, I survived cancer because I’m supposed to do something great. Oh, I’m supposed to have this literary agent with this publisher with this particular book.)

Now, though God gave me answers to many of 2017’s questions, I’m faced with more uncertainty. Questions about why I’m not published yet. Why God placed the desire for a large family within me if it wasn’t going to happen. Which book(s) I should write next. If I should embrace this renewed baking business I began the end of last year. Life, existence, and the pursuit of happiness. etc. etc. etc.

Do you also feel crushed by questions? Stumbling over the mountains of uncertainty? I’d love to connect with our shared humanity! Because it’s okay to admit when we don’t know. It’s okay to be less than perfect. It’s okay to be honest with each other and ourselves.

You’d think looking back to the times God has answered me through life, I’d be comforted. That I’d be solid and strong of faith. It’s not always the case. Not by a long shot.

Growing up, I’d always hear the “everything works out when you believe” or “it all works out for the best” or “the best is yet to come.” I became a firm believer in positive thinking. An eternal optimist. A glass is half-full person. A girl who loves to smile even through the darkest days.

But what happens when that smile becomes a mask? What happens when the positive outlook becomes hypocritical denial?

God never promises us an easy life. He actually promises there will be trials:

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” – 1 Peter 4:12

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” – Psalm 34:19

God promises to deliver us, but He doesn’t say how, when, or where. He also never promises that they’ll be answers WE want. Because what we ourselves imagine can’t compare to what God wants for us. They’re human standards, after all.

Through each year and circumstance, I find myself being molded and changed. Instead of a “third life identity crisis,” it seems like I’m going through a total life renewal. Each day brings new outlooks as I contemplate the past and how it affects my future.

I can’t help but wonder what answers God is working on. What new events will unfold to bring differences to the life I once thought I knew.

As I look back over the last six years and beyond, I also find that it’s harder to move forward when I’m facing the wrong way. Yes, we learn from the past, but it’s a messy and sticky hold on our minds when we linger in our past regrets and events.

If the past has taught me anything, it’s how little I know and how much I want to know. And that doesn’t exist in my past.

I don’t have answers. Maybe I never did. But I’m learning it’s okay to just admit that.

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” – Romans 5: 3 – 5