Happy Eastertide! I hope you had a lovely day of reflecting on Christus Victor.

Here’s your friendly reminder to keep on feasting, because Easter is a full fifty days... It feels good to be in a season of feasting after the long Lenten season, doesn’t it? Phew.

Our family had a fantastically full Holy Week, but it was also one of our best. …I’m grateful for the liturgical calendar and how it meets us just where we need to be.

Let’s talk spring reading, shall we? It’s a good season for reading, but it’s also one of the busiest times in family calendars, so for me, cracking open a book feels like both a luxury yet also a necessity. Giving myself permission to sit and read, even for fifteen minutes, is often just what’s needed to tether me to something more than my to-do list.

Read more

It’s hard to believe it’s already the last week of March... Sometimes beginnings of the year start slow for me, but not 2026 so far—this first quarter has absolutely whooshed by.

I love that the last week of the month coincides with the start of Holy Week, so instead of simmering in my in…

Read more

I first wrote the following essay in the second half of the website’s life, but like most of the topics I wrote about there, its idea had long been taking root in my mind for years, slowly growing from a seed to a spout to a full-bloom leafy plant. Five-plus years later, I’m relieved to say that not only do I still agree with my original ruminations, but I’m on the other side of my need as witness to how well God meets heartfelt desires like this.

As with all my essays I plan to republish, I’ve edited it for clarity (because I’m a better writer now, thank goodness) and content (because some of my ideas have deepened or even changed with earned wisdom, also thank goodness).

Enjoy.

The topic of friendship has been a common one around our house lately. We have several kids who’ve shared a desire for more—or for more like-minded—friends, and after taking off my mom hat when the kids are in bed, I pour myself a drink and confide the same thing to Kyle.

I, too, would like to have more like-minded friends. It’s a weird thing, to be a full-grown adult and confess that it’s hard to make friends. It conjures up playground emotions of vulnerability and awkwardness because it puts you in a position of need, which feels uncomfortable.

Being on the receiving end of years of emails and private messages from readers: a lot of us feel this way.

Some of you who’ve written me are in your teens and have confessed a desire to find friends who share a kindred-spirited value of people over things, quality over quantity, meaning over status.

Some of you are in your twenties, doing the career-building thing and feeling alone, or doing the young parent thing and likewise feeling alone, and overall feeling alone as you navigate some pretty big waters.

Some of you are in your thirties and forties, like me, realizing how isolating our roles can be, whether they be breadwinner or stay-at-home parent or something in-between, longing for more local support and camaraderie.

Some of you are older than me, walking ahead and confessing that it’s still hard as we get older to make friends.

Let’s just say it collectively: finding friends can be hard. But finding friends is also so very worth it.

Here’s what I’ve told my three children for years now1: partial solutions. It’s something my therapist in Thailand taught me years ago, it’s something I’ve also been writing about for years, and I say this phrase at least once a week at home.

Life is full of partial solutions—where there’s a way to get a need met, and it might not be the ideal way, but it’s a way that still works.

Partial solutions apply to almost every area of life, from decorating our home, to getting dressed in the morning, to carving out a career for ourselves, to making dinner, to electing a politician. We can’t do the absolute ideal thing, but we can do the good-enough. And of course this is the case with friendships, too.

When I espouse the idea of partial solutions to my kids, I’m telling this to myself, too, because it’s easy for me to build a wall in order to hold on too tightly to my ideals, because when it comes to friendship, I really would love to find more kindred spirits2, so I embrace my must-have list of qualities in a person in the name of holding on to my integrity.

I’d like my ideal friend to be uber-local to me (as in, lives in my neighborhood), an entrepreneurial breadwinner who gets the challenge of providing for her family both financially and maternally, a Christian—with the same theological convictions as me, please—and while we’re at it, it’d be great if she also currently lives in a fixer-upper renovation and deals with all those challenges therein. Oh, and a mom with kids the same ages as mine.

I’m unintentionally treating real human beings as caricatures of personhood instead of divinely-made souls walking through real life on earth, like me. Ridiculous, right? But when I’m feeling pouty and pitiful, I take a step back and realize that this is precisely what I’m doing: being ridiculous. (Another word for this is picky.)

Here’s what I’ve been telling my children, and therefore myself, too: Pray for and hope for close friendships. This is a good desire. But don’t be so idealistic that you’re blind to the opportunities for friendship right in front of you. The person in your life that you least expect might end up the answer to your prayer.

This looks like pursuing that person already in your life instead of waiting for someone who might not exist. It looks like looking out for who might need a friend more than you. It looks like taking the initiative to get together when you’d rather wait to be invited. It looks like keeping healthy boundaries when you feel particularly vulnerable about all this, not turning to social media for a facsimile of the real thing.

It looks like continually keeping your eyes peeled for someone who fits the bill, but it looks even more like keeping partial solutions at the forefront of your mind when you yearn for companionship. Maybe God’s already answering this prayer; you just need to recognize who it is He’s really bringing to you.

We can be each other’s kindred spirits in the most surprising ways; it doesn’t need to look how we think it should look. Very often, the path to finding a good kindred spirit is to simply reach out first to that one person you already have in mind. Ask her to coffee; ask him if he’d like to go on a walk during your lunch break. Go first and initiate, because even though it feels like you’re the only one who’d like a friend—you’re not.

Remember what the wise sage Winnie-the-Pooh once said: “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

Don’t ignore the friendship possibilities God has already put in your life in the name of waiting for that one perfect kindred spirit that may not exist. Embrace partial solutions, in this and in all of life this side of the veil.

Partial solutions is the best answer to the question of where and how to find deep, meaningful friendships.

By early next week, February 2026 will have officially been in the books (already! ...this month flew by), so let’s end this month well. I read this yesterday in my Lenten read, Fire & Light:

“Gratitude opens us up to the gifts of grace. Not that it makes God more generous (for he is fully…

Read more

Hey all,

Happy February! Most Januarys eke by for me, but this one was quite the opposite. I cannot believe it’s already February. Today, for Candlemas, we are officially taking down our Chrismtas tree and keeping a plethora of candles lit around the house. We are also calling my mother to wish her a happy birthday, prepping for class tomorrow, and doing what we can to make a little progress on book edits. We1 have a busy day today.

Let’s talk books, shall we? Share what you read in January, what you’re now reading for February, and generally what’s in your TBR stack. I’ll share mine below in the comments thread, as always.

Read more

I didn’t realize until this morning that it’s been a couple months since we’ve done a gratitude check-in around here! So let’s start off 2026 right. I also can’t believe it’s already the end of January… Whoosh, indeed, as always.

In the comments thread here, share ten things you’re current…

Read more

Hey all,

Happy new year! Let’s kick off 2026 with that most beloved of topics: books and reading. Have any plans for the first bit of the year?

I have a few favorites I like to read at least once a year—all short, all kick-in-the-pants type—and while I don’t read them all annually without fail, I l…

Read more

Hey all,

Happy second full day of Advent! This is my favorite season in the liturgical calendar, and I’m so glad it’s finally here.

It’s a good time to kick off our “new year” with some solid reading, so as always at the start of each month, let’s share what’s in our stacks. You know what to do: sha…

Read more

Hey all,

November is one of my favorite months of the year, and I don’t know about you, but I’m already chomping at the bit for Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and all that they entail... Bring on the holidays, I say!

It’s also a really good time of the year for reading, so let’s share what’s in ou…

Read more

It’s been ages since we’ve done this, thanks to my previous book deadline, but I miss this joint practice so let’s dust it off!

In the comments thread here, share ten things you’re currently grateful for, big or small. Then read a few other folks’ lists and find yourself encouraged. I alwa…

Read more

Every honest Christian wishes they had some amazing story to tell about how they found Jesus. It is those folks whose stories we elevate with Very Special Evenings to hear their testimony, from drug-addled homelessness to on-fire evangelist; from staunchly argumentative atheist to viral apologist. That is not my story. My story of coming to know Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior is a cookie-cutter copy of millions of Americans roughly my age, plus or minus fifty years.

I grew up in a loving Christian home, complete with nightly family dinners after ballet class and suburban summertime bike rides with drinks from the water hose at the side yard. Now, a “Christian home” isn’t to say my earliest memories are of Wednesday evening tent revivals or post-sermon potlucks in the fellowship hall; mine are mostly the ordinary playing-in-the-backyard, watching Saved by the Bell on Saturday mornings variety, but nonetheless, they were all infused with a base-level assumption that in our household, we go to church and we call ourselves Christians.

I never sensed we were unusual in any particular way. Perhaps this is the Moral Majority-era raised Southerner in me, but my early immature perspective on life assumed everyone around me hailed from a family and home life that went to church on Sundays and found swear words and beer offensive. It wasn’t until fourth grade, when I’d join friends after school in their homes, that I discovered parents whose album collections included hair bands—men in actual tights and makeup and insane hair—and parents who actually swore in front of their children as though they were in a PG-13 movie. Living rooms that allowed a TV parked on MTV debuting the latest Billy Idol.

My parents weren’t strict the way some of my Reformed evangelical counterparts’ were: we had cable TV and junk food, and my latchkey kid status meant mainlining The Brady Bunch, Growing Pains, and The Facts of Life reruns after school until my mom walked through the front door (my brother, five years my junior, preferred Thundercats, He-Man, and Transformers by the time I had any real memory of my own pop culture oeuvre). I was allowed a radio in my bedroom, so I knew of Duran Duran and Pet Shop Boys and bragged as much out on the second-grade playground. I was jealous of friends whose parents, in the fourth grade, mind you, took them to see Prince and Bon Jovi live. My first concert wasn’t until the ripe old age of eleven in the sixth grade, when I saved up my own allowance money to see Debbie Gibson with my group of girlfriends, and yes, of course I wore a copy of her ubiquitous hat.

I conjure up these dated names only to timestamp my childhood, as well as to make clear that I did not grow up in a super-strict fundamentalist household. My mom routinely had to go on the defensive with certain extended family members as to why she allowed me to take dance classes that included, in addition to ballet, tap and jazz classes that performed on stage to the latest Top 40. We watched Ghostbusters on HBO and a few weeks later, my three-year-old brother mimicked an entirely inappropriate line from the film right in front of our grandparents.

Read more

Hello!

My brain is both absolutely fried and more alive than it’s been in a long time. I feel like I’ve been in an echo chamber of my own thoughts, which isn’t a bad thing, actually, for a season. When I finish writing a book, I have to go into a cave and ignore as much as I can (save for feeding m…

Read more

Dusting off the keyboard, pulling the cord on the dangling light bulb in my brain, reminding myself how to log on to Substack…

Hello! I’m back from my summer screen sabbath. And what a summer it’s been! I’ll share details, both professional and personal, in a few days when I write to everyone, but I first wanted to greet you fine folks, you paying subscribers of The Commonplace who make my work possible. I’m so grateful for you. 💛

As always, the summer has absolutely whooshed by. Every year I begin these seasonal sabbaths with an assumption I will get So Very Much Done, and every year I return from my break with a humble awareness that I needed a break far more than I realized, I didn’t get as much done as I assumed I would, and yet there is very little to do but shrug my shoulders, say “life goes on,” and re-enter the delightful fray with the renewed perspective that is my valuable prize.

Did I get book-writing done? Yes, absolutely. As much as I needed or wanted? Not by a long shot. Did I enjoy some precious family time? Yes, for which I’m beyond grateful. Did I have all the deep conversations I hoped I’d have with each of my kids, one-on-one? Of course not. Did I finish some house projects? One or two. Did I cross off that list entirely? Hah!

Such is life.

It’s the dog days of summer around here, hot and humid, wherein we praise the high heavens for swimming and the modern marvel of air conditioning. Heat or no heat, though, summer remains a beloved season of mine in spite of the weather, not because of it. I love summer because of its rhythms. As a teacher and co-op leader, I so appreciate the break from my brain being constantly on in school mode. As a mom of olders, I relish in letting my kids’ giant bodies get the sleep they need and the brief respite from me harping on their schoolwork.

And the trope remains true: we have 18 (ish1) summers with them. It goes by so fast, and I know crossing off my to-do list pales in comparison to quality time with them. My youngest has only three years until he graduates high school, and I know from experience with my olders that when it’s over it’ll have felt like nothing. I genuinely don’t feel old enough to be a near-empty nester, yet here we are. 👵

The sheer volume on my plate this week is laughable, and I need to make some headway on it, so this brief hello is short. You’ll get a longer update from me in a few days, so keep your eye out for it in your inbox — yet I wanted to leave you with two things…

1. My next book is official! 📚

This summer I formally signed a contract with my publisher — it’s the book I’ve been working on for months now, so this is less Brand New Information and more Now the World Knows. I’m stoked to work with Image Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House! Here’s a screenshot of their formal industry announcement:

I’ll share more details soon, but I wanted y’all to be the first to officially be in the loop!

2. A prayer 🙏

We can pray in all sorts of ways: in our minds, petitioning the Lord for our needs; using pre-written prayers given to us from saints throughout the centuries; as we read the Bible a la lectio divina, imaginatively, contemplatively, and beyond. Yet in the spirit of my summer and in the details I’ve shared here, there’s also a common form of prayer we often forget can be a legitimate form of prayer with the right posture: work.

Yep, our work can be a form of prayer. Brother Lawrence reminds us of this in his short classic, The Practice of the Presence of God2:

“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”3

With that in mind, I’ve written a prayer to dedicate my work each morning to the Lord, who gives me the very ability and gift of work itself. Perhaps it encourages you, too:

A Petition for Rolled-Up Sleeves

Lord God, you created me for Your own pleasure, and beyond my human comprehension, that pleasure miraculously includes my ability to work. You gave us work in the Garden, before our rebellion. Work itself is inherently good. Unlike all else in your creation, we humans are Your co-creators, invited to join You in the manifestation of Your glory, and like a child’s drawing, our feeble offerings are Your fatherly delight.

I am astonished.

Maker of all things: baptize today’s work so that a sliver of Your glory shines through the cracks and imperfections. Marry the muck of my drudgery with Your will. Redeem my motives. Sanctify my struggles. Honor my handiwork, feeble as it may be.

And tonight, as I turn off my light and rest once again, pour forth Your paternal kindness so that I may awake again the next morning, willing to say once more: Lord, baptize my work today.

Accept the gift of my rolled-up sleeves.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In the midst of all the rigamarole, I’m really glad to be back here. I hope you’ve had a just-right sort of summer you’ve needed, even if it perhaps wasn’t what you expected… I look forward to returning soon to our monthly grat chats, book chats, and more. Grateful, again, for each of you.

St. Frances de Sales, pray for us.

Peace,

Tsh

Hi all,

It’s the last day of June, which means it’s time to practice our gratitude habit. My favorite monthly Commonplace post!

As a reminder: In the comments, make a list of ten specific things you’re grateful for, big or small. Then, read a few other lists and find encouragement from what others see in their worlds around them.

I’ll share my June list in…

Read more

Hey all,

We got in from Europe at midnight last night, and after a quick shower and crash into bed, I woke up this morning literally not knowing which country I was in. 🫠 I now have a mountain of laundry to wash, an empty fridge to fill, a week’s menu to plan, an insane email inbox to process igno…

Read more

Hi all,

It’s already the end of May this week, which means it’s time, as always, for us to practice our gratitude! …Even if you don’t feel like it, saddle up and try this simple habit — you won’t regret it. It’s a subtle but significant mental shift in noticing all the tiny little things around us that truly are good.

You know what to do: In the comments,…

Read more

Hey all,

Sorry this is getting posted later in the day than usual…. Tate is back home as of two days ago, and her BOYFRIEND is staying with us as well! 💛 So we have a full house with a (delightfully) upended routine. Needless to say, prayers are needed for getting anything done this week as we win…

Read more

Hi all,

It’s already the end of another month, which means it’s time for us to practice gratitude! Here’s what to do, as a reminder: In the comments, make a list of ten specific things you’re grateful for, big or small. Then, read a few other folks’ lists and find that much-needed Monday p…

Read more

I love that even though Lent is long, clocking in at 46 days (minus those six Sundays as brief reprieves), the season of Eastertide is even longer — a full fifty days. It’s a beautiful thing that the Church sees it fit that the season of feasting that follows our long fast is even longer.

But what does this look like in our ordinary lives? What does it look like to truly feast for fifty long days? Surely not endless jelly beans and chores thrown out the window? No, gratefully. …As much as I’m here for the simple delights of life, the laundry doesn’t fold itself and no one should eat that much sugar.

Feasting is much more of a posture than it is a particular activity. To feast means to savor the joys of life, not to gorge on its easily reached-for pleasures. God made pleasure and made it so that life is full of them — but we as humans are meant to hold them in their rightful place, in their divinely-appointed good order.

A season of feasting in the Church calendar means to purposely recognize the appointed reason for celebration — and in the case of Eastertide, the season following the holiest day of the entire year — we celebrate that our God is living, active, merciful, universal, and has conquered death through Jesus’ resurrection. Death has lost its sting! That is a reason to celebrate, for fifty days at least.

Broadly speaking, feasts are meant to help focus the faithful on community ties and personal faith. Specifically, here’s how this could look for us ordinary folks during Eastertide.

1. As mentioned above, feasting is largely a posture more than a set prescription of activities — so in all the below, consider starting each morning with a list of three small things you’re grateful for. It’s a simple way to recalibrate your daily perspective. (This could help.)

2. Enjoy the spring weather with a daily morning walk. Even ten minutes around the block can do wonders.

3. Dig in the dirt. Plant tomatoes, a pot of flowers, or a little window box of herbs.

4. Take your morning coffee outside.

5. Open the windows at home when there’s a lovely breeze.

6. Go barefoot in your front or back yards.

7. Choose a daily devotional read, perhaps a bit lighter than something you read during Lent. Make sure it’s on the short side so it doesn’t feel like a lengthy burden to your morning or evening routine.

8. Read the book of Acts as we move toward Pentecost.

9. Invite some family friends over a few times for a simple potluck dinner and game night.

10. Schedule in intentional pizza (or your pizza equivalent) and family movie nights during Eastertide — plan ahead which movie so you don’t spend an hour debating.

11. Keep inexpensive grocery store flowers in a vase on your coffee table.

12. Keep any Easter or spring decor up through Pentecost.

13. Keep springy candles lit in your home.

14. Or make beeswax candles! This is on my to-try list.

15. Go camping — or, go on a local day trip to enjoy the outdoors.

16. Intentionally watch your body language out and about — no need to smile like a goofball everywhere you go, but work on putting on a pleasant countenance as you run your errands. And say hello to strangers.

17. Buy a simple extra treat on your usual grocery runs — a wedge of fancy-ish cheese, ingredients for homemade ice cream on the weekends, or fizzy drinks that feel bougie with a splash of cut fruit.

18. Visit a local farm and pick fruit, flowers, or veggies.

19. Visit your weekly farmer’s market and buy part of your staples there.

20. Pray for something intentional over the next fifty days — this year I’ve visited this Holy Spirit Novena several times and it’s been a blessing.

21. Declutter stuff — pick a closet or room and fill a box for your local thrift store donations.

22. Write a few letters of encouragement — handwritten postcards or letters are truly a dying art, which makes them all the more special.

23. Eat several meals outside. There’s something about taking what you’d normally do anyway and making it al fresco that makes it feel more special.

24. Intentionally enjoy a weekly Sabbath. If your weekly work tends to live in your head, make extra effort to use your body on this day of rest. If your weekly work tends to keep you physically active, use the day of rest to enjoy something more contemplative, like reading a novel or fiddling with a crossword.

25. End your day with three more small things you’re grateful for. (Again, you could make this a regular habit with this.)

I find it a bit ironic that Eastertide falls during a typically busy season for many of us parents — the end of the school year is often chock-full of events on the calendar and final academic pushes to final exams and projects. Instead of shooing away a season of feasting, make your common busyness all the more reason to make time to feast. Consider 1-3 things from the list above and intentionally schedule them in for the next fifty days — no need to do too much. Or, add your own ideas to the comments below — I’d love to hear them!

Leave a comment

Here’s to Eastertide! To remembering that death no longer has the final word and that we are invited into a relationship with a good, loving Father.

Easter blessings,

Tsh

• Dear Tate, Vol. 1

• Dear Mom, Vol. 1

• Dear Tate, Vol. 2

• Dear Mom, Vol. 2

• Dear Tate, Vol. 3

• Dear Mom, Vol. 3

Dear Tate,

This is the last letter I’ll write to you while you’re studying abroad... Goodness, this semester has flown by in some ways, but in other ways it seems like so much has changed, it’s hard to know where to begin. You’ve got two and a half weeks left there, and I want you to soak up every minute.

As you know, I’ve been sick the past few weeks, so a lot of my thoughts are mush at the moment... Even if I weren’t sick, though, I don’t think I’d have much more in the way of brilliant epiphanies for you — there’s something about this time of year that just screams “no more!” when it comes to deep thoughts. You’re taking Metaphysics and Theology of the Body; the last thing you need from your mom right now are philosophical musings on the sacramental act of traveling or in immersing oneself in another culture or on learning to love well. If you’re like me right now, you’re thinking about what novels you’re hoping to read by a body of water in a month’s time.

Because of the State of My Brain, I’m going with the ol’ standby when one’s disposition isn’t able to conjure up paragraphs of flowing coherence: a list. So, here you go: here’s a list of my final thoughts for you, a young twenty-something, living abroad in Europe for her last few weeks.

1. You think you’ll remember all the details — the feel of the forks there, the sound of the ground as it crunches beneath your feet, the aisle of miscellaneous sundries at the local store — and some of it you will. In fact, some of what you remember may be utterly unimportant, yet your mind will choose to hang onto it for some reason. But much of what you think you’ll remember, you won’t. Soak it all up right now — be fully present for the little things and how they feel, smell, taste, and sound.

2. You’ll miss certain people, so take time for them, even if you’re Generally Over It. It’s easy at the end of any semester to check out socially, but hang on and stay fully there with other people as best you can. With some of these folks, you won’t be living near them again. You’ll miss them.

3. Exchange contact info with some of those people, and then do your best to stay in touch this summer. Some relationships will organically fade away, and that’s okay — remember the Aristotelian hierarchy of friendships; some are there for seasons and that’s just how it is — but there might be one or two you need to hold on to. Don’t neglect those. Cultivating these friendships is worth the effort.

4. Spend some time with one or two of your favorite professors, even though there’s not much time left. You’ve told me about a few and they sound like delightful human beings; you’ll look back and wish you soaked up more of their wisdom when you were there in person with them. I get that it’s almost finals season, so time might be short, but even just a brief chat for nuggets of wisdom during office hours might be just the thing you tuck away in your pocket and take home with you as a delightful, unexpected souvenir.

5. Take photos of everyday life. I’ve loved seeing all the pics of you traveling to Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, and Italy, but several months from now you’ll find yourself missing the walls of your campus, the courtyard, the views from the windows, and everyday life in the village there. Snap those photos while you’re there, even if you think they’re uninteresting — your future self will thank you.

6. While you can, take a few minutes to journal your thoughts about this semester (even though I know you’re about to be neck-deep in cramming for finals). Reflect on the surprises God has put on your doorstep, the unexpected life lessons, the highs and lows, and perhaps a list of little things specific to this semester abroad you’re grateful for. It’ll be something you’ll read years from now, and you’ll be surprised at the things God used this semester to form you more into who you are.

7. Enjoy the European baked goods for a few more weeks. ...I’ve been using Italian flour here at home for pizza dough and bread (and the boys haven’t noticed a difference), so maybe you’ll be able to stomach it here, who knows. But just in case — enjoy the digestibility of European carbs while you can.

8. Start preparing yourself for re-entry, but without pulling yourself away from being all there. As you know (because I’ve told you many times), re-entry is often rougher than culture shock, because you’re returning to familiar things yet you’ve changed — in ways you don’t yet know, and certainly in ways that other people here won’t expect. This is an inevitable part of extended time abroad, but as much as I wish it were avoidable, it’s part of what makes cross-cultural travel so great. It’ll get bumpy, and that’s normal.

9. Be fully present for your last quick trip to Italy next weekend, even though you’re road-weary. And get in as much gelato as humanely possible.

10. Finally: give yourself lots of grace for these next few weeks. Your body, mind, and soul are all processing this semester’s wind-down and your impending return in ways you don’t fully realize, and you therefore might respond to things in surprising ways. You might find yourself impatient about the silliest things, or perhaps weepy at really inconvenient moments. You might find yourself wanting to push off responsibilities, or the opposite — using those responsibilities as excuses for not making time for little pleasures. Regardless what happens in the next 18 days, give yourself plenty of room for being however you need to be.

...I know you’re ready to come home, and I’m eager to see you! I’m excited to hug you again, to feed you, to hear you wake up in the next room and get ready for your coffee shop shift, to see you planted in your spot on the couch with Ginny snuggled up next to you. All in good time.

In the meantime — enjoy Austria. You’ve got just a little time left, and you’ll look back on this as the most formative semester of your entire college experience. What a gift God has given you, as He gives with all sorts of pivotal seasons in life.

I look back on the season of you and your brothers as babies and toddlers, and I long for those days — something I never, ever thought I’d say. But it’s only after you live through seasons that you realize how short and life-giving those blips in life are, even though they’re also insanely hard and exhausting. You realize after the fact how formative they were to your whole person-ness, and if you’ve got the right posture, you’re both grateful for those days and bittersweet that they’re gone for good. I’m sure I’ll feel the same about these last few years of your brothers at home and you as a young single adult.

You might feel like you’re in a waiting room season right now — ready to be fully an adult and looking at the second half of college life, ready to get it over with already. I know you’re eager to be home, but I won’t be surprised if in a few weeks of being here you’ll be ready to be back on your own (as you well know, parents and siblings have a funny way of annoying the heck out of you when you’re a college student in-between semesters). It’s all expected.

But if there’s anything I’d tell past twenty-something me, it’s to be more fully present. Stop living so much with the future in mind. It’ll get here anyway, and you won’t ever get these days back. Good things are hopefully in store for you, and I’m excited about them! But in a few weeks, you’ll be in your old bedroom for the summer, taking classes and working. And right now, you’re wrapping up your semester abroad in Austria.

Be fully there in Austria for these last few weeks. You won’t regret it.

Love,

Mom