I hate these catch up posts. How does one recap two and a half years of life? As I read my last posts I’m struck by how little has changed…and yet, so much has happened. It’s like someone hit “pause” in the summer of 2020, threw me in a pool, and I’m just now getting my head up and looking around while still trying not to drown. Are we any closer to the goals we were working on? Nope. Am I more exhausted, frazzled, and aged than two years should warrant? Yep.

Obviously, 2020 was difficult for everyone; however for us it was a time when the previous ten years of mental health and marital struggle culminated in a huge classic breakdown from which we’re still reeling. We were stuck without a job, a diagnosis of panic disorder and depression, and increasing chronic pain that made finding a different job near impossible and added to the depression. Did I say this was a blow to our already struggling marriage?

I had to pivot – again. Our home rhythm had to change – again. We had to wade through the bureaucratic mess of the va to try to get him any help at all…this was a time when everything became a struggle, even just getting through the day. To see that the little homestead ambitions had to get set aside is an understatement when I ran out of mental and emotional energy to do more than the bare essentials and our dear Barefoot Girl entered the teen years with a mom who was always stressed and angry-looking.

Depleted.

I won’t add the moral-sounding end to this post – the “but through it all, God is faithful and here is the good that’s come out of it.” He is, and I’m sure there is good, but there is also a lot of very real and still raw pain. We’re still in it. We’re still struggling. I don’t know the end of the story yet….and maybe there is no ending. Maybe this will be a lifelong fight and it’s only on the other side that we’re able to get any perspective on it. But one thing I know: I can’t stay away from writing any longer. It’s a fire He put on my heart, a pressure that won’t cease. I don’t think these are my words anymore, but His. I’m learning what it means to “pick up my cross and follow Him” directly into the pain of my husband and daughter, and the Gospel becomes more than just words when one is forced to live it daily. The homestead is more than a place to simplify and practice self-sufficiency. It has become what God always intended “home” to be: a refuge.