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Navigating the Unexpected

Housewife Title

Mom-Life in a Pandemic + That’s Just Every Day!

 

I thought my life was going to dramatically change this year. My youngest was heading off to kindergarten, and I was going to have 35 hours of uninterrupted single-minded brain activity a week where once I had zero. With all this newfound brain space (plus the reinstallation of my personal bubble), I was envisioning doing all the things I hadn’t done with my life over the last decade and dedicating that time and space to something other than wiping noses, pulling teeth, coordinating playdates, and warding off the World War III of sibling rivalry.

 

My self-diagnosed adult Read more

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Not a Waste

Rainy cross photo

With the world on pause…

we’re witnessing the God who is not

 

I came across a post about funny holiday cards this season. Breaking slightly from tradition, many felt an obligation to acknowledge this year as one like we’ve never experienced. Normally, I’m not a Christmas card sender (one less thing to stress about, among other reasons), but I decided to make a go at it:

 

Kruse Christmas card front Kruse Christmas Card back

 

It’s an age-old pearl of wisdom that intentionally reflecting on the past helps inform our future.

2020 was hard, but we’re not letting it go to waste

 

In a year that a lot was taken away from all of us physically, my hope comes from the belief that much was accomplished spiritually. Why? Read more

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To-Do List Blues

My life was on overload like the clutter of my email inbox

 

I can make anything about a checklist. A goal to accomplish. A race to be won.

 

Currently, I am trying to get better about drinking water: the way I go about dehydrating myself throughout the day to push for one more thing has complicated my health. Naturally, I put another pale yellow Read more

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“I’m a crabby person.”

“That’s just who I am,” I conceded to my husband the other day, my defeatist attitude brought on by a recent stream of moodiness I couldn’t seem to get a handle on. Any chance you’re in that kind of season, too? In “The Broken Way” calendar with daily quotations from one of my favorite authors, Ann Voskamp reminds me that sometimes the best way to remove the scales from my eyes and life is to evaluate where I’ve misplaced my identity. Ann writes, “Activity for God—is not the same as intimacy with God or identity in God. And it is your intimacy with Christ that gives you your identity.”

 

If I’m being honest, I must admit Read more

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Does “2020 Suck” in the kingdom of heaven?

Dad's Facebook repost

The other day, I was outside doing chores when a neighbor walked by with his dog and his son on training wheels. As the dad tripped up on the slack of the dog’s leash, his trendy t-shirt slogan had me doing a double-take. In big bold letters, the shirt said “2020 SUCKS.”

 

The sentiment is felt, man. In 2020, death and disease have overcome our news feeds. Fear has overtaken our communities. Confusion has found a place at the table. And injustice is rearing its ugly head all around us. Neither can we help but notice the uneasiness within. “2020 sucks” is a lucrative slogan—a money-making graphic to be slapped on everything. Recently, someone even sent me an image of the numbers 2-0-2-0 shaped into a flip of the bird.

 

The truth of the matter is, you won’t find many people who would argue that this year hasn’t been hard—there are many scary things playing out. Bad news never goes on vacation anymore, and we would give anything to take one. This is surely no Garden of Eden, and we would be right to lament over the brokenness around and within. As real suffering is felt all over the world, affecting all of us to some degree, we mourn it from a posture of “this isn’t how it was supposed to be.” Further, we yearn for it to be made right, for when Heaven will invade Earth and God Himself will wipe every tear (reference to Revelation 21:2-4).

 

But in the here and now, what are we left to do? Can we just cancel out 2020 in our minds and hearts, much like we cancel public figures when they throw us a politically incorrect curveball?

 

This blog is all about removing the scales and revealing God in our everyday lives. In Romans, Paul advises us to “be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”[1] Let’s break down this verse and see how we can apply it to this year of all years.

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The new I hadn’t perceived

 

When tragic life moments like what happened to #georgefloyd pass through our world, I could choose to shelter my ten-year-old white male child from the reality of the news blazing through my phone and on my computer screen. But I think he’s old enough, and he is curious. I chose to let him see the photo, watch the video (though I’m grateful the version he saw was not the heart-wrenching, kick-to-the-gut close-up eyewitness account I viewed), and witness the outrage. We have been talking about Read more

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The One New Year’s Resolution Everyone Needs

The ball dropped. Auld Lang Syne was sung. Now the buzz of everyone making New Year’s resolutions is all you hear about in ads and on social media. I know, cliché. It’s just a number. I will be scribbling out 19 and rewriting 20 every time I write the date for at least a month. […]

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The Day I Stopped Talking

I imposed a 24-hour no talking rule on myself, and this is what happened

 

Hey Readers! Fair warning: stuff’s about to get REAL. I’ve got some vulnerability to share, and I’ll start by owning that at least a strong part of me is an 8 on the enneagram (“the challenger”). As such, the emotion that often really powers me is anger. That can be a powerful force for change in the world. It can also get me into trouble at times.

 

I care a lot about matters of justice: social justice on the one hand (great!). On the other hand, making sure justice is served in my own personal affairs (selfish motives: not so great). As a child, “it’s not fair!” came out of my mouth with as much regularity as “Are we there yet?” intuits out of the mouth of a kid on a 20-hour car ride to Disney.

 

So when, as an adult, I experience the pain of this world (aka: the gap that exists between the way things ought to be and the way things actually are), and I can’t readily do something about it or fix it on the spot, I tend to run my mouth as an alternative. And this mouth can run. In moments of stress, it turns to four-letter words. Keep Reading

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