It seems like such a significant amount of time. And it is…until it’s not. Amid grief, time becomes a tricky thing. Anyone who’s experienced it can tell you that. There’s a blink that occurs, a blink of time between the moment you lose the person you love, and the 365 days after. It’s one blink. And then it’s gone.

While she was still her, I sat and wrote these words for her. My hope was that she would hear them as she breathed, but she ended up hearing them in heaven. I don’t think there was a better time and place. At her funeral, many heard them, but those who have read them have been touched by this amazing understanding of the kind of person she truly was. An understanding I can’t explain, but one that I think needs to be shared.

First though, is something I’ve held dear to my heart for almost this entire year. A number of our family took a vacation to Seattle and Vancouver two years ago, and I intended to make a video of the experience, like I had for trips previously. I never got around to it.

The night after her funeral, I couldn’t sleep, and all I wanted was to see her. So, I did. I created this way to remember her in just a few hours, and sat with it for hours after. It broke me in a whole different way than losing her did. But the healing it gave me is something I’ve only shared with my family, and a close number of people. I wasn’t sure when, if ever, there was going to be a time to share it with others, but now seems like the right time to do so. I know that so many people loved her in an enormous way, and that this video has already done something for those people that I can’t explain.

To My Mom,

Only God knows how I came to have you. You are extraordinary – in every single way a person could possibly be. You give, even when there seems to be little left to give. You forgive, even when it isn’t fair. And you love, harder than anyone I’ve ever known. You love even the loveless, and it’s never ceased to amaze. All our lives you’ve encouraged us to look at others through God’s eyes. To avoid nasty words and hateful comments, and to spread kindness to even those who aren’t kind to us. We failed sometimes—sometimes often. But you were there to set us straight, and to be a constant example. Now we’ll hold each other accountable, and hopefully make you proud with our words and actions.

There have been miles of rough roads, for me and for sisters whom I’m sure can agree. But you’ve been there through each and every turn. You are a beaming star in a sky that’s sometimes too dark. You have such a selfless heart, it radiates the word “good”. Because you are good, all the way through. You put others ahead, you take an extra step to make someone smile, and you’re patient when it seems impossible.

When I talk about my mom I do so with a feverish pride. Dad has been my hero, and you have been my best friend. My wings when I needed to fly— My direction when I was lost so many times— and my harmony every time I sang a song alone. You taught me to pray – to love Jesus. You taught me to give others not what they deserve but what Jesus gives them… open eyes, open arms, and an open heart. You taught me that to judge others is toxic and lies are poison for the soul. Honesty brings humility, and humility will bring you happiness. You taught me that to be angry is to be unfulfilled, and that anger brings resentment, not answers. You taught me – and reminded me over and over – that tears bring healing, and that tears prove not weakness but the strength to show our humanly imperfection.

You’ve held me, you’ve sang me to sleep, you’ve guided me. I know that even when I don’t feel your arms around me, they’re there. I know that even when I don’t hear your voice, you’re singing with me. And I know most importantly that even when I don’t see you, you are leading me down God’s holy and righteous path for my life.

I love you. I have loved you since the day I took my first breathe, and I will love and miss you ‘till the day I take my last. Thank you for being my mom, my favorite in the whole world. I hope to live my life by the examples you set for us and see you again one day in heaven, singing with the angels.

 Love forever and always,

                      Your Gracie

I love to paint, and always have. However, at twenty years old I only have about seven finished paintings to show for it. That number doesn’t really seem to add up. The reason for this is that each painting takes me an absurd amount of time, because I’m never quite happy with it. I continue to add color, and strokes, and texture, and then a different color over the last because it’s, “not quite right”. It’s not quite perfect. Only when I’ve reached the point where nothing—no color, no shape, no design—could possibly make it better do I deem it finished. Imagine how many paintings this has cost me over the years. Imagine how many times I’ve hovered my hands over a blank canvas, wanting to create a new piece, but became discouraged just imagining the time it would take me and the stress it might bring, needing to create something that others will see as masterful. It makes me sad to think of all the art I could have accomplished had I just overcome this mindset. Had I worked to make myself proud rather than others proud of me.  

There is a constant voice in the back of our minds telling us to, “do better”. And it never seems to go away. It’s a slippery slope. To push yourself is a good thing, and that voice may be what pushes you, what keeps you motivated to succeed. But when you start to hear, “I need to do better” rather than, “I can do better” …that’s when you can start slipping. If what you worked toward and finally got to seems to be just not quite good enough, then steer your focus away from it, and focus on how you got there. Look at the effort you made and whether or not it was effort you can be proud of. If so, then understand this: It does not have to be your best work, only your best attempt.  Do not put all your focus toward bettering your success, but instead on bettering your motivation.

You know how the great parents, coaches, and teachers were the ones who always said, “as long as you tried your best”? It sounded so great when we were young, because someone was proud of us, despite the fact that the outcome wasn’t what it could have been or what they had hoped for. As we got older, that saying sounded futile. If we didn’t finish the job according to our boss’s standards, we’d probably get fired, whether we tried our best or not. So, I’m sure you’ve thought before, “where does trying my best get me?”. When we were young, our feelings of success came from making those around us proud. There was nothing quite like seeing pride in their eyes that got there solely because of our attempt, regardless of the result. Now our feelings of success come from making ourselves proud, which strangely seems to be much harder. Why?

We fixate on the success, and it being the best one possible. Even after we work hard, push even harder, and reach what should be the end, we continue to chip away, add color, and more and more paint until it’s perfect – at least perfect to us. We know that we are our worst critics, but we still seem surprised when it bites us in the butt. Something that’s already satisfactory, and may even seem great to others, has to be perfect to us. So, we try harder and deplete more energy when it could be put towards something new. Lately, making ourselves proud seems to rely solely on what we have to show. You can’t show how hard you worked, or how many hours you spent, or how many times you wanted to give up. If you think that whatever you put on display has to be good enough to prove somehow that you indeed did all those things, you’re wrong.

I often find myself jealous of the people who can put 100% into everything they do, get it done quickly, and then move on. I’ve struggled with that my whole life. So, I try to turn jealousy into inspiration, to let those people inspire me. Way too many times I’ve let the fear of not being able to do something good enough keep me from doing it! It makes me angry with myself, and not just angry, but disappointed… I wonder how many opportunities I’ve passed up, or how many projects I set aside, simply because I didn’t think I’d be able to do them well enough. So quickly we label, “not succeeding the right way” as “failing”. It’s understandable that failing would be enough to scare anyone away from trying. I wish that I could have simply focused on being proud of myself for the attempt and the effort, instead of disappointed in myself for not succeeding the way I wanted to.

My sister said to me one day, “Just paint. Mess up, and then do another and get better.” In order to make beautiful looking paintings one day that don’t take me an unnecessary amount of time, I have to make a hundred that look just okay. What others might see as a hundred failed paintings, I’ll see as a hundred times I put forth 100% effort, and slowly got better because of it. TRY YOUR BEST, and just try. If you do, you should be able to be proud of what you accomplish and create. There’s a pretty good chance of that, compared to being proud of no attempt at all. I said that we need to focus on bettering our motivation, not our success. Doing that begins with understanding where our motivation should be – Engulfed in this mind set: That our best attempt is worthy of pride, whether the success from the outside looks incredible or just okay.

First blog post! I can’t believe it! Once you’ve read mine twice, go check out Kelsey’s because I’m sure hers is much better ; )

I can’t say I’ve never participated in the new year obsession, because I have (many a time), but I will say this, I’ve hopped off the train. A brand, new year comes with lots of different emotions: Excitement, nervousness, anticipation. But I think maybe one of the most common is expectation. Now this may be more of a belief than an emotion, but I prefer to see it as both. The last day of the year rolls around and we can see the first day of January in the near distance. This prompts us to scroll through our camera roll and post all the great, best-looking memories on Instagram, drink to forget all the not so great looking ones, and whip out our pen and paper to start writing down our new year’s resolutions.

Here’s the problem: To view January 1^st as the beginning of a whole new year is a mistake. I’m not saying it’s not a new year (obviously this is literally the case), but that it’s a mistake to view this time as a “fresh start” like so many do. This January does not mark the beginning of anything, it’s simply a continuation. Your life is continuing on. Moving forward like it does every day, every month, every year. I’ve hopped on the train of this idea, for one reason. Your beginning? Is every single morning when you wake up. As cheesy as it sounds, that moment when you open your eyes is the beginning of a new day, and that right there is where your focus should be.

This tradition of writing down our “New Year’s Resolutions” is such bologna, it should be called, “Setting Ourselves Up for Failure!”. To resolve means to fix a problem. If something has been a problem for, oh let’s say, 12 months(!) do you think that writing it down and saying you’re going to fix it means that there’s actually a tiny, miniscule chance that anything will change? No! The odds, I’m afraid, are not in your favor. When we create these sometimes small, sometimes massive goals, we expect (there’s that word again, I hope you didn’t think I forgot), a lot of ourselves. Let me rephrase – We expect way too much from ourselves. Have you not been told your entire life that, “change does not happen overnight”? So why then when the new year comes around do we just throw this knowledge aside and expect ourselves to be able to get up on January 1^st, work out for an hour, drink at least a gallon of water, eat no less than a lb of broccoli, and write more than a page in our new way-too-expensive Barnes & Noble journal. When we fail to implement these new goals into our life immediately, there’s a feeling of failure. Then comes the discouragement. Then, before you know it, you’re sitting in bed with a pint of double mint chip watching reruns of “Psyche”, and its only January 15^th. Well, there’s always next year.

Get. On. My. Train. There is nothing wrong with setting new goals for yourself. However, do not set so many that you become overwhelmed. Make a couple, and make them achievable (you are not superwoman) (or man!)(But if you are definitely send me an email… I’d love to chat). Do not fall into the trap and think that now that it’s a new year, you can get under your metaphorical car for about an hour or two and fix every little thing that wasn’t running so good in 2018! We both know you’ll end up just throwing some duct tape under there and hoping for the best.

Here’s what you SHOULD do:

The second half of last year was incredibly hard for me, and I started feeling overwhelmed by everything I wanted to achieve, emotionally and physically. So, I wrote something down on a piece of paper, and then carried it in my pocket everywhere (for about three days before it got lost on laundry day). “ONE. THING. AT. A. TIME.”. It may sound super simple and easy, but it truly takes practice. I promise this idea will take over your life in the best way possible, but only if you work at it. Here’s all you have to do: Wake up, greet the beginning of a new day, and come up with one thing you want to achieve. It can be for that morning, even something as little as “take a shower”. Once done, check it off in your brain and come up with a new thing. It can also be for the whole day! Come up with one thing you want to accomplish for the day. Everything else is fair game, but you have to get at least that one thing done. If that goal is a little bit bigger or maybe predictably a bit hard to accomplish then take even that One. Thing. At. A. time. – One. Step. At. A. Time. Break down that one thing into tiny little things, like writing out that entire math problem on paper with step. 1, 2, and so on.

I tend to use the first idea more – Coming up with one thing to do, doing it, checking it off, and then coming up with something else. I find myself to be much more productive this way rather than say, writing out an entire checklist. Take your goals for the year and implement them into your “one thing at a time” daily ones. This doesn’t have to be every day. If one of my goals for the year is to eat more veggies then maybe tomorrow, I’ll wake up, and my one thing to do for the day will be to “include veggies with dinner”. You may be thinking, “that sounds so unproductive”. But try it. I can give you 99% assurance that if you tear up your new year’s resolutions and make one small goal every single day instead, come December, you’ll be able to pull those resolutions out of the trash you haven’t emptied in 12 months and be proud of yourself.

So, New Year Schmew Year, tomorrow is a new day. Focus on the here and now, and don’t set goals for June, because it’s way too far away. In 2019, I’m taking one thing at a time, and I’ll keep you in my thoughts and prayer as you hopefully do too.