Maybe I Don’t Want to Be This Good at Surviving

Last week kicked my ass.

And honestly, it has been way too many weeks of getting my ass kicked in a row. 😅

I’m starting to wonder if the lesson isn’t learning how to push through better.

Maybe it’s asking whether I want to keep living at this pace at all.

Because I don’t think I do.

A Little Pocket of 73-Degree Heaven ☀️❄️

Last Wednesday brought one of the sweetest parts of my week: returning to Woodcrest Villa in Lancaster for their summer barbecue.

My daughter came along, and for a few hours we painted faces, added hair tinsel, did henna, and watched little ones enjoy the day with their parents and grandparents.

Those events make my heart sing.

And, praise Jesus, Woodcrest Villa also comes with one of my favorite amenities:

Air conditioning.

A glorious, civilized, approximately 73 degrees. 😂

My body isn’t fighting the environment there. I can create, connect, laugh, and breathe.

A few days later, I realized just how much that matters.

Pandas, Sparkles + One Very Long Day 🐼✨

Our hotel room was 333.

The street address was also 333.

That made me laugh.

Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was simply enough to make me stop and notice.

Either way, in a season when I’ve been praying for direction, it felt like a small reminder:

Keep listening.

The next morning, we started early and jumped straight into it.

Heat. Paint. Glitter. Pandas. More heat. 🥵🐼✨

We created baby pandas, flower freckles, a goldfish, a tiger, and one magnificent jellyfish stretching all the way down an arm.

But one of my favorite things was seeing teenagers and adults wanting to play too.

Apparently, wonder really does have no age limit.

The photos look joyful.

And there was joy.

But both things can be true.

Our booth was tucked behind a giant bounce house in a quieter pocket of the festival, and the heat was relentless.

By the end of the day, my body was giving me some very clear feedback.

My resting heart rate had been sitting around 130 beats per minute for way too long, and that scared me.

When severe weather threatened Sunday, we decided not to return for day two.

And instead of feeling disappointed, I felt relieved.

That told me something.

Maybe This Is Home 🏡

What hit me afterward was that I wasn’t only tired from one long day.

I was tired of the pattern.

The packing.

The driving.

The always being somewhere else.

The feeling that the next opportunity is somewhere down the road and I just have to keep moving long enough to find it.

And underneath all of that exhaustion was a deeper question:

What would it feel like to build a life that actually feels rooted?

Five years ago, when we moved to Central Pennsylvania, it was supposed to be temporary.

And yet here we are.

The longer we stay, the more I feel like maybe this really is home.

But living somewhere and putting down roots are two different things.

I spend my life around people. 

I paint their kids.

I sparkle their faces.

I create little moments of connection everywhere I go.

And I love that.

But lately I’ve been craving relationships where nothing is being exchanged.

No ticket.

No invoice.

No face paint.

No sparkle.

Just people. ❤️

Genuine humans who love God, serve others, and want to walk through life together.

I want that for my kids too.

My babies are headed into 10th grade, which is ridiculous because I’m pretty sure I just brought them home from the hospital. 🥹

I still look at them with that same fierce love I felt when I first met them.

I want them to have community.

I want them to have rich experiences with other kids and families.

I want them to know what it feels like to belong somewhere.

And I want them to dream about their lives before life simply happens to them.

I don’t entirely know how to give them that yet.

I just know I want it.

Maybe I Don’t Just Need Rest 🌿

For a while, I’ve been saying I need more rest.

And yes, Lord knows that’s true.

But I think what I’m actually craving is something bigger.

More life.

More faith.

More community.

More creativity.

More meaningful relationships.

More room to breathe.

There are paintings sitting in my storage unit that were created during some of the hardest seasons of our lives.

Some look like storms.

Some look like surrender.

Some somehow found incredible color in seasons that didn’t feel colorful at all.

For a long time, I thought of them as things I made while surviving.

Lately I’m wondering if they’re actually evidence of something else:

That creating has always been one of the ways I find my way back to myself — and back to God — when life gets noisy.

Maybe that’s why I’m feeling pulled toward them again.

Years later, I’m still learning some of the same lessons those paintings were born from.

Maybe that’s why they still matter.

Filled, Not Forced ✨

While listening to Battlefield of the Mind, Romans 15:13 grabbed hold of me:

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him…”

The words I keep coming back to are:

fill you.

Not figure everything out.

Not try harder.

Not force yourself to be joyful.

Be filled.

That feels especially important to me right now because I’ve spent so much of my life believing strength meant endurance.

Keep going.

Carry more.

Push through.

Figure it out.

But maybe I don’t have to manufacture the peace, joy, or clarity I’m looking for.

Maybe my job is to trust God enough to make room for Him to fill the places I’ve been trying so hard to fill myself.

And maybe strength isn’t always about how much we can carry.

Maybe sometimes it’s having the courage to admit:

This doesn’t fit anymore.

A Little Reflection 💭

I’ve started asking myself a different question.

Not:

How do I keep pushing through?

But:

What am I actually longing for?

More connection?

More creativity?

More God?

More room to breathe?

I don’t have all the answers yet.

But maybe telling the truth about what we want is its own kind of beginning.

I know I can survive a lot.

I’ve proven that.

I’m just not sure survival is the goal anymore.

Maybe the next version of our life doesn’t need to be bigger.

Maybe it just needs to feel more like home.

Closer to Home ✨

I’m not trying to stop creating joy.

I’m just learning that maybe I don’t have to run myself into the ground to create it.

Maybe I can paint more.

Create more.

Build something rooted.

Spend more time making beautiful things simply because I feel called to make them.

And maybe the people who are meant to find those things will find their way into the story too.

Creating a little more magic closer to home feels like a pretty good place to start.

Come Find Me This Week ✨

This week’s adventures are staying a little closer to home.

I’ll be in Marysville for a Back-to-School Summer Homestead event, bringing plenty of color and sparkle. 🌈✨

Then Sunday I’ll be at Susquenita High School celebrating the field hockey championships. 🏑

If you’re local, come say hi.

Spread Joy. Shine Bright. Keep Sparkling,
Brookie ✨