I'm Back!

Hi everyone, I’m back! It has been nine years since I last spoke with you here.

Have you ever heard of an "inciting incident?" In storytelling, it is the event that kicks off the action.

The inciting incident of this entire blog was AJ's birth. Can you believe that was 21 years ago? My beautiful boy is a grown man now. In fact, he is the same age his dad was when I met him. 

Gracie, who now goes by her middle name, Olivia, said to me, "Mom, when I realized that AJ is the same age as papa was when you met, I had a mid-life crisis." 

A mid-life crisis. LOLOLOL. My kids still make me laugh. Well, girl, if anyone should be having one, it’s your mom 😂. But since I will always think I'm in my twenties, all is well. Plus, I've overcome so many crises now that I can't make up my own to stress about. 

A lot has changed in the last 21 years. I meet people who have never seen a blog before! Writing "LOL" became a thing. And now is passe. But I'm still gonna use it. And emojis are permissible in writing now. 

So what is the inciting incident to me resuming this blog? 

Andrew's birthday was September 11th. A couple of years ago, shortly after his birthday, one of his closest friends reached out to me for the first time. He felt compelled to connect because of what he called a series of "synchronicities." 

I asked if we could speak on the phone. When we did, it was surreal for both of us. It felt like stepping back in time, with Andrew right in the middle of it. He talked about the letters Andrew had written that I posted on the blog. 

Afterwards, I asked AJ if he'd like to hear about his dad from someone outside of our family. A time before his dad met me. AJ wanted to. So, that January, AJ met up with him.

After reading Andrew's letters so many times over the years, I think of them as his life story and the lessons he learned from his mistakes. When his friend reached out and referenced those letters, I felt God was telling me it was time to step out of the shadows and the fear, and to open back up. It is time to start sharing all that God has been teaching me since I last blogged here.

Even though it's been many years since Andrew died, raising our kids without their dad was profoundly difficult. They looked like him and sounded like him. And they inherited both his strengths and weaknesses. As they approached adolescence, I often felt at a loss how to understand or teach them. In the end, God provided the guidance and help I needed. But, ultimately, the responsibility was always mine, and it never stopped feeling heavy until they left for college.

Now that they are adults, I am so incredibly proud of them. I never thought it was possible to feel this level of relief. The transition to an empty nest was tough, but I can finally feel my brain clearing up.

Last October, I learned the song, Great Is. This song spoke to me, because AJ had just moved to Boston. Even though I was struggling with no longer seeing AJ on weekends and adjusting to an empty nest, my kids were both walking with the Lord. Back when I first joined my fellowship in 2018, I was often despairing and weary. Our leader, Steve, told me then that one day I would see the purpose of all my losses. In recent years, he challenged me to look for what I gained rather than what I lost. I put a daily reminder on my phone to do this and to exercise self-control in my perspective. And then my eyes began to reopen. 

All of us are covered and surrounded by so much blessing. But I think the maturing person is able to recognize those blessings. 

As the song, "Great Is" says:

It was lonely in the dark
But You were working
It was painful,
it was hard
But You were working
Couldn't feel You at the time
But You were working
Full of questions, wondering why
But You were working

As I began to see again, I saw that God had never left me. He had always taken care of us. And so much was good. I got to raise my children, and God provided for us the whole time. I got to write. I got to dance. We had family, friends. I just had forgotten to taste and see the goodness of the Lord in it.

I love Forrest Frank's "Thankful." It always puts things in perspective: "I've got a roof and a bed. A couple groceries to stay fed. I've got a phone and clean water. And some shoes when I wanna go farther...I woke up this morning thinking, 'Thank You, Lord.' For giving me everything I could ever need and more. I've got so much to be thankful for. I have lights and a fan. A couple people who know who I am. I have a car and clean clothes. Pots and pans I can cook on the stove. I have the sun and air in my lungs. And a big mess that I get to clean up. But most of all, one thing's true. Jesus, I'm grateful for You." 

Then, I overheard AJ counseling his friends on the phone over the last Christmas break. He sounded just like Henry (also from the fellowship) daily counseling AJ on the phone or Steve all those years of counseling us. When I heard AJ, even the things I was most ashamed of were redeemed. Profoundly broken friends would tell AJ things that no one else could help them with, not pastors or psychologists. AJ could listen and respond with empathy, compassion, and kindness. He recognized what was being shared, because they echoed the pain he had seen in me. And he was able to help them make life-saving progress. A 21 year old college student was able to do this.

My gain has been the fellowship, a church that is being restored and remade. It is my kids walking with God. My children are the greatest earthly treasure God has given me. I can understand people in any degree of pain. And now seeing how all my suffering has shaped and refined my kids and me, so that we can help people in ways we couldn’t have if our story had not been one of loss. But now gain.

"Great Is" testifies:

You'll turn it around
Don't know when, don't know how

But You always do it somehow  

After I began to embrace these things internally, an outward representation of God's faithfulness and blessing happened.

I used to live in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. In 2012, I moved back to New Jersey, where I had grown up. But I never could bring myself to buy a house again after what I had written the year before about our house in Minnesota: "urgent demands all at once - after a heavy windstorm a large tree branch fell onto the fence into our neighbor's yard, the freezer stopped working and all the food was melting, something cracked in the toilet so that water was leaking onto the floor, someone brought to my attention the windows were rotting and needed to be replaced before winter, AJ got scarlet fever - all within the same six weeks. This was all happening as I was dealing with the worst stage of my grief process. I was already worn out, but now I was fully saturated with physical and emotional exhaustion."

I live in a New Jersey suburb of New York City. After the pandemic, rent skyrocketed here. I wondered if I would be forced to leave the area I grew up in. Then, a friend told me about housing lotteries. Every new luxury building in the state is required to set aside apartments with lower rent than the normal cost. 

When my fellowship leader, Steve, said, "This may be how the Lord wants to provide for you," it sounded too good and too unlikely. But because of his advice, I pursued it with fervor. I applied to over 50 places across multiple counties. I resolved to be open to wherever the Lord wanted to place me, even if it meant moving far away from my communities. 

Then, I was notified that I had drawn a good number for a building in the perfect location. I had applied to so many places, I didn’t even remember applying to this one. 

Out of 11,000 entries, I secured 1 of the 90 available spots. A gracious, miraculous provision from God. "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord" (Proverbs 16:33).

The rent will be what I used to pay for rent back in 2012 and what my mortgage used to cost in Minnesota. 

I lost so much after Andrew died. I was stripped of his protection. A man developed an unhealthy obsession towards me, following me to all my safe places, something no one would have dared if Andrew were standing by my side. My brother-in-law wouldn't have resumed making fun of me after a 5-year hiatus during my marriage. So many bad things happened. There was so much instability without Andrew to protect and lead his family. But if all that had not happened, I might never have been desperate enough to find myself at the fellowship. Right from the beginning, Steve worked to rebuild in me my trust of men, spiritual leaders, then God, and now, most of all, myself.

I love the whole playlist from that October 2025 set and listen to it almost every day. If you’d like to listen to it, click here. It's just a few songs. "Blessed Be Your Name" was in Andrew's funeral. And the song "God Is Faithful" speaks so much to me too.

Let me know if you're ever in the New York City area! I'd love to hear from you again. What are some gains that have come out of some losses? What are some things you are grateful for in your life?