I’ve never written a year-in-review post, but I feel like it is the right thing to do, because 2025 deserves to be named. It was a year. A lot of a year. And my biggest takeaway from it all is this: God is still with us.

Month after month, one hard thing followed another. Yet somehow, we stayed steady. I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for that. Our marriage stayed stable. Our finances stayed stable. And our walk with God stayed stable. I’m not saying that because we’re especially strong or faithful, though our faith has grown stronger, but because I know that if these same trials had come in earlier years, we would have crumbled. This year changed us.

January: A Small but Meaningful Win

January itself felt relatively calm. The biggest highlight was moving into my new office shed – my “she shed.” We worked hard to get it set up, and it has truly been one of the unexpected gifts of 2025. Having my own space to work, think, breathe, and retreat may be one of the reasons I kept my sanity through everything else. That little space mattered more than I could have imagined.

February: Illness, Investment, and Upheaval

February hit hard. On February 10, my birthday, Theo, who was 14 at the time, came down with the flu and ran a fever for five days. On the fifth day, Benjamin, then 16, also spiked a fever – higher than Theo’s, reaching over 104. The fever eventually broke, but about a week later, Benjamin started acting differently. The fever “scrambled his brain,” or at least that is how I explained it in simple terms.

He developed insomnia and extreme anxiety that landed us a night in the ER and took several months to see glimpses of our “normal” Benjamin again. He ended up going homebound for most of the second semester of his 11th-grade year. The fact that he passed 11th grade at all feels like a miracle. Many days, his cognitive function just wasn’t there.

In the middle of all of that, we also bought our first investment property and launched another LLC, Grounded Properties. Something we had been working towards for several months. The house was a foreclosure and needed a lot of work, so from February to May, every spare moment I had was spent fixing it up. By June, we had a renter!

Around the same time, Ben injured what we initially thought was his Achilles tendon. He could hardly walk, which meant he wasn’t able to help much with the rental property. I took on all the rental property responsibilities. We chose to conserve his physical and mental energy so we could sustain two houses, work, and family life. 

May – June: When My Body Said “Enough”

On Mother’s Day, I woke up unable to move my neck. Having had low back surgery nine years earlier, I recognized the feeling of a pinched nerve/bulging disc and assumed I could rehab it at home. I tried everything for two weeks with no improvement.

Eventually, I went to the doctor. I didn’t have much of a choice, I started losing feeling and strength in my left arm to the point I couldn’t pick up a coffee mug. If you’ve never experienced nerve pain, thank God. It is unbearable.

The doctor put me on the usual cocktail of steroids, nerve pain meds, muscle relaxers, etc. As a T1 diabetic, steroids are brutal. They helped my neck pain immensely, but my blood sugars skyrocketed. I felt awful, exhausted, heavy, like I was walking through cement, and I was using double my normal insulin just to keep my numbers in check.

At the same time, I was working full-time with two clients and trying to help Benjamin finish 11th grade. Ben still couldn’t walk, despite months of doctors, therapy, medications, ice, heat, and every conservative treatment imaginable. Something had to give.

After exhausting options with Benjamin’s pediatrician, we finally found the right kind of doctor and medication for the season he was in. It wasn’t perfect, and the decisions were difficult, but we learned a lot. Today, he is off anxiety medication and slowly returning to himself, which feels nothing short of miraculous.

When I finally met with the neurosurgeon for my neck, I learned I’d have to wait seven weeks for neck surgery. During that time, I scaled way back at work, earning about a quarter of what I normally would. Sitting at my desk was excruciating. My priority became reducing my pain enough to be present for my family. We backed out of everything nonessential and just focused on the day-to-day with our kids. 

July – September: Surgery, Recovery, and More Waiting

Theo broke his wrist. 

I started OT for a broken thumb and a middle finger tendon tear in my dominant hand. Two different accidents. One in May and one in July.

Seven weeks after meeting the neurosurgeon, I was on the operating table for my neck. It went well. I regained strength in my arm almost immediately, and after a couple of weeks of recovery, I felt like myself again.

Ben’s journey wasn’t done. His foot became red, swollen, and warm to the touch, and the constant limping caused nerve pain in his other foot and leg. After months in a boot and countless failed treatments, he was referred to a foot surgeon. Surgery was unavoidable. They performed an osteotomy, removing part of the inflamed bone in his heel.

After seven months of pain, he finally had surgery, but that came with another six months of recovery. We’re still in that window, hoping that 2026 brings healing and the ability for him to walk normally again.

After his foot surgery, Ben saw a dermatologist for a suspicious mole on his face. He was diagnosed with melanoma. Thankfully, it was removed completely, and there are no signs of it elsewhere. Still, it was another blow in a year full of them.

October: Job Loss and Unexpected Grace

At the end of October, Ben was called into a meeting at work. Due to restructuring, everyone on the call, including Ben, was laid off. Even though we had seen it coming, it shook us. I immediately started deferring payments and reworking budgets. We now had two house payments and no steady income from his job or mine.

And yet, God’s grace was there. Within a month, Ben found another job, one he truly loves, and I gained 2 new clients. In hindsight, the layoff feels like a blessing. The stress from his previous job had been overwhelming, and this new role has been far healthier for him.

Gratitude and Looking Ahead

As much as I want to give 2025 the middle finger and shout “sayonara,” the truth is this year was just… life. A lot of life. More than most people handle in one year, but still just life.

The truth is, life is hard. God is in control of the good, the bad, the ugly, the blessings, and the suffering. I could choose bitterness, or I could choose trust. God uses all of it to refine us, draw us closer to Him, and make us more like Christ.

Instead of bitterness, I choose gratitude. Thank You, God, for getting us through. For protecting us. For giving us clarity of mind, a foundation of faith, supportive families, and even something as small but vital as a quiet office shed where I could breathe.

There were tears. There were moments of exhaustion and fear. But we’re still here.

As we step into 2026, we’re making changes toward better physical health, better mental health, and better rest. This year taught us that you can’t just push through forever. Mental and physical health are deeply intertwined, and both require care.

We’re entering 2026 with hope. Our oldest is graduating from high school. Our middle son is getting his license. Our youngest will finish third grade and step closer to those preteen years. We’re thankful for planned trips, time together, and another year around the sun.

Here’s to rest. Healing. Growth. And trusting God with whatever comes next.