When Sam and I first had Piper, she was the classic first child. She adapted to things easily, she slept through the night early on, she was happy, and easy-going. Whenever anyone spent time with her, they’d eventually say with a smirk and a funny expression, “Just wait until the second comes along.”

You see, there’s this long-standing idea that the first child is this peaceful, ideal kid that convinces their parents, “We could totally do this again!” and leaves them totally unprepared for the second.

I got married at the height of COVID. June, to be precise. We were engaged the November before– when the world was still normal. By March, when everything shut down, we basically had a wedding put together and almost paid off. We had a plan; from the DJ, the photographer, the venue, the wedding party, the dresses, the suits, the food– everything was set for our June wedding.

But like most weddings that were derailed by the coronavirus, it never happened. At least, not according to that plan.The best of our plans came to nothing, and I, like most brides of the time, was completely disappointed that my turn had finally come to plan a wedding and be a bride and It was not going to be what I thought it would be.

Piper loves to cook in the kitchen, so we let her do things within her ability: cracking the eggs, stirring things in the pan, pouring ingredients into bowls– just anything that she can handle. Recently, I’ve tried new sourdough discard cookie recipes that are so delicious, but they require a few extra steps to make them all the more delicious, like browning the butter, sifting the flour, and chilling the dough before putting them in the oven. They come out so warm and yummy that the extra steps seem worth it.

Last week, I had some sourdough discard to use, so I decided to make them. I started the process while Piper was watching a movie. She came in at the tail end of putting the batter together, so she probably only put in the last of the dry ingredients and chocolate chips; there wasn’t too much to do before putting it in the fridge other than letting her sneak a taste.

I was one of the first of my friends to get married. My marriage is still young– we celebrated six years this June– but I’ve stood as a bridesmaid several times over for my friends who have been married since. Anyone who has been through the wedding planning process can relate that the process is full of self-imposed stress. And that stress has a way of making you forget the stuff that really, really matters about a wedding.

I think for every friend I have ever been a bridesmaid for, there was a moment where the pressure was high and they asked for a reality check. My best advice was always this: The biggest part of the wedding planning is already done. God has provided the man, and praise Him! Because without that piece, the day isn’t happening. Absolutely everything else could fall apart– the dress, the flowers, the food, and the DJ– but if the one that your soul loves is still in, the most important part is covered.

In Genesis 4, we read the story of Cain and Abel, the two firstborn sons of Adam and Eve. As Cain and Abel grew, they offered their own sacrifices before the Lord; Cain offering the harvest of the fields and Abel offering the firstborn of His flock. Scripture says the Lord had a high regard for Abel’s sacrifice, and none for Cain’s, which angered Cain.

This led to a confrontation between Cain and God, where God addresses Cain about his heart. “Why are you so angry? And why do you look annoyed?  If you do well [believing Me and doing what is acceptable and pleasing to Me], will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well [but ignore My instruction], sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you [to overpower you], but you must master it” (v 6b-7). This would lead the hostility in Cain’s heart to grow more unchecked to the point where he would kill Abel in cold blood, which brings further judgment from God onto Cain.

The church I grew up in had several worship teams throughout the decades I spend there. One worship leader’s name was Dolores. She only lead very occasionally, when there was a rare gap in worship leaders’ schedules, but when she did, she was always on an acoustic guitar. 

Dolores is a genuine flower child, saved after her wild days in the 60s, but her style of worship was still very “Stevie Nicks found the joy of the Lord.” She always sang songs that no one else did. One of them was this exact scripture, and there weren’t too many other words than that. But I cannot hear that scripture without hearing her singing it with that strummy guitar behind her.

So what does it mean? It’s obviously metaphorical about the strength and protection of the Lord towards His people, but how is it practically applied?

When Sam, my now husband, and I started dating, everything was new and exciting. We were fun and playful; we were tender and excited to see if this was a forever kind of love. Already, I knew he treated me the way I wanted to be treated, but still everything was fresh. Nothing had been tested by adversity or arguments or inconvenience.

But within the first few weeks of dating, someone close to us tried to quite literally destroy my character in public and in ministry. Over the next few weeks and months, many questioned both him and me, and some even urged Sam to end the relationship. In a lot of ways, that season felt a lot like a Job moment; maybe not to the degree in which Job suffered since I still had my health, my home, and my family, but it was the kind of thing that felt like it hung over my head and caused grief that had to be dealt and re-dealt with. I lost friends from that moment in time, and a few trust issues developed. 

Emotions are tricky. On one hand, God has given them as a great help to us. They ignite our passion for the Lord and move us to give our lives to Him. They embolden us to share the Gospel that has changed us so completely. They contribute to convictions of the Holy Spirit in killing our sin and sanctifying ourselves to be more like Christ. When they are controlled and wielded righteously, they are a great help to navigating our Christian walk.

On the other hand, emotions are misleading and they are not irrefutable. They are still a part of the flesh-response in our fallen nature. They can lead us to sin, offend God, hurt others, and provide excuses for us to remain comfortable in our temptations and trespasses.

Growing up, I knew my dad was proud of me. Dance recitals, school awards ceremonies, you name it– my dad was either out in the audience or waiting in the wings with tears in his eyes. But nothing was more sure to make my dad well up more than seeing me or my brother do something in the church. Getting baptized? Leading worship? Forget it; he was sure to be a puddle wherever he was standing.

And there are some moments in life where pride is permissible: when it swells in you because of an achievement, or because of a close relationship. Feeling a deep satisfaction at a success or at watching someone you love excel at what they love is a positive thing. It’s one of life’s joys. 

I wear very few items of jewelry on a daily basis. One piece that barely ever comes off is a small chain with a set of wings given to me by my sister. She gave it to me as we read Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot during her engagement. Chapter 8, “The Weight of Wings,” resonated with us both, even at our differing stages of womanhood and marriage.

I have a books my mother in law bought me of famous hymns and spiritual songs, containing their hymnal sheet music, and the back story behind why the song was written. In one of the volumes of these books, there was a song that caught my eye: Lily of the Valley by Charles Fry.

Lily of the Valley is a pet name I have for my second-born daughter named Lily– who was born and lives in a valley town. Upon seeing the title, I had to flip to the song and pull up a rendition of it to hear.

“I have found a friend in Jesus, He's everything to me / He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul / The lily of the valley and in Him alone I see / All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole”

There is some disagreement over what exactly Solomon means in Proverbs 13:23. It could be taken two ways: The first is that the poor, for their lack of work, leaves uncultivated ground untapped because they lack the work ethic to put in the labor it takes to grow and harvest food. This would, of course, make sense, if you have a field and choose to not plow the field, sow seed, water it, tend to it, and then harvest the food it brings forth, then the resource has been mismanaged and the field has gone to waste. It is an injustice to not steward that rightly.

I remember my first anxiety attack. I was in my freshman year at high school, and it was a few days before we picked classes for sophomore year. I had come home from school with the long course catalog and was sitting on the couch with it in my lap. My mind started racing, overwhelmed by all the choices of classes I had in front of me. I’ve always been the kind of person who gets panicky when I feel overwhelmed by a big-picture process. 

Compared to the vast amount of choices, it felt like my schedule wouldn’t fit them all. Suddenly, I felt like the choices I made would have a great impact on the rest of my life; like somehow if I made the wrong choice of classes, my whole path would be altered. I felt ill-prepared to make a decision so soon. I hadn’t thought about the course of the rest of my life at fifteen years old. 

Few things are as unique to the human experience as putting your foot in your mouth. Sometimes we do it unintentionally, carelessly. Other times, we lash out aiming to do the most amount of damage as is verbally possible. We all have the tendency and the propensity to do it, especially when not leaning on the Holy Spirit to temper our emotions.

And yes, I am also speaking to myself.

I learned from my mama how to host a meal. When I was growing up, my mom opened her home for showers, birthday parties, Christmas Eve dinners, graduation parties. You name it, she did it. She even hosted my wedding reception in the middle of COVID and you never would have known the world was shut down. 

And you’d better believe that I was enlisted to help her execute every party she had growing up; whether it was folding cloth napkins and setting the table for Christmas Eve, or setting up tables and chairs for a pig-pickin’, or setting up decorations for a theme party– I was there. And I learned a lot.

“Don’t be a yente.” 

That’s how my mother would scold me when I was a child and being meddlesome or a busybody. It was always a funny word that made me giggle, but the rebuke was there even if it was made in jest. ‘Yente’ is a yiddish word for a gossiper, which from what I can tell, became a more popular term from the play Fiddler on the Roof, the actual name of the matchmaker in the show that arranges the marriages for their small, Jewish village in Ukraine. 

This should give you a better picture if you’re unfamiliar with the term: a yente is a meddling gossip, a known busybody, or a tale-bearer. She always has a story and always has the latest word on who’s who and what’s what.