There’s something about crossing over into your thirties that makes you pause. Maybe it’s the shift from “proving yourself” to “living it.” Maybe it’s the perspective that only comes from some hard-won battles. I turned 31 this year, and honestly, it feels like the most human season I’ve ever walked through. Not polished, not perfect, not linear—just real life.

• Healing

When I had Andi, I never expected the complications that would follow me long after birth. What was supposed to be a recovery window stretched into years, bleeding into her toddlerhood. Some days I felt like my body was betraying me, like I couldn’t fully show up for her or anyone else. But this season taught me patience, surrender, and that healing doesn’t follow a neat calendar.

• Pruning

At the same time, my business hit a lull. Money was bleeding, and I had to make the gut-wrenching call to cut my team in half. It felt like failure—but it was pruning. Painful, but necessary. God has been teaching me that growth doesn’t always look like “more.” Sometimes it’s less, trimmed down to the roots, so it can flourish later.

• Protecting

This was also the year I stopped letting clients walk all over me. After getting burned too many times, I finally restructured invoices and terms to make sure my team gets paid for the work they pour their souls into. Protecting them protects me, too. It’s not just business boundaries—it’s stewardship.

• Worshiping 

But even in the chaos, I’ve been watching God move. There’s a revival happening in the world and in my circle—friends and family finding Him again, my husband and I starting a Bible study with our closest people, hearts softening in ways that only make sense through His Spirit. I’ve fallen more in love with Jesus this year than ever before, and I can feel the roots going deeper.

• Accepting (HELP) 

One of the biggest lessons? I can’t—and don’t—do this alone. Our sitter comes multiple times a week, and she is a lifeline. She makes it possible for me to flip the switch: when I’m in CEO mode, I’m all in. When I’m in mom mode, I’m all in. That boundary has been hard-won, but it’s sacred now. And yet, working from home isn’t always pretty. I don’t have a real office—my bedroom has turned into the place I both take client calls and read bedtime stories. It blurs the lines in ways that are tough. I know I need to find a solution, a desk space that feels like mine, but until then, I’m making do. It’s messy, but it’s mine.

• Growing 

This year my oldest turned seven, and I’ve loved watching her fall in love with school and reading. Fridays after school we head straight to the library—it’s our thing, our rhythm. It’s the kind of simple joy I want more of. Like buying my kids a portable DVD player or rigging up a tin-can phone. Going back to the basics, the kind of childhood memories I grew up on.

• Changing Lanes

And in January, I’m stepping into something I never thought I’d do: going back to school for nursing. The thought of adding that to our already jam-packed schedules is terrifying, but the pull is stronger than the fear. I know God has a medical calling on my life. I don’t know exactly how it will all fit together… business, babies, Bible studies, and now nursing; but I trust that if He called me, He’ll also equip me.

Turning 30 (plus 1) hasn’t been neat. It’s been raw, refining, sometimes back-breaking (literally, I was diagnosed with spine degeneration this year), sometimes holy. But I wouldn’t trade it. 

Because I can see God’s fingerprints all over it; in the pruning, in the revival, in the library Fridays, in the messy bedroom-turned-office, in the sitter who saves me, in the courage to start again. Here’s to the next year: a little braver, a little more surrendered, a little more His.