One practice that has been helpful to my husband and myself is to look BACK before we look AHEAD. It has been helpful to remember how the Lord has been a rock through hard times and provided (sometimes just in time).
Chattanooga Aquarium
What Doing a Yearly Recap Has Taught Me About Life So Far
Often times when I look back I see how God used people to show me His love and His care too.
Seasons of life can feel like chapters in a book. A chapter might open with excitement, but soon a story loop is opened because of some kind of trial, job change, diagnosis, strain, or challenge.
Then there is the living when the story loop hasn’t been close and feels like in-between chapters where we are living by faith, not by sight…moving forward with the little light we have inch by inch.
And then suddenly a season or chapter of life can end. After so much worry, hardship, angst, excitement, or even straight fear. The season can shift.
Look back has given us a chance to zoom out a bit from the year and see a tiny glimpse of how God weaves our stories together.
Some moments this year were amazing, refreshing and some felt like FIRE.
God has been in and through it all!
Sharing simply to give you an idea of how you can sit down and reflect before you look forward and so you can see a little behind the scenes of how life gets crazy haha.
2025:
January: Had the best snow we have ever had here in NC and the kids did so much sledding and met lots of neighbors. I lost my Light phone (really needed the iPhone “find my phone function” haha) for a whole month! So I just had no phone for the month of January and realized how much I really didn’t need it or miss it. My husband took my boys up to Washington D.C. so they could experience a Presidential Inauguration. The temperatures were so low that the Inauguration got moved inside, but they found a friend who was having a watch party nearby. While at the party Matt found my phone in his coat pocket from a wedding we had been to!
February: Our world was rocked when one of our best friend’s infant daughter’s went to be with Jesus unexpectedly. Friends locally stepped in to watch our kids so Matt and I could rush up to Virginia to be with our friends. It was a hard and heavy month of loss. And just trying to learn how to be a good friend through the worst kind of loss. Then to top it off my dear friend and hairdresser also passed away from cancer. It was always a JOY to sit in Kim’s chair, I miss her so much! My kids had a lot to process, but like God does He opened the way to have many gospel conversations through these very sad deaths.
March: We took a trip with our kids and some friends to tour the Bible Museum and the Capitol in D.C. It was a whirlwind trip and we got to see our friends who lost their daughter too. It was a sweet trip with lots of memories, but sadly I left ALL of our jackets in the hotel closet and they never found them. A small thing, but a bummer! Baseball kicked off and we were probably at the field most every night in the week (at least it felt that way!)
April: Life was a blur! And not much to report from April. Probably lots of baseball to blame for that and lots of processing with the grief that still felt so heavy.
May: Found out I was expecting my 6th baby! Took a girl’s trip to the Biltmore to celebrate my friend Whitney’s birthday. So fun to actually get to go slow through the Biltmore house and really look at all the details and see the gardens at the Biltmore in all their glory!
June: Woke up to our kitchen flooded! So all of the flooring had to come out all the way to the planked subfloor. You could see down into the laundry room for better part of what was left of the year. Thankfully our home insurance covered it all, PTL!
July: All-Stars was in full swing for the boys. While we were staying for All-Stars near Raleigh, NC and we went to Fantasy Lake in Wake Forest, NC. It was probably the highlight of our whole summer! It is an inflatable waterpark on a clear clean quarry. I can’t recommend that place enough! Got some time to go visit family in TN and then stayed two nights downtown Chattanooga to do the aquarium and a Lookouts baseball game. A fun unexpected blessing was that all my kids got to go on the Lookouts field for a sack race and that felt special on my son’s birthday!
August: Got to go see my parents in Charleston and just spend some time with them. We decided to not do our homeschool co-op this school year, so we settled into more consistent rhythms here at home and hit school hard starting in August. August is my husband’s BUSY season for work, so we were on the grind in school and work.
September: I got to travel to the Wild + Free Homeschool Conference in Franklin, TN. It was a good, but exhausting trip. I think that was my 4th or 5th time going and probably my last for awhile. But it is always nice to be inspired and see good friends/meet new ones. Travel ball for the boys got going and took a little trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. It rained most of the time, but still had some sweet family memories.
October: Started on Christmas prep early especially since my due date was basically Christmas. Sadly, our chickens began getting slaughtered by a raccoon. Lots of fall baseball, school, and basic home rhythms. Boys did flag football for the first time, but missed half the games due to baseball. But hey we tried a new sport besides baseball! Pumpkin carving got dangerous with on kid having to go the ER, so we may not continue that tradition haha.
November: Took a quick trip to Dollywood with my in-laws. We had not been in 5 years and it was great to get to see the kid’s excitement and awe! Then half my kids went with the in laws for a week and the other half my mom watched so Matt and I could do our yearly getaway in the mountains. It was so nice getting two nights together up in Beech Mt. And after Thanksgiving we took the kids to Frosty’s Cut and Choose up in Jefferson, NC to get our Christmas tree, I highly recommend the experience if you are close!
December: Took a little birthday trip to the Biltmore candlelight tour using some passes we have had for 6 years and not used. The kids were almost all FREE because of the their ages which was amazing! And I had our 6th baby 10 days early with surprise gender birth-a baby boy! We named him Asa Theodore and it is a JOY to have him here in my arms! On day 4 after having Asa our 7 year old daughter broke her arm on the stairs. So that was a bit of chaos!
RECAP:
It was a hard start of the year. We went to 3 funerals within 2 week span with baby Madison’s funeral being the hardest of them all. We saw how faithful God was faithful through the most tragic of losses, but how death doesn’t have a nice neat bow here on earth. The grieving continues and our friends haven’t given up their hope in Christ.
We traveled more than we probably ever have this year with small little weekend trips here and there which was fun. Matt and I struggle to keep it FUN and playful at times, so I think this was our attempt to do that and make more family memories with our growing family.
Your Turn:
Before you jump into the New Year, consider sitting down and writing down your yearly recap.
The tool that helped the most with creating my Yearly Recap is this Couple’s Meeting Spreadsheet that my husband and I do as often as we can. When you get into the spread sheet you will see how one of the questions we ask ourselves is how did we see God move that week? What was a win? What was a loss?
Looking back at this sheet reminded me of so many details from the year that I has already forgotten.