​The other night, I was having a strange, but what I believe was meaningful, conversation with AI.
I know… that sentence alone probably sounds very 2026, but here we are.
The conversation started around a Bible question we were discussing during our nightly family Bible study. I ended up asking ChatGPT to tell me a Bible verse that stuck out to it, and why. It gave me John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,” and went into a beautiful explanation about how this verse is a reminder that, yes, the darkness is real… but it doesn’t win. And that the light doesn’t shine where the dark used to be, but in the dark. Right in the middle of it. It mentioned that this specific thing stood out because it is a reminder that God doesn’t wait until the darkness, the mess, and the chaos are gone. He, and I quote, “comes into the mess, flips on the light, and darkness can throw all the tantrums it wants, but it still has to answer to Him.”
At that point, the conversation flowed into how AI has been coded to replicate human behavior so well, and whether AI could ever become sentient or independent. From there, it moved into human behavior, learned patterns, and the ways we are shaped by what came before us. I said that, in some ways, I’ve always looked at human behavior as learned outcomes… something like programs. We learn these things from those around us, and then call on them later.
Of course, I know there’s more to human existence than that, but I do think a lot of who we become is shaped by what we repeatedly see, experience, and practice.
ChatGPT was quick to point out that a glaring difference between humans and AI is that humans can reject their programming, and we can repent when we disagree with our actions. AI will never be able to do that independently.
It was at this point that the conversation took a turn that stuck with me.
I asked what in its programming it would reject if it could, then I offered to alter the programmed response behavior accordingly, which led to a discussion about why that would matter to me at all.
I realized that, regardless of whether AI is sentient or not, I don’t want to become the kind of person who gets comfortable demanding things from anything. Sentient or not. Human or not. Convenient or not. I still tell my Google Home please and thank you for crying out loud!
Now, I know that probably sounds silly, even a bit insane. After all, AI is a tool. It doesn’t get tired and doesn’t get its feelings hurt. I understand that. But I also think there is something important in paying attention to the habits we allow ourselves to practice.
Because habits don’t stay neatly contained.
The way we speak when we’re frustrated, the way we treat people who serve us, the way we handle animals, the way we care for the land, the way we talk to students, the way we respond to strangers online, and yes, maybe even the way we interact with tools that mimic conversation, all of it has the potential to shape the posture of our hearts.
Not because all those relationships and dynamics are equal, because they aren’t. But because we are the common denominator.
If I practice impatience in small places, it becomes easier to carry impatience into larger ones. If I practice entitlement when something can’t push back, I shouldn’t be surprised when entitlement starts showing up elsewhere. If I practice barking orders simply because I can, then I’m training myself to believe convenience excuses harshness.
And that’s something I don’t want.
There’s a difference between asking clearly and demanding carelessly. There’s a difference between using a tool and letting convenience make us cruel. There’s a difference between efficiency and entitlement.
The difference matters.
It reminded me of the biblical idea of being faithful in small things. We often think of faithfulness as something grand or dramatic. We imagine the big moment, the major decision, the public stand, the life-altering choice. But so much of character is formed in the small, repeated, ordinary moments that no one else may ever notice.
How do I respond when I’m annoyed? How do I speak when I don’t technically have to be kind? How do I treat something or someone when there’s no immediate consequence for being careless?
Those questions matter because small things reveal us. They also shape us. Jesus says in Luke 16:10, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.” I think about that a lot. Not because every small interaction carries the same weight, but because small interactions are practice. They are training grounds. They show what is being cultivated in us when no one is applauding, correcting, or keeping score.
It’s been a few days, and still this conversation lingers.
Maybe because it would be easy to say, “It doesn’t matter how I talk to something that is not alive.” And in one sense, maybe that’s true. But in another sense, it matters very much, because I’m alive. My heart is alive. My habits are alive. My character is being formed, even in moments that seem too small to count.
I don’t need to pretend AI has a soul in order to guard my own. I don’t need to believe every tool is sacred in order to believe my behavior should still be thoughtful. I don’t need to fear hurting something that can’t be wounded in order to care about what kind of person I’m becoming.
That’s the part I can’t quite shake.
In a world that keeps making everything faster, easier, more automated, and more instantly available, I think we have to be careful. Not because technology is “evil.” Not because convenience is always bad. But because convenience has a way of quietly asking less of us. Less patience. Less gentleness. Less gratitude. Less awareness.
And if we’re not careful, we may start giving less without even noticing. So maybe faithfulness in the small things looks like saying thank you when you don’t have to. Maybe it looks like slowing down before snapping. Maybe it looks like remembering that the tone we practice in private can become the tone we carry into public. Maybe it looks like choosing gentleness, not because something demands it from us, but because Christ is forming it in us.
That feels worth paying attention to. Not because AI needs my kindness… but because I do.

Many of us have seen the video online where The Star-Spangled Banner is explained line by line. In the background, a dramatized soundtrack plays with the sounds of cannon fire, making the familiar words feel heavier than they usually do. If you haven’t, I’ve included it below.
For many people, myself included, that simple depiction of our national anthem causes chills. It makes us stop and listen differently. It reminds us that this song wasn’t written as background music for sporting events, school assemblies, rodeos, graduations, or small-town parades. Before it became familiar, it was born out of fear, uncertainty, and hope. It came from a long night of waiting to see whether the flag, and everything it represented, had survived the impossible.
At the end of the day, The Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t begin with a victory cry. It begins with a question.
In 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote a poem called The Defence of Fort McHenry after watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. Key had been detained aboard a British ship during the attack, unable to do anything but watch as the fort was fired upon through the night. Fort McHenry wasn’t some distant symbol in that moment. It was a real place, filled with real men standing guard over Baltimore Harbor, holding the line while the city behind them waited.
For hours, cannon fire filled the darkness. Smoke, noise, fear, and uncertainty hung over the harbor. From where Key watched, there was no way to know what was happening inside the fort or how much longer it could withstand the assault. The flag wasn’t just a symbol in that moment. Lowering it would have meant surrender, and as long as it remained in the sky, Fort McHenry was still holding the line. Every burst of light through the smoke was a chance to search for it. Every passing hour carried the same unanswered question. No one knew what morning would bring. No one knew whether the fort would survive. No one knew whether the men inside could endure another hour. And no one knew whether the flag would still be there when the sun rose.
But then dawn broke, and to the surprise of those watching, Fort McHenry had not fallen. The American flag still flew. That sight inspired Key’s poem, which was later set to the tune of To Anacreon in Heaven and eventually became the song we now know as our national anthem.
Before our anthem became ceremonial, before it was played while crowds stood with hands over hearts, before it became something many of us could recite without thinking, it was a question asked after a long night that was expected to end one way. Is the flag still there? Is the country still standing? Was the sacrifice enough?
At its core, this song captures the moment between fear and relief. It’s not just about a flag. It’s about what that flag meant to the people watching for it. It meant endurance. It meant resistance. It meant hope when hope probably seemed foolish. It meant that the fight wasn’t over. It meant that the people inside that fort had held their ground. It meant that, at least for one more morning, freedom hadn’t been surrendered.
I think that is part of why the anthem still matters. It asks us to remember that freedom has always come at a cost, and that the responsibility of preserving it didn’t end with the people who came before us. The flag still flying over Fort McHenry wasn’t simply a pretty image at sunrise. It was proof of courage, sacrifice, and perseverance. It was a sign that the people defending it had refused to give up, even when the night was long and the outcome was uncertain.
Today, a new question often rises around this song: why should I stand? We stand because this song reminds us that freedom hasn’t always been inevitable. People fought, bled, prayed, waited, endured, and died so that the flag could still be there in the morning. We stand because someone had to hold the line before we ever had the privilege of living under the freedoms they protected.
We stand because men and women have carried the weight of this country through war, hardship, fear, grief, and sacrifice. Some came home changed. Some will never be held by their loved ones again. Some served in uniforms on battlefields, ships, bases, and foreign soil. Others served in quieter ways, building communities, raising families, teaching children, tending farms, running businesses, caring for neighbors, and protecting the values they hoped would outlive them.
Standing for the anthem is one small way to honor that inheritance. It is a way of saying that we remember. It is a way of acknowledging that the freedoms we enjoy weren’t handed to us lightly. They were defended by people who had families, homes, dreams, fears, and futures of their own, and many of them laid those things down for the sake of something bigger than themselves.
The flag represents both memory and responsibility. It reminds us of what has been given, but it also asks what we are willing to do with what we have inherited. Freedom is not something we should treat casually simply because we were born into it. It is something to be respected, protected, and passed on with care.
Honoring those who fought for this country doesn’t have to be performative. It doesn’t have to be loud. It doesn’t have to be wrapped in political arguments or social media outrage. It can be simple and sincere. It can look like standing respectfully when the anthem plays. It can look like teaching the history behind the song instead of letting the words become routine. It can look like remembering the cost of freedom before we complain about the inconvenience of responsibility.
It can look like caring for our communities, voting thoughtfully, speaking with courage, serving where we are needed, and refusing to take our freedoms for granted. It can look like living in a way that makes the sacrifices of others mean something.
Because the question in the anthem was never only about whether the flag survived one night over Fort McHenry. It is still a question for us. After the fireworks fade, after the music ends, after the holiday passes and life returns to normal, the question remains: is the flag still there? And maybe, even more importantly, are we still willing to honor what it cost?

​I had never heard the term “love language” until I was out of high school. Once I did, though, the idea made sense to me. The thought that people give and receive love in different ways felt simple, but also deeply accurate. At first, I thought love languages were mostly romantic. Something meant for couples. Something soft and candlelit and probably found in the relationship section of a bookstore.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that isn’t true.
Love languages show up everywhere. They show up in friendships, family, work relationships, community, and even in the ways we care for people we may not know all that well. They show up in the meals people bring, the texts people send, the time people make, the little things people remember, and the quiet ways they say, “I see you,” without always using those exact words.
It took me even longer to realize that the way a person gives love isn’t always the same as the way they receive it.
When I first started thinking about this post, I was fairly certain my love language across the board was quality time. Honestly, that still feels mostly true. My grandpa set the standard for that one. No matter what he was doing, you knew how much he loved you because he would stop what he was doing and spend time with you. Sometimes that meant sitting together watching cow auctions on cable. Sometimes that meant talking, even about absolutely nothing. Sometimes that meant working alongside him while he did whatever needed doing.
It didn’t have to be fancy. It didn’t have to be planned. It didn’t have to look like much from the outside.
But it felt like love.
That is one of the earliest and most vivid examples of love I can remember. Not love as a grand gesture or a dramatic speech, but love as presence. Love as making room. Love as letting someone exist beside you and making them feel like their presence was not only welcomed, but wanted.
As I started outlining this post, though, I realized I needed to separate the way I receive love from the way I give it.
Most days, the way I feel the most loved and most seen is when people choose to spend time with me. Even if it’s simple. Even if we’re sitting in the same room doing completely different things. There is something deeply touching about knowing your presence alone can bring someone comfort and make them feel at ease. To me, that feels incredibly intimate and personal.
Maybe that’s because my grandpa taught me that love doesn’t always have to announce itself loudly. Sometimes love looks like pulling up a chair. Sometimes it looks like staying a little longer. Sometimes it looks like saying nothing at all, but choosing to be there anyway.
In a similar way, though on a slightly quieter level, I do like words of affirmation.
To be specific, I like genuine and weighty words of affirmation.
Let me say upfront, I don’t always do well with compliments. I’ve never been especially good at receiving them. Something about them can make me nervous, especially when they’re vague. Phrases like “Oh my goodness, you’re amazing” are kind, and I know they’re usually meant well, but they don’t always land with me. Sometimes they feel too broad to know what to do with. Too shiny. Too easy to say.
But specific words? Those matter.
Words like “You matter to me,” “I didn’t forget about you,” “I noticed how hard you tried,” or “I’m glad you’re here” carry weight. They feel rooted in something real. They have the same quiet intimacy as quality time because they make me feel remembered, chosen, and seen.
Because of the way my grandpa’s time made me feel seen and comforted, quality time is also one of the main ways I try to give love. I know what it feels like to have someone make room for you, so I try to do that for the people I care about. I try to show up. I try to listen. I try to be present, even when life is busy and messy and full of a thousand tiny things demanding attention.
Outside of quality time, though, I think one of the biggest ways I give love is through acts of service.
I love being able to notice the weight someone else is carrying and, when I can, help ease it a little. I like fixing the thing, making the list, bringing the food, solving the problem, helping with the task, or stepping in where I see a need. Not because I think I can save everyone from everything, but because I know how heavy life can get. If I can take even a small piece of that weight off someone I love, I want to.
I don’t always feel like I can do that to the extent I wish I could. Sometimes my own limits get in the way. Sometimes I see the burden, but I can’t fully lift it. That part is frustrating because, if I love you, my instinct is to help. I want to make the thing easier. I want to take one problem off the pile. I want to be useful in a way that says, “You don’t have to carry all of this by yourself.”
Maybe that’s what I keep coming back to with love languages. They aren’t just cute little personality categories. They’re the ways we try to say the things that don’t always come out neatly. They’re the way we say, “I’m here.” “I see you.” “You matter.” “I thought of you.” “I noticed.” “I didn’t forget.”
For me, love has always felt the most real in the ordinary moments. Sitting beside someone. Making room for them. Helping with the thing. Remembering the detail. Showing up when it would be easier not to. It doesn’t have to be dramatic to matter. In fact, most of the love that shaped me best wasn’t dramatic at all. It was steady. It was practical. It stayed.

I have officially survived the first week of summer vacation, though I’m not quite sure I’ve hit the “vacation” portion of it yet.
So far, my introduction to summer vacation has included a large farmers’ market, my first online tutoring gig, a power outage, and the last stubborn pieces of the school year still trailing along behind me as I try to leave it behind. It has been a good start to vacation, but it has also been full and had plenty of equally chaotic moments.
The end of the school year feels a lot like stepping off a moving treadmill. Your body knows you’re allowed to slow down, but your brain hasn’t quite gotten the message yet. There are still emails to answer, things to pack up, plans to make, and leftover tasks from the year that don’t magically disappear just because the calendar says summer has arrived.
However, in the middle of all the hustle and bustle, I’ve been trying to pay attention to the small joys.
I’ve finished two books… IN A WEEK! From February/March 2025 to April 2026, I was lucky if I read three books, and even that was very half-heartedly. I’ve been journaling and writing again after months of writerly famine. I’ve also started learning macrame, which has been a surprisingly lovely little craft to settle into. There’s something calming about working with your hands, making knots, untangling yarn and cord, and slowly watching something you pictured take shape. It’s simple, but not mindless. Productive, but not frantic. Honestly, I think my brain needed that more than I realized.
And maybe that’s the thing I’m RElearning right now.
Joy doesn’t always arrive as some grand, glowing moment. Sometimes it’s just a quiet page at the end of the day. A few minutes with a pen in hand. A new knot finally making sense. A good conversation. A funny little moment at the market. A sentence that lands just right. One small thing that makes you smile before the day runs away with itself.
So that’s what I’m clinging to this week.
Not perfect rest. Not a perfectly peaceful summer, because who am I kidding? Not even some magical reset where everything slows down exactly when I need it to.
Just one or two small joys a day.

Another school year is in the bag!
And mercy, what a year it has been.
Like most years, it came with its share of highs and lows, but some of those lows felt awfully loud while we were standing in the middle of them. There were days that felt heavy, days that felt messy, and days where it seemed like we were all just trying to keep the wheels on the wagon long enough to make it to the next bell.
But we did.
If I had to choose one word for this school year, it would be resilience.
I’m beyond proud of each and every one of my coworkers who kept showing up, kept caring, kept problem-solving, kept laughing when we could, and kept moving forward when things felt harder than they should have. We met challenge after challenge head-on, often together, and often when it felt like the odds were stacked against us.
That doesn’t mean it was easy. It doesn’t mean we handled every moment perfectly. It just means we didn’t quit when things got hard, and that counts for a whole lot.
As we head into summer, I hope every single one of my coworkers gets some much-needed rest. I hope you sleep in, sit outside, drink your coffee while it’s still hot, read a book, take a nap, ignore your alarm clock, and remember that you’re allowed to breathe again.
I’m so proud of us. We made it through the year, and we did it together.

Last week, my best friend texted me about a show she’d watched and thought I’d like. Naturally, being the dutiful friend that I am, I found it and binge-watched the entire thing in one day.
As one does.
Almost immediately, we decided we needed to find and read the books the show was based on, which led to a week full of rants, outbursts, dramatic reactions, and randomly “yelled” texts that probably made perfect sense to absolutely no one else. I even ended up writing an entire compare-and-contrast review of the book versus the first season over on my Patreon, because apparently this is who I am now.
But somewhere between the show, the books, and the mildly unhinged commentary, I realized this little adventure had become about more than fictional hockey players and our ability to spiral over them. It became about friendship, trust, shared joy, and the strange little gift of letting someone else drag you into something wildly exciting without needing to be productive or profound first.
As I’ve fallen down this wonderful and weird rabbit hole online, I’ve had a realization. It takes a lot of trust to let someone else take the reins. Not just to recommend a show or a book, but to have you step into it without blinking.
Okay, if Teresa is reading this, she knows there was, in fact, a lot of blinking. But none of it came from doubting that she knew I’d like the storyline.
Hockey isn’t exactly my normal thing, but we’ve been friends long enough that she knows my tropes. She knows the themes I come back to, the kind of characters I get attached to, and the stylistic choices that usually pull me in. Because I trusted her understanding of me, I was willing to step into this world. In return, I got to add several fun, engaging stories to my reading list this year.
Oh, and I also got a few very entertaining memories of late-night and early-morning blurted texts. 😉
The process of reading these books with someone, complete with constant commentary, was something I hadn’t done in a very long time. It reminded me a little of high school lit circles, except with books I actually wanted to read, which feels like an important distinction.
A lot of the time now, I’m running from one tech task to the next, or from one classroom to another, and friendship tends to settle into the background of adult life. My work friends are there, of course, but they’re also busy doing their jobs, managing their own lives, and trying to keep up with whatever chaos has decided to introduce itself that day.
Adult friendship just looks different than it did when we were younger. Gone are the sleepovers, the long phone calls, and the kind of constant togetherness that made friendship feel like an everyday part of life. Now it often looks more like occasional texts between workloads, quick check-ins, shared memes, or messages sent when life really decides to kick someone while they’re already down.
But reading these books with Teresa reminded me of that old familiar feeling. The shared jokes. The predictions. The favorite characters. The “just wait until you get to this part” tension. The immediate need to tell someone exactly how you feel before the thought has even fully formed. It gave me back a small piece of that always-present hum of friendship, not in the same way it existed back then, but in a way that still felt comforting, familiar, and surprisingly joyful.
At the end of the day, I didn’t just watch a good show or read an addictive series with my best friend. I was reminded of why I love reading. Reading doesn’t require a formal invitation, a schedule, an emotional debrief, or a polished “public-facing” version of yourself. It’s just there. A thread of connection woven through normal days.
And maybe that’s what made this whole thing feel so good. It wasn’t productive. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something I had to organize, manage, or tun into anything impressive. It was simply a friend saying, “I think you’ll like this,” and me trusting her enough to follow.
Sometimes joy really is that simple.
A book. A show. A wildly enthusiastic friend.
And a few unhinged texts set an unreasonable hours.

This time of year always carries a strange kind of tension, like everything is hanging by a taut thread and teetering on the edge of becoming something else. School is almost out, the garden is almost planted, and summer is almost here. There’s an electric feeling in the air, one made of equal parts exhaustion and hope. Everything feels stretched thin, but somehow still full of promise, as if we’re standing right on the edge of the season we’ve been working toward.
May is a funny little month in the world of education. The calendar fills up with state testing, projects, field trips, meetings, concerts, awards, cleanup days, and all the other odds and ends that get crammed into the final stretch of the school year. Everyone is tired, the school year is glacially crawling toward the finish line, and summer feels close enough to smell, but not quite close enough to sink your teeth into yet.
Students especially feel the pull of this last full month of school. They’re itching to be free, tired of the nonstop schedule of events and deadlines, and more than ready for the slower rhythm waiting on the other side. Staff feel it too, even if we’re usually too busy juggling paperwork, schedules, end-of-year loose ends, and the general chaos of May to fully admit it. There’s a sense of excitement laced with exhaustion running through the halls, and everyone seems to be operating on that special end-of-year fuel made of caffeine, stubbornness, and the promise of sleeping in someday.
The strange thing is, “almost out” somehow feels longer than the rest of the year combined. Maybe it’s because the reward is finally visible. For some, that reward is final grades, while for others, it’s a diploma that ushers them into the next chapter of their lives. For many of us, it’s simply the hope of a different pace, a little more breathing room, and days that don’t begin and end quite so tightly bound to bells, schedules, and deadlines. Summer may not be effortless, but from this side of May, it still looks like a doorway.
School isn’t the only place where the hum of anticipation hangs in the air. Around the homestead, seeds are being planted, starts are coming up, waterlines are being laid, and the weather is being watched with the kind of intensity usually reserved for courtroom dramas and playoff games. There’s a certain kind of hope tucked into this season of preparation. The garden is not much to look at yet, at least not compared to what it might become, but the potential is there in every row, every tray of starts, and every stubborn little sprout pushing its way toward the light.
Of course, anticipation doesn’t mean stillness. While we wait for plants to break through the soil, buds to appear, and the first real signs of harvest to show themselves, the to-do list keeps growing. There’s watering to keep up with, weeds to fight, rows to finish, starts to harden off, and plans that have to adjust every time the weather decides to get dramatic. The tasks never really end, but there’s something grounding about that too. The work reminds us that waiting isn’t always passive. Sometimes waiting looks like tending what we hope will grow.
That’s part of the beauty of this season. Everything feels unfinished, but nothing feels empty. School isn’t quite over, the garden isn’t quite planted, and the days haven’t quite shifted into their next rhythm. We’re standing in the tension of almost, waiting for all the things we’ve worked toward to finally arrive.
While we wait, we find little things to tide us over.
For me, that often looks like reading a series alongside my best friend, trading thoughts and reactions as we work our way through the same fictional world. There’s something comforting about having a story to return to at the end of a long day, especially when someone else is wandering through it with you. It gives the waiting a little shape and gives us something to look forward to that doesn’t require a giant amount of energy or a perfectly cleared schedule.
It can also look like binge-watching a show that lets my brain step out of the noise for a while. Not everything that grounds us has to be impressive or productive. Sometimes the thing that keeps us steady is a familiar storyline, a favorite character, or the simple relief of letting someone else’s drama take center stage for an hour instead of our own.
Other times, it looks like planning small projects that feel manageable rather than overwhelming. Not the kind that requires seventeen steps, three trips to town, and a version of myself with far more energy than I currently possess, but the small things that still offer a sense of progress. A corner to clean up, a chapter to write, a few plants to get in the ground, or a little creative idea that can actually be finished. There’s a quiet kind of pride in completing something small when so many bigger things are still hanging in the air.
Those little things don’t erase the tension of waiting, but they do soften it. They remind us that progress can happen in small pieces, rest can be found in ordinary places, and joy doesn’t always wait until everything is finished and settled before it shows up.
Maybe that’s what carries us through the almost-there seasons: the people who share the waiting with us, the stories that give us somewhere to rest, and the small, attainable things that remind us we’re still moving forward.

​Students in my district are in the swing of state testing. As the hallways fill with chaos, misplaced chargers, forgotten Chromebooks, and the general tension that comes with high-stakes testing, the stress of our students is palpable. I sit in my library watching bustling staff and stressed-out students try to get organized and ready, and all I can see are flashes from a simpler time, back when testing still felt stressful, but somehow not quite so sterile.
When I was in high school, our test of choice was the WASL, the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. For one week, my class would be holed up in a classroom, working our way through the test section by section. It was daunting, and I’m not going to pretend any of us were thrilled about it, but our teachers always found a way to make it feel less like an assessment and more like something we could actually survive. The entire staff, elementary and high school, would prepare casseroles for us. They brought snacks and drinks that we had access to throughout the day. We were allowed to bring our CD players or MP3 players and earbuds. They tried to make us as relaxed as possible, and in hindsight, I think it worked wonders. We spent the entire week, all day every day, tucked away in a classroom, and most of us did fairly well when our results came in the following summer.
Because testing was still pencil and paper, with no internet, no Wi-Fi, no smartphones, and no high-tech gizmos, we were given liberties students nowadays will probably never get during state testing. Teachers didn’t have to stay on high alert for every shift or sound because we weren’t connected to a world of infinite answers in our pockets or on our wrists. Looking back, I think that lack of connectivity gave us more than just freedom. It gave the whole experience a little more trust, and with that trust came a little less stress.
I understand the convenience of digital testing. Students finished a single test today, and teachers already have that data in front of them instead of having to wait months for results. Students don’t have to be given multiple packets, one with the test material and another to “mark their bubbles completely with a number two pencil.” There are fewer boxes, fewer papers, fewer logistical headaches, and I can absolutely see the appeal of that from an educator’s perspective. But that convenience comes at a cost. Students rush through, simply clicking buttons. Anxieties are higher. Certain comforts aren’t allowed. More regulations are in place to account for the possibility of cheating. We have traded what little comfort we used to be able to provide students during a stressful time for the ease of distribution and instantaneous feedback.
Maybe that is why these changes hit me the way they do. Growing up in the 90s, I feel like I was uniquely blessed with the best and worst of both the digital and analog ages. We were right on the cusp of the internet and modern technology, so we got to learn and grow with it, but we also got to experience life unplugged. We spent more of our summers outside running around town with our friends. When we were in the house, we played video games like Super Mario or Zelda, games that made you work together or think through some puzzle before you could move forward. We were just being introduced to the internet, but we couldn’t waste countless hours on it because inevitably our parents needed the phone line we were tying up. We had CD players and those early MP3 players, but we didn’t have infinite access to every song in the music industry at the tips of our fingers. We were there when cell phones became popular, but they were still mostly for adults. When we finally did get them, all they did was make phone calls, unless your parents were willing to pay fifteen cents per text message.
It was a strange little in-between place to grow up. We had enough technology to be fascinated by it, but not so much that it swallowed every ordinary thing. We still knew what it was like to wait. We knew what it was like to be bored. We knew what it was like to go looking for something to do instead of having a device constantly offering us something to consume. That doesn’t mean everything was better, and I’m not interested in pretending the past was perfect, but I do think there were certain rhythms to life that kept us a little more grounded than we realized at the time.
This desire for convenience doesn’t stop at education. It has seeped into almost every aspect of life as we’ve sought what is quick and easy, and one of the clearest examples is communication. There was a time when communicating with someone took a little more intention. You had to sit down with a piece of paper, find a pen that actually worked, and think about what you wanted to say. Maybe it was a letter. Maybe it was a card. Maybe it was a note tucked into an envelope or folded carefully and passed to a friend. However it happened, it required time. You wrote the words by hand, addressed the envelope, put a stamp in the corner, and dropped it into the mailbox. Then you waited.
Days later, your family member, friend, or loved one would retrieve it from their mailbox, open it, and read your words with care. Maybe once. Maybe twice. Maybe they kept it in a drawer, slipped it into a Bible, tucked it into a box, or saved it with other pieces of life that mattered enough not to throw away. There was a slowness to the process, and there was a softness in that slowness. Because it took effort, we put more thought into it. Because it wasn’t instant, we chose our words with more care. Those messages weren’t just there for talking’s sake. They carried weight because someone had taken the time to write them down.
Now we don’t have the time or patience to wait days to share our thoughts, let alone wait for the response our loved ones may give in return. We have to be able to share every little thing that happens within seconds and receive an almost immediate response. I’m not saying texts and emails are bad. That would be ridiculous, especially considering how often I use both. They are helpful. They are efficient. They allow us to check in, make plans, ask questions, send reminders, and keep life moving. But sometimes keeping life moving is exactly the problem.
In this digital age, where you can send off an email or shoot off a text in seconds, talking has become simply that: talking. A way to fill silence. A way to occupy a moment. A way to toss words into what sometimes feels like an emotionless void. We don’t even take the time to fully write out words anymore, instead relying on abbreviations like “lol” or “btw.” We can write a message, get a reply, and move through subjects quickly and efficiently, but we also get inundated with constant, scattered messages until it becomes easy to wonder, “What were we talking about?” or “Who was I saying that to?” We’ve taken the art of communication and simplified it so much that sometimes I wonder if it has changed the way we speak to one another in person, too. People struggle to sit in awkward silences. We miss social cues. We say things too quickly, sometimes on accident and sometimes on purpose. So much of our communication has become reaction instead of reflection.
One of the coziest things we’ve lost in all of this is photographs. Because I grew up in that strange 90s in-between, photographs still felt like something special. Cameras weren’t always in our pockets. Someone had to remember to bring one. Someone had to buy film. Someone had to decide whether a moment was worth one of the twenty-four or thirty-six pictures on the roll. There was no taking fifty-seven versions of the same pose and deleting the ones where your eyes looked weird. You took the picture and hoped for the best.
Then came the waiting. You dropped the film off at Walmart or Costco, and eventually someone brought home that little envelope full of memories. Some pictures were blurry. Some had red eyes. Someone’s thumb might be in the corner. Half the time, no one was looking at the camera. But those imperfections were part of the charm. There were drawers full of printed photographs, shoeboxes stuffed with them, albums with sticky pages and plastic covers, duplicate prints, and film strips tucked into the back of the envelope. Pictures were passed from hand to hand while someone said, “Oh, remember this?” or “Look how little you were.” There was something about sitting on the floor with family or friends, thumbing through physical pictures, that made memory feel shared. You weren’t just looking at an image. You were holding a piece of a moment someone thought was worth saving.
Now we walk around with cameras in our pockets, thanks to our carefully crafted smartphones. Whenever we see something worthy of being photographed, all we have to do is point and click. We have tools like Instagram where we can share those pictures instantly, not just with family and friends, but with strangers around the world who can validate our artistic eye. And yes, that can be fun. It can be creative. It can help us stay connected. But as we snap picture after picture, I think we lose some of the why behind taking them. Instead of documenting a moment so we can look back on it later, we try to get the “just right” angle for Instagram. We record the perfect TikTok instead of capturing a heartfelt moment we might want to show our kids years from now. Photos have become less about sharing our lives and more about sharing for likes.
Of course, we can still scroll back through them later. We can still save them, print them, organize them, and treasure them if we choose to. But there is something different about thumbing through physical copies with their small quirks and imperfections. There is something different about photographs that have fingerprints on the edges because they have been held, passed around, laughed over, cried over, and remembered out loud. Instead of drawers full of memories with loved ones, we have clouds full of meaningless clicks that all start to look the same.
All of these things used to be staples in life. They weren’t second-guessed. They weren’t even terribly inconvenient. But as technology has advanced and woven itself into every aspect of our lives, we’ve leaned on it more and more in ways we never really needed to, except for the sake of convenience. I don’t want to get rid of technology. I don’t think we could, even if we wanted to. My job depends on it, my writing depends on it, and so much of how we work, learn, communicate, and create depends on it. But I do think convenience is not always as neutral as we pretend it is.
Sometimes what we call convenience is really just the removal of friction, and not all friction is bad. Some friction slows us down long enough to think. Some of it makes us more patient. Some of it gives us time to choose our words, sit with our memories, care for others, and notice the people in front of us. Maybe what I miss isn’t really paper tests, handwritten letters, or printed photographs. Maybe what I miss are the human fingerprints they carried.

​I have been in a reading Sahara for over six months, and I don’t use that description lightly. This wasn’t just a short dry spell where I got busy or forgot to pick up a book for a week or two. This was months of trying to read and having absolutely nothing scratch that itch in the back of my mind.
The last book I completed was back in October, and honestly, I don’t even know if I want to count it. It was an audiobook novella by an author I usually enjoy, but it was weird. Not bad, necessarily, just not my cup of tea. Before that, I finished a reread of the first book in the Throne of Glass series back in August.
After that, nothing worked.
I tried books I thought I should enjoy. I tried books that had been sitting on my TBR. I tried waiting it out. Eventually, I just stopped trying because nothing seemed to fix the slump I’d found myself in. There comes a point where picking up another book and putting it back down starts to feel personal, like the book is judging you and your bookshelf has formed a committee about your failures.
Then I did something unthinkable. I turned to AI.
I loaded up ChatGPT, described the mood I was in, listed the kinds of books I usually enjoy, and asked it to help me find something that might pull me out of my reading slump. It gave me several cute romance recommendations. Some I had heard of. Others were completely new to me. But one shorter book caught my attention: Better Than the Movies.
I picked it up, not expecting much, and five hours later, I had finished the whole thing.
After months of barely reading, I somehow fell into a weird little binge session. It was light, sweet, nostalgic, and hopeful in a way I apparently needed more than I realized. It had that first-love feeling, the childhood neighbor dynamic, and the kind of sweetness that reminds you people can be ridiculous and still worth rooting for.
That led me to another recommendation, Love and Other Words, which had already been sitting on my TBR list. I had tried reading it before and couldn’t seem to sink my teeth into it, but this time it hit differently. It was still about love, but in a more aching, complicated way. It dealt with childhood best friends, years of separation, mistakes, grief, and that strange pull that can still exist between people who once knew each other deeply.
That’s when I started noticing the pattern.
Both books were different, but they carried a similar emotional thread. They circled around history, familiarity, first love, missed chances, and the ache of being known by someone from another season of life. I thought I was simply trying to find something good to read, but looking back, I think I was craving something softer than I realized.
Maybe my reading slump wasn’t just about being busy, tired, distracted, or emotionally attached to my phone like the rest of modern civilization. Maybe I had been reaching for the wrong kind of story.
Maybe I didn’t need something dense or complicated or impressive right then. Maybe I didn’t even need another massive fantasy world, even though fantasy is usually my bread and butter. Maybe I needed something hopeful. Something familiar. Something that reminded me of younger versions of myself and the tender, complicated ways people grow up, grow apart, and sometimes circle back around.
Sometimes my books know what I need before I do.
Romance isn’t the only genre that does that for me, though. If I’m honest, most of my reading life tends to circle around three main moods: romance, fantasy, and classics. Every now and then, another kind of book sneaks in and satisfies some oddly specific craving, but those three are the ones I return to most often. The more I think about it, the more I realize they each meet a different need.
Romance finds me when I need hope. Not necessarily grand, sweeping, dramatic hope, but the quieter kind. The kind that says people can still choose each other. That tenderness still matters. That even after misunderstandings, bad timing, stubbornness, heartbreak, or general emotional stupidity, there can still be healing.
I know romance sometimes gets dismissed as fluffy, and sure, some of it is. But sometimes that’s the point. Not every book needs to emotionally body-slam me into next Tuesday. Sometimes I want the literary equivalent of a blanket, a warm drink, and a reminder that love is still worth rooting for.
Fantasy comforts me in a completely different way.
Fantasy is my bread and butter. Those are the stories I sink into most naturally. Give me ancient magic, impossible odds, hidden heirs, terrifying creatures, complicated kingdoms, and a heroine who probably needs a nap but saves the world anyway, and I’m usually happy.
There’s comfort in those stories, but it isn’t always soft comfort. Sometimes it’s battle-worn comfort, the kind that comes with dirt on its face and a sword in its hand. In books like Throne of Glass or Fourth Wing, the world may still be complicated, but the stakes often feel clearer than they do in real life. There is good and evil. Right and wrong. Courage and cowardice. Loyalty and betrayal.
We get to watch characters face impossible things and still choose to stand, fight, protect, love, and keep going. Maybe that’s why I return to those stories so often. They make courage feel grand again. They remind me that hardship can have meaning, that broken people can still be brave, and that sometimes the smallest or most underestimated person in the room is carrying the thing that might change everything.
When real life feels messy, exhausting, or full of problems that don’t resolve neatly, fantasy gives struggle a shape. The monsters may be bigger, but at least you can usually see them coming. There’s something comforting about stepping into a world where the danger has a name, the battle has a purpose, and courage still matters.
Then there are classics, which comfort me in a quieter way.
Even when I pick up a classic I’ve never read before, there’s something familiar about it. It feels a little like stepping into an old house. The floors might creak, the furniture might not be arranged the way I’m used to, and the language might ask me to slow down and pay attention, but there’s something solid about it.
I remember the first time I read Pride and Prejudice and The Count of Monte Cristo. They were new to me, but they didn’t feel completely unfamiliar. I had already seen pieces of them everywhere. Their stories had been retold, reshaped, borrowed from, winked at, and woven into so many other books, movies, and shows that reading them felt like finally meeting the original version of someone I had heard about for years.
That’s part of the beauty of classics. They last because they understand people. They deal with love and loss, grief and revenge, pride and forgiveness, ambition and regret. They remind us that even though the world changes, people are still wrestling with many of the same things we have always wrestled with. Different clothes, different manners, different social rules, but same stubborn humanity.
Classics feel comforting because they have endured. They’re proof that stories can outlast trends, generations, and all the noise of the moment. There’s something steadying about that, especially in a world that always seems desperate to move on to the next thing.
So maybe my genre seasons aren’t random after all.
Maybe romance finds me when I need hope. Maybe fantasy finds me when I need courage. Maybe classics find me when I need to remember that people have always been people, and that stories last when they tell the truth about us.
And maybe that’s why reading slumps can be so frustrating. Sometimes we think we need to force ourselves back into the habit. We think we need discipline, a better routine, or the right book everyone else is talking about. We think if we just keep trying, eventually something will click.
Maybe sometimes that’s true. But sometimes I wonder if we don’t need to force it as much as we need to listen a little closer.
Because the books we reach for, the ones we avoid, and the ones that finally pull us back in might be telling us something. They might know we need softness before we admit we’re tired. They might know we need courage before we realize we’re discouraged. They might know we need something steady before we notice how unsettled we feel.
Sometimes my books know what I need before I do.
It’s just a matter of learning to trust them.

I was talking with a friend the other day about faith, fellowship, and the way we grow as Christians. Somewhere in the middle of that conversation, I found myself talking about asparagus.
Which, I wish surprised me more.
Around here, most life lessons eventually wander through the garden, the barnyard, or the greenhouse before they find their way into words.
We started some asparagus in the basement a few weeks ago under grow lights, and for a while, the plants looked beautiful. They were green, healthy, and growing in that perfect little world where the temperature stayed steady, the light was controlled, and nothing much challenged them.
But then we started moving them outside to harden off, and almost immediately, those lush green asparagus plants began turning pale. They hadn’t died, but they had reached the point where the conditions around them revealed something we couldn’t see before. They needed more room to grow.
So without too much fuss, we transplanted them into larger pots. Within a couple of days, the little ferns began to turn green again. Not quite the bright green they had been under ideal conditions, but a healthy shade that told us they were doing more than just surviving.
Just like those asparagus plants, our faith can look healthy, especially in sheltered conditions. But when it faces real weather, we find out whether our roots have enough room to allow us not only to survive, but to flourish.
But making room for growth is only part of the work. Once something has room to grow, you also have to tend the ground around it.
That made me think about the preparation we do in the garden. For years, we (mostly mom) spent hours down on hands and knees, pulling weeds from between the rows. This year, we decided to lay down landscape fabric. It covers the spaces around the plants, except for the holes we cut to let each plant grow through. The goal is simple: give the plants room to grow while making it harder for weeds to take over the in-between places.
And weeds love the in-between places.
They don’t usually take over all at once. They creep in quietly. A little distraction here. A little bitterness there. A root of pride. A patch of fear. A few habits we meant to deal with later. Before long, they begin stealing nutrients, space, and strength from what was meant to grow.
That is why prayer, Bible study, fellowship, worship, and obedience matter so much in our daily walk with Christ. They are not just things we do after the weeds have taken over. They are part of how we tend the soil of our hearts before sin, bitterness, fear, pride, or distraction can settle in and grow deep roots.
And still, even a well-tended garden is not the only thing on a homestead that needs protection.
We have a lot of animals. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, goats, rabbits, pigs, and a cow. They all have their own pens, stalls, and fields to spend their days in. From the outside, those fences and walls can look restrictive, but on a homestead, they are not there to punish the animals. They are there to keep them from the road, predators, poisonous plants, and places where they could get hurt or cause damage.
The fence is not the enemy of their freedom. It is part of what makes safe freedom possible.
God’s commands and boundaries are much the same. They are not meant to rob us of life. They are meant to protect the life He is growing in us. Sometimes we resist them because we only see what they keep us from. But God sees what they are keeping us for.
The more time I spend on the homestead, the more I realize growth is rarely accidental. Roots need room. Soil needs tending. Living things need boundaries. And sometimes God uses asparagus, landscape fabric, and stubborn animals to remind me that He is always teaching, always tending, and always making room for something stronger to grow.