It’s been quite some time since I have written a blog post on this site. I have been doing plenty of writing but just not on the blog. A recent life event prompted me to write a blog post to explain where my heart is today and how I am looking at life a little differently these days.

First, our whole world changed a couple months ago when our daughter headed off to college and we had to adapt to not having her here with us every day. While that adjustment was difficult and we still miss her daily, seeing her thrive and succeed has given both my husband and I the emotional boost we need to know that she is just fine.

We are fortunate to still have our son living with us as he completes his EMT training school and looks at starting his firefighting career. While his busy schedule doesn’t have him home often, knowing he is here has helped ease us into the partial “empty nester” phase of life.

A few weeks ago, we experienced a family emergency that changed our lives once again. Our son has always been an avid outdoorsman and loves mountain biking, climbing and hiking. While his sense of adventure has always made me worry, I would never stifle that part of him. When a climbing expedition he had planned for his birthday did not go according to plan, we received the phone call we always prayed we never would. Our son was in need of rescue and in a life and death situation.

I won’t get into the details of the event itself but thanks to God’s grace, the amazing search and rescue team and our loving community of family and friends all praying for him, he is safe today. I have never experienced that moment as a parent where you are faced with the reality of something happening to your child and I pray that I never have to again in my lifetime. I can’t begin to fathom the pain a parent feels when losing a child.

All that to say we have all been processing the event in our own ways. For me, I have always looked at life through a positive lens. I have always trusted God with my life, even when it seemed uncertain. In these moments of complete fear and desperate prayers for help, I still knew God had a plan and something in my heart told me that he was going to be okay. Maybe it was how I held on during the longest 28 hours of my life but I leaned wholeheartedly into God in those hours and trusted his protection over my baby.

People say that you are forever changed from a life and death situation and I have no doubt that my son is but the loved ones who walk through it too are also impacted in ways you can never imagine. When I think about life now, I look at it through the lens of nothing is more important than being alive. That alone is the most precious gift of all. No matter what else life is handing us in the season we are in, nothing matters more than life itself.

When my son prepares to leave for trips, especially climbing trips, he always makes sure to come and give me a hug good-bye so we can tell each other we love one another. It’s an important ritual that brought me peace knowing we had done that the day he left for this trip. What I realize now is that I don’t want to reserve those moments for the big trips. Those are the feelings we should show the people we love every single day. I vowed that day that the people I love will never doubt or wonder how I feel about them because I will constantly remind them. Even more than that, I vowed that I will never allow someone I love to sit in pain or suffering and not do everything I can to tell them how truly loved they are. In essence, I refuse to live my life with regrets any more.

Life will never be perfect and there will always be really hard times you have to endure to get to the next bridge, but nothing is more sacred or valuable than that gift of life itself. Waking up every single day and getting to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. It sounds simple but I feel this to my core and I pray that I never lose sight of this feeling.

I had an opportunity come up recently that really touched my heart and felt like God had made this connection for me. I had a sweet faith based small business, Emerald Llama, reach out to me and ask if I would promote their sweatshirts. When I realized the graphic was a range of mountains with the phrase, “Expect Miracles”, I knew in that moment God was calling me. I plan to donate any proceeds from that sweatshirt plus a donation from my family to the volunteer search and rescue team who selflessly risked their own lives to save my son. That act of kindness will never be lost on me. Thank God for his blessings today and each day and God bless all of you.