Thank God for You.

Maybe it is the weddings we have been to in the last year, or the friends we have lost too soon, it could be baseball season in full swing, or maybe it’s the fact that I turned 31 in March *gasp… shocking, I know!*, it’s most definitely the massive earthquake that rocked our current home (and the dadgum aftershocks that keep me jumping at all hours of the day)… but there is just something inside of me that constantly wants to tell people that I am grateful for them. Maybe it is The Good Lord showing me just how important the little things can be. I’m from a pretty small town in Texas. The kind with the white picket fences, where you almost always choose a back road over a highway, where the ice cream of choice is definitely Blue Bell, where on Fridays the entire town is a sea of green, where you see everyone you know at a Mexican food restaurant on Saturday night, where you can wear your boots and cowboy hat to church every Sunday. This world is getting to be a scary place… and our town is not perfect, we have most definitely had some really hard things happen as of late, but it’s where we built our forever home and where we want to “settle” some day, because at its core… it’s full of really good intentioned folks. Now with that being said, it took some convincing to get my husband across the river that separates our counties because he bleeds blue and believe it or not his town is even smaller and closer knit than mine… their Walmart doesn’t have self checkout and the one fridge on the premises holds milk and country boy sausage. It’s the kind of town where you meet your soulmate in the high school parking lot. The tiny town where the gas station has the best chicken tenders in town and the only place to eat after a late game is Pizza Hut (yes, it is still dine in). It is small but mighty. And even though our hometowns were once rivals, they are similar. They raised us up with the same morals. They are the kind of communities where your friend introduces you to his friend… and then you fall in love with your high school sweetheart. Small enough towns to know that everyone you meet is going to impact you… and I am blessed by that. I know what a gift it is to still have friends from elementary school. The people who went through every awkward stage of life with me, and love me more for it. And Tyler is the same. Experiencing our friends and lives merge over the last 13 years is more than I could have ever asked for in a group of friends. I love that I have teachers, that taught me and my brother, that still hug us every Sunday at church. I am honored to work in a school with some very special people, who love their students, and show me what it means to give all of themselves every single day. I only work a couple months of the year, but we make up for it while I am home. They are the greatest of friends and bring so much joy and laughter to my life. I spend one day a week helping out at a pregnancy center. There is a peace in that building that can only be described as “God’s love”. Even through the hardships and the unknowns, the abundance of blessings I see there every single time I step into the building humbles me. God’s grace surrounds everyone there and it reminds me of the incredible town I come from. When I am there, it is easy to see that there are still beautiful humans out there, who are changing the world everyday. I have been forever touched by a unique group of women that I get to study the Bible with once a week at our Cowboy Church. We come from all walks of life and no matter where we are on our journey with Jesus, for a couple of hours every week, we are all the same in that moment: God’s children, full of hope, and refining each other. I am grateful to have a community full of really wonderful people, that I call home.

But the little town that taught me to love isn’t the only place that I can recognize as important to my life. Moving away helped me grow. And to the people who came directly after my childhood in Washington county, your light is the light I chose. My friends from college and UCA staff… you are the friends who literally molded me into the person I am. You came in at a time in my life where I was finding my own way, and we chose each other.. to guide each other and grow as human beings. You are special and whether you are someone I talk to everyday or someone who occasionally likes an Instagram post, just to let me know you are still there, you are important to me. It grounds me and reminds me just how I got here. You all have impacted me in a state of life where I was learning what was most important.

And then one day, I grew all the way up. I married that high school sweetheart, he is my better half, and literally the second we tied the knot we started the most wild ride. We chose a really strange way of living. Baseball. And it’s almost gypsy like… we move a lot… but life together is everything I could have dreamed of! We grow together with every move. And about 5 years into that journey we had our daughter, and as much as we cherish her, she definitely added to our chaos… in the most beautiful way! She is outgoing, she is full of sass, she is the best little traveler. She is our whole world and these adventures wouldn’t be the same without her. With this wild ride of baseball came Tyler’s teammates/ team staff, the ones who understand the grind and the love for the game. And for me, EVERY single baseball wife that I have ever met … they made the uncertainties in our life, so much better. Just by being there and supporting our guys, we learned to support each other. Whether it was a shared snack at a ballpark or prayers during Bible study, I am grateful that I had you to lean on. *side note: our Baseball Bible Chapel leaders are INCREDIBLE human beings and I love them all dearly! And I hope there is baseball in Heaven… because they are single handedly filling it with a ton of baseball lovers!* It is a wonderful feeling to know that I always have someone to laugh with and someone to cry with... because this life is wonderful, and hard, and scary, and everything we have ever wanted. And most recently, with the wildness of this lifestyle, came a few relationships we didn’t know we were going to make: Our translators. The ones who we spend so much time with… who help us with everyday necessities. The first faces we encounter in a new place, the people who give our daughter high-fives to make her feel welcomed, and teach us how to say words in languages we never thought we would need to know. We appreciate you.

And then there is our family. The ones who make it so hard to leave but love us so endlessly that we couldn’t imagine life without them in our corner. There is nothing harder than trying to explain to Brynlee why she can’t see her favorite people, in person... or watching her panic when Tyler leaves for the field because she “didn’t even give him her biggest hug” but realizing that her reaction makes a lot of sense… because she often says goodbye to people and doesn’t see them again for months. So we are grateful that they love us from a distance. They are our lighthouses, guiding us home, at the end of every season. Standing strong when we don’t know where we are going or what is happening next.

But no matter where our paths have crossed or what corner of the world you are from, I am blessed by your presence in my life. Shoot, maybe you don’t know me… or I don’t know you. Maybe you happened across this post on your social media… but I’m still glad you are here because Gods grace maybe needed a new avenue today. And if that is you, welcome! I’m thankful that there is still so much good in this world. I am in awe of God’s faithfulness throughout it all. I am grateful that I get to learn and grow from every relationship I have formed in the last 3 decades of my life. You are important and everyday I take the time to… Thank God for You!