So I Won't Forget...January 2025
3 stories to remember from the past month
January makes me understand why the inventors of our calendar made February a short month. I imagine there must have been a gathering of calendar-makers at some point in history who rightfully concluded that after 31 long days, we’d all be over January and, so in their wisdom and kindness, they followed it up with the shortest month of the year. We look forward to you, February, may you pass more quickly than your predecessor and bring on the Spring flowers.
I’m being a bit dramatic because January has been all around a fine month—rather sunny and with one ideal snow day. I commanded (yep, commanded) our children to be outside anytime the sun is shining. We will put our faces in the sun, I said with resolve and so we have.
For those who are new to WHTH, joining likely because you’ve signed up to do our Stack Study: You Have Done Great Things, welcome to the first So I Won’t Forget of 2025. These essays are written memoir-style and capture 3 things I want to remember from the previous month. This practice was birthed out of my own desire to cultivate a discipline of remembering God’s work in my life, to truly take note of the things I might otherwise forget. I believe God is at work in the hidden spaces of our lives and remembering is the means by which we allow those things to shape us.
Put simply, this is me practicing what I preach. If you’d like to read more, this will take you straight to last year’s collection. I hope you’ll find them light, relatable, and sometimes just what you need to see beauty in ordinary things. Even more, I hope you’ll feel the nudge to capture your own 3 things and see the process bear fruit without much effort on your part.
#1…green planters and embracing tears
My two youngest bounced home this month carrying lima beans in a small zippered bag. Lima beans are an elementary rite of passage, are the not? They gleefully declared they would be planting them that day despite my explaining that I didn’t have any potting soil and the recently snow-laden ground of our backyard was too muddy. I acquiesced because the sun was shining and they were begging to go outside to dig in the dirt—something I’ve declared a parenting value and thus have to reap the consequences.
I found them in the driveway with two sets of pastel green planters with little bees imprinted on the border of each container. They’re from Pottery Barn circa 2003 and the reason I know this is because they belonged to my late sister and I helped her add these to her wedding registry that exact year. They once sat in the window seal of her farmhouse kitchen growing ivy from my mother. Now they mostly take up residence in the storage cabinet of my garage.
The sight of my six year olds manhandling them in the driveway next to a bucket of mud made me catch my breath. This is the moment where I can decide to say something like “oh no, please don’t touch those, they’re breakable and really special, we have to put them away,” but instead my instinct stops me long enough to ponder what Lauren would think. She was inherently clumsy and so naturally didn’t much care about being delicate with possessions. I also think, and think fondly, that she would have relished the chance to encourage their mess at my expense—as all sisters should.
But I had to warn them.
So in the most matter-of-fact tone I could muster, I said “hey guys, those planters belonged to Aunt Lolly and if you break them, I won’t be mad, but I do want to give you the heads up that I will cry.” Their response? ”Ok, Mom, sounds good!” and they kept going. They’re weren’t dismissive or even alarmed, just accepting of the reality that Mom might cry—totally unhindered by the possibility of tears.
As I pondered this further into the evening and retold the story to my husband, I realized for the majority of my pre-grief life that I had associated crying as unnecessary, a waste of productivity or even silly. But here in this simple exchange, I saw that my grief had once again taught me something golden: when something breaks, it’s sad and crying is the right response. I know that seems basic, but some of us have to learn things through years of refining and it turns out I’m some of us.
Thankfully I didn’t have to mourn my little green planters this time. The muddy soil hardened into bricks in a few days and so instead the kids and I daydreamed about what kind of herbs we’d try to plant in them come Spring. One day I’ll have to cry about them, but not this day. In the great irony of this story, when I pause to consider what would have delighted my sister more than making a mess for me to deal with or me weeping over her planters, it’s most certainly that we talked about her, dreamed of growing fresh herbs, and put her planters in the kitchen window again.
#2…a wild and precious snow day
Oklahoma is notorious for terrible snow days because they’re almost never actually snow days. They’re ice days that turn to slush days. You have 1 hour to play and a full week to whine about how it’s freezing, muddy, and slick. Those of us who lived through the ice storms of the late 2000s still cringe when we hear the weather man talk about sleet—mostly because a huge swath of the state lost power for multiple days and we all had to be little pioneers long enough to remember why electricity is the greatest invention of all time.
This month we had the most ideal snow day of possibly my entire life. Snowfall started on a Thursday afternoon just as school was letting out so we scurried home to put on sweatpants and longingly watch the flurries. School notified us of the snow day that evening—not at 5AM—so we went to bed knowing our morning would be quiet and late. The next day the sun was shining and temperatures were just cold enough to keep the snow fluffy and not so cold that our fingers fell off. This meant our kids roamed the neighborhood like they were conquering Mount Everest—walkie talkies, snowball fights, a neighbor with a lawn mower pulling sleds, snowmen with carrot noses. In all the snow day magic I remembered that I’d been gifted an ENTIRE lasagna from the leftovers of a church event so I popped that baby in the oven and fed the 5000 for lunch. Finally—because this was the cutest day ever—we went sledding.
By the next morning the snow had melted leaving cleared sidewalks, rosy cheeks, and the good kind of soreness that says we played hard. I suppose that’s what I’m capturing more than anything—the simple reality that we had a wild and precious day that I lived with a sort of cinematic delight whispering thanksgiving under my breath several times. I didn’t use my phone much. We played outside. Our bellies were full. And we were together.
#3…a weighted vest for bone density and resolve
Depending on who you ask, I’m settling into what they call mid-life1. I say that without disdain because my stance is mostly to say bring it on. I love the age of our kids and I’m dreaming of more time with them as they meander into adolescence—grateful our heads are above the waterline that is feedings, nap times, rinse, repeat.
But I do have a few gray hairs and I absolutely will not tell you where I found them.
For Christmas, I asked for a weighted vest..you know..for bone density.2 Ever the encouraging husband, Dustin bought me the one that’s slightly heavier than I would have chosen for myself because “I thought you were too fit for the lighter one.” Compliment noted babe, but the vest is like really heavy.
I’ve had to ease my way into it—going slower and walking fewer miles to start. Last week I did my usual 4 miles wearing the vest the entire time and learned that even the tops of my shoulders can sweat. It felt good to have challenged myself though and I was proud that for the most part I kept up my usual pace. Today I walked the 4 miles without my vest and I flew. I finished under my usual time with relative ease and as I skipped to my car I reflected on how I had gotten stronger since using the vest.
The metaphor writes itself doesn’t it? Sometimes it’s hard to carry heavy things, and yet somehow, we do actually seem to get stronger. Hindsight and enough years to claim mid-life have proven this to be true for me—that any time I’ve carried a heavier load, God has somehow also made me stronger, more gritty, more adept at navigating uncertain terrain. I’m not implying that we ought to frame all hard things as only good. I resent adages like what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger—no, what doesn’t kill you usually almost does and that is a really awful place to be. But I am saying that in the divine mystery of God the hard and the good often coexist, one is just usually hiding behind the other. Often the hidden beauty of hard things is a strength we were otherwise not able to muster on our own—the kind that Paul describes like this: “when I am weak, then I am strong.”3
It’s unclear yet if the weighted vest will add years to my life or density to my aging bones, but I am certain that it’s changing me. And here’s hoping my eyes are open to the other unforeseeable weighted vests in my future—may they also come with an overconfident husband and the sunshine of a good, long walk.
I hope you’re joining us for the first ever Bible Study via Substack. It’s all self-paced so you can start anytime—you are not behind. For those following along with each new release, the next one comes out on Thursday.
Would you tell a friend about it? It’s free and it comes with my deep hope that someone will engage with the Bible on their own and never look back.
And because I care about your bone density, here’s the weighted vest I use.
I am without a doubt the victim of targeted marketing.
Wonderful words, Emily! I always face January with a sense of dread, but thank you for reminding me of the magic. Thanking God with you. Cheers to bone density!
Another great list! Your snow day sounds like it was quintessentially perfect! And your story about your sister's planters was so touching.