The people who know me best know if I could diagnose myself with an allergy, I would be deathly allergic to change. I am not the person running towards adventure; I am the person who can exhaust a list of reasons to stay right where I am. I’m slow to process change and oftentimes don’t know how to even get started sifting through the feelings of uncertainty I face.

I had been anxious for months sensing change was on the horizon for my family in 2024. No matter how persuasive my arguments and how extensive my lists of reasons got, I couldn’t outrun the pervasive sense that change would be inevitable. But as the New Year came, spiritual discipline started to temper my posture towards an unknown future. My Bible reading, which I’ve spent the past few years in intentional, daily practice has become even more rich with awe and wonder in the last few weeks. As I have been practicing faithfulness to time in his word, I have sensed his faithfulness in real and evident ways.

The first is a desire stronger than I have ever known to stay in step with the Holy Spirit. As a hurried person, I am learning that Jesus is unhurried. He’s been so kind to show me things I would’ve missed had I been setting my own pace. The second is through worship. Last year, Firm Foundation by Cody Carnes became like manna to me. I loved the song because my life felt nothing like the lyrics and I was desperate for what the words offered: joy in chaos. A peace that makes no sense. Steadfastness. What I didn’t know was that my striving was what was in the way of God’s goodness. As 2023 started to slow, a birthday gift from Hunter came just in time.

On Christmas Day, I turned 31. I also received an ancestry.com DNA kit, a perfect surprise from Hunter. Through the website that day, I found my grandmother’s high school yearbook, a picture of my grandfather in FFA, and the four World War II draft cards of my great-grandfathers. I never was able to meet any of them, but seeing their signatures inked in black cursive caught my breath. My dad’s mom, my Grandma Janie was adopted by her aunt and uncle: William and Marion Brewster. I knew Marion as Great-Grandma B until I was twelve. I also knew Great-Grandpa B was a descendant from the Mayflower.

With ancestry.com access, I was able to trace the details of the lineage back to my 9th great-grandfather: also named William Brewster. A passenger on the Mayflower. A mentor to William Bradford. The first elder in the first church established in Plymouth.

And it dawned on me, that from that family, my grandma would be born as Harriet; adopted by her aunt and uncle. Given a new name, Jane. She would marry a preacher with a shepherd’s heart, my grandfather, Gary Nelsen. Their firstborn son, my father, Jeff Nelsen, would have a calling on his life to lead and pastor people to life and hope in Jesus, too. Generations of God’s redemptive hand on my family. Generations given a purpose and a passion for Jesus. In every season, God, as a faithful Father provided for their needs.

And then I heard words in Firm Foundation I had never connected with this personal family history: “He’s faithful through generations. So why would he fail now? He won’t.”

He won’t. Blessed assurance.

If I let him, he’ll grow my spiritual muscles out of his strength. Just as he did for my father, and my father’s father and mother, and so on.

So as I anticipate the future with my family, as I walk in step with the Holy Spirit, praying he’ll help me be unhurried, I’m reminded and I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for his faithfulness to my past and to my present. If he can lead my 9th great-grandfather from a ship, wrecked with illness and hardship, to lead the first known church in a new world, he can lead me to a life worth His calling. I don’t know what that is, but I know he’ll equip me. Because he’s faithful through generations.

Adventure with Jesus awaits. Thank you, Lord, that I can have faith in your future.

Take care & take heart,

Late last year, I declared that 2024 was going to be my year of fun. 2023 was the epitome of challenging and I had the hardest time letting go of deep feelings of insignificance and resentment toward the circumstances that magnified them. The most frustrating part was wanting to move forward but easily recalling the unmet expectations of the past year that turned into skepticism of a positive future. Coming up short, I decided if I just tried to make life more fun, I’d win at it.

Well. I made it to January 11th before sensing my own defeat. Life is just as challenging as it was twelve days ago when I was still living in last year. And I’m not having very much fun, as much as I’m trying to not take myself too seriously. Loneliness is likely the biggest escalator of my best intentions. I’m an extrovert who works from home, dependent on virtual reality for connection, most days. I’m starting to believe that cat ladies are the people who understand the key to human survival after all.

2024’s Year of Fun pledge was simply a longing for my ideal preferences to continuously come true. Reality did not let me get very far. But what’s saved me on days when I’m doubting or wondering, or feel myself over-striving to feel enough is one thing: being present with Jesus. And he’s showing me old and new ways I can do that. Dallas Willard said, “Prayer is Jesus walking right up to you and listening.” When I heard that this week, it shifted my posture from praying throughout the day to being in constant conversation with God. It’s the miracle of all miracles that I’m both alone during working hours, and yet always within reach of eternal connection.

It’s given me the freedom to wonder about so many things, to cast daily frustrations onto Him, and to practice asking for what I need and then listening in comfortable silence for it. And I hear him whisper just one thing: “This is it.”

This is it. This is my life. And my reaction to that reality can either be disappointment or intentional presence within it. I get one shot with my kids. With my marriage. With my opportunities. With my loneliness. Another way my dad phrased it to me recently was, “Don’t waste your winter.” And that’s been freeing to get on the other side of wondering what’s missing. Nothing is. Not when I’m drawn into the present.

What continues to keep me present is gratitude, as it always does. Out of the overflow of practicing the presence of God has come small, quiet moments. Flickers of his blessings, really, where He’s allowed me to have a bird’s eye view of my life for just a second. Hearing my sons imaginatively playing in their room. Soaking in the sound of their tiny voices that will one day deepen and change. Seeing the profile of my husband as he silently empties the dishwasher without prompting. The garage door opening as I release the button, a reminder that God gifted me a place to land.

When I find myself in the space of what could or should be, the Holy Spirit assures me in tiny flashes of remembrance that this is it.

And I become overwhelmed with joy and holy contentment, that it is.

Take care & take heart,

I’ve been drawn back to old hymns lately. Maybe it’s all of the busyness in this season that makes the slow and familiar songs comforting. Maybe the Lord knows my heart needs to be steadied by truths that have been passed down through generations in the church. There’s also a chance it’s simply because I miss home. And hymns remind me of home.

Today I found a letter I wrote five years ago to the church I grew up in. At the time, I had been praying to find a church that had the level of warmth and depth of Cherry Hills and had not found it. As I reread the words I wrote, God’s faithfulness was apparent to me again. Two years ago, we started driving across several towns to attend a different church during COVID-19 while the kid’s ministry at our church had not reopened. One visit turned into answered prayers and regular attendance. What once was a letter to my home church, could now be written similarly to our new church home, Lakeland. And I’m so grateful.

Dear Cherry Hills, 

As I write this, I’d like to think I am like the apostle Paul who would write to the Philippians fondly with the greeting, “I thank my God every time I remember you.” Words will never be enough to express how deeply I resonate with Paul when I think of the treasured people within the Cherry Hills family. 

When I moved to Wisconsin over two years ago, one of the most challenging adjustments for me was surrendering my proximity to Woodside Road on Sunday mornings. Over the years, my fondness for Cherry Hills has come from the atmosphere of praise that dwells within its walls and the overwhelming sense that the Holy Spirit is resting in the hearts of the people that fill these seats. While God is undoubtedly at work in other areas of Springfield and has shown his favor in my community here in Wisconsin, I have never walked into another sanctuary that replicates such a reverence for His presence like Cherry Hills. 

At the age of 25, I have to come to recognize within myself a deep desire to be known and beyond that, to sense reciprocity in my relationships to their fullest extent. When I reflect on the relationships in my life that personify this, every single one brings me back to the Cherry Hills family. The intentionality behind the way you as a church family so recklessly love one another is an absolute privilege to still be a part of, miles away.

As I have matured into adulthood in the last several years, no one has taught me more about generosity than this family. I have lost count in the last year how many times I have been blessed with thoughtful gifts or a card just to say “thinking of you”. You have taught me that it is never about the dollar amount that I give, but the posture of my heart that Jesus is after. 

As a result of your infectious spirit of generosity, I have found myself asking, “What more can I give?” or, “Who can I invest my time into or encourage today?” Unbeknownst to you, the baton you have passed on so well helps me rhythmically welcome Jesus to continue to build my character. Oh, how deep is my gratitude to be caught in the riptide of your love that moves me to compassion for others. 

Thank you. Wholeheartedly, I thank you for the way you have loved my dad and have graciously allowed him to lead. Thank you for the adoration and care you have shown my remarkable mom. We are privileged to experience the overflow of your love time and again. I truly believe we are better in Jesus because we get to walk through life together with you!

I love you, Cherry Hills family, and I am electrified that we get to carry our worship together into eternity!

Love, Natalie 

So as I have been singing hymns I first learned from sharing a hymnal as a little girl in a church pew, I have held a reverence and gratitude for how the Lord has carried me and a hope for how he is carrying me still. In the years since I’ve gotten married and moved away from home, he has slowly been building a new identity for me when I walk into church. I’m not recognized as the pastor’s daughter anymore on Sundays, but I have found that Jesus continues to remind me I’m forever his.

After leaving Cherry Hills, it took a long time to sense his presence at church the way I felt it growing up. What has been such a gift is finding that again in the last few years in such a new, yet familiar way at Lakeland. That’s not to say that the Holy Spirit was not in the other places we attended since moving, but it’s allowed me to become even more grateful Sunday after Sunday when Lakeland has felt even more like home. And that’s because I sense Jesus there, too. I recognize a familiar expectancy for God to show up. And he always does.

Getting older is a funny thing. The older I get, the more I have come to understand that two things can be true at the same time. I miss home. I miss the church I grew up in. And I am home. I am building a home in a different place. This will be the first Christmas Eve spent at our church in Wisconsin, without family on that day. And two things are true. I will miss not gathering with the people who shaped my upbringing in Illinois. And I am looking forward to meeting Jesus at Lakeland on Christmas Eve. I’m so grateful that the limitless Spirit of God dwells in many places.

May Jesus dwell in our hearts this Christmas season as our Emmanuel. God with us!

And thank you, Jesus, for being with me, all these years.
Praise God from whom all blessings continue to graciously flow.

Take care & take heart,