The Practice of Being a Daughter

February notes on planners, plants, and peace

Some ordinary pictures from my camera roll

The first day of February felt like my official New Year’s Day. As a professional list-maker, I gathered my two planners—yes, two, that’s not a typo—and organized my schedule.

Fast forward seven days, and I was already drained. Not the kind of tired where you order takeout and watch Gilmore Girls for an afternoon. I was exhausted thinking about Monday morning.

Since you’re here, you should know I collect #2 pencils and sometimes when I pray I have this image of Jesus handing me newly sharpened pencils and a stack of paper. As if He’s saying, “Let’s start again.”

My word for 2024 was practice: to train through repeated exercises, to keep doing the thing again and again. Hence, when I prayed about my failed one-week attempt at curating my schedule, I pictured Jesus pointing me back to that theme and saying, “Let’s take another lap.”

I made a confused face and thought about the story in the Bible where the Israelites marched around Jericho seven times until the walls collapsed. You can picture me walking my dog, staring at the sky, and saying out loud, “Please God, don’t ask me to take another lap in 2025.”

You probably know where this is going…

Practicing the ordinary

To practice means I show up again; in the ordinary, behind the scenes, most of the time in silence.

To practice means I sign up for the writing class and take notes for two hours while the voice in my head says I’ll never finish my manuscript.

To practice means I unlearn old beliefs to make room for what I need to plant this season.

Speaking of planting, to practice means I get another rosemary plant at the farmers market because the last one didn’t survive my gardening skills, and that was my fourth attempt.

To practice means I see a mom pushing a stroller, I sense the tension start to rise in my body and pause to breathe. I remind my brain we’ve been here before and we get to practice as we heal.

To practice means I listen to my doctor in tears as she prescribes anxiety medication. I pick up the prescription and sit in the car asking God if there’s a different path to healing.

To practice means I start running—for the record, I have to stop every two minutes to catch my breath—but I hear my body saying, let’s do it again tomorrow.

To practice means I choose to believe God and send out this newsletter, so I write a lot of messy drafts and edit at 5 am.

To practice means I feel less tired, by no means do I finish everything on my to-do list. I haven’t folded the laundry and the patio table is still in the Ikea box staring back at me, as it has been for three months. Maybe that’s why the rosemary plants refuse to grow.

However, there’s so much peace, the kind of peace that surpasses my understanding, peace that replaces my planners and reminds me I don’t have to hold anything together.

To practice means the pressure is off because, on this side of heaven, we get to walk by the name our heavenly Father gave us before the world handed us a fake version of our story.

So consider this your invitation to join me in the practice, the practice of being a daughter. It’s an imperfect journey and we’re going to fail at times, I’m proof of it.

Slow and steady, in quiet confidence, in Jesus’ name.

Talk soon,

Stella