One more quick post, then I'm really done for tonight. lol
Who I Believe I Am vs. Who I Know I Can Be
My Patterns vs. My Possibilities
Of all the random memes I’ve scrolled past on Facebook, this one stopped me. It rings deeply true, and I had to sit with it for a minute.
On one hand, I know who I can be—the woman I believe God is calling me to become...
A woman others see, love, and learn from.
A woman of fierce integrity, willing to take big steps of faith, bold risks for God's calling. An excellent mother who leads with confidence. A loving wife who is deeply loved and desired. A wise counselor who speaks with Godly wisdom. A teacher who truly cares and makes an impact. A courageous author who writes with vulnerability and authority. A whole, healed, wholehearted version of me. ❤
But on another level, I often believe myself to be someone... smaller.
The woman who quietly fades into the background.
Who cuts corners.
Who is hesitant and overly practical when risks are required.
Still waiting for motherhood and doubtful it will ever come.
Shaped by rejection, questioning whether anyone could find me beautiful or choose me.
The competent, behind-the-scenes court reporter—but not a leading voice.
Too entangled in her own mess to offer clarity to anyone else.
The longtime blogger who isn’t sure her words are book-worthy after all. Fearful. Stagnant. Lacking real power.
*******
I know I can be fit and healthy in a balanced way that inspires others and brings me joy.
But I often believe myself to be stuck in unhealthy cycles (which I'll dig into more during my next session with Emily).
Honestly, this is more of a pep talk for myself than anything else—but hopefully it encourages you, too. This inner tension explains why I’ve felt so stuck. I want forward progress, and I need to get very intentional about dedicated time with God and renewing my mind through His Word, realigning my heart identity with God's calling for me.
What we believe about ourselves MATTERS.
We cannot embrace change until our identity shifts.
I’m making slow and steady progress lately—and I pray it continues.
If any of this resonates with you, know you are not alone. Every day presents a choice: Our old patterns, or our future possibilities.
Choose your best future.
Keep going!
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will." ~Romans 12:2
Speaking of all the amazing kids I have the privilege to love, support, and influence, Miss Parker Elizabeth had a ballet recital with Destiny Dance yesterday. As you might suspect, it was the very cutest!
❤❤❤
Side note: I commented while we were at Braum's that I was impressed with how well Parker's lipstick stayed on all night. Karli sent me the link, and I promptly ordered some on Amazon - yay! lol
What a tiny presh!! Finding her spot on the tape then waving at her family from the stage. ❤
Karli and Melissa sat closer to the front, and I sat with Teresa and Chet Lee a few rows behind them (and Bill and Tate, who were further down). It's always good to see Teresa, and it was fun to hear Chet's thoughts and commentary!
A short performance, but epic cuteness.
The joyful grand finale - so many cute costumes! It was fun to watch all of their performances, honestly!
Pics with her fam and her grandparents afterwards!
Wilsons and Weatherfords - I adore them all!! For the record, they very kindly invited me to be in this pic, and Melissa gave someone else her phone to take the photo of all of us, but I figured I'd take it too and let them have a full family pic, then get one with Parker after that. Sadly, she was worn out and started crying right when I knelt down to take a photo. lol Having said that, our afterparty pics at Braum's are possibly my favorite pics ever with her, so that was worth the wait! =)
I wish this had been a tradition during my CHA days - the Seniors decorating their assigned parking spots is super fun!
Parker enjoying her twist fro-yo cone (whilst avoiding eating any of the cone) and so overjoyed about running into a dance friend!
"Crazy selfie" with the whole Wilson fam! I really went all out. lol
Tiffany posted this recently, and I saved it. While my circumstances have not directly changed yet, I can feel resilience and grit and God-given hope rising back up in my spirit, and it's about freaking time!
Song of the Week = Come Jesus Come by CeCe Winans... really powerful lyrics, and her voice is always strong and comforting - Thanks to Chet for introducing me to this one yesterday!
Happy Mother's Day to Mom and Rachael, and to ALL the moms and mother-figures I know and love and value... it is not a short list!! ❤
The Mini Miss K made Rach this lovely board for Mother's Day!! Love it and love her!
This has been a major year in my personal life, full of big goals and hard conversations and big emotions and looming transitions, and I'm so grateful for Mom's love and support through it all!! ❤
The front of Rach's card to Mom. lol
Kyndal decorated this envelope for Rachael's card - the "Diet Coke" acrostic with O-mazing and E-asy to trick makes me pretty happy! lol
I've been listening to Ocean's 13 as I blog tonight. I adore the scene where the 3-minute countdown starts and everyone in the casino is hitting jackpots and winning loads of money - so fun!! Crazy that it was released way back in 2007 - I had this pic on my bulletin board for years. lol
Do I have some deeper thoughts on Mother's Day? Of course I do. Do I feel the need to focus on my feelings and unmet desires on a day that's meant to honor and celebrate the wonderful mothers who are making a difference in the world? Not so much. I'm confident in God's timing and love, and I'm grateful for all the Moms who have helped shape my life and for all the amazing kids I have the privilege of loving and supporting!
Summa Cum Laude /High Distinction Grades by Lindsey Claire.
Diploma by Colorado Christian University.
Curls and Graduation Cap by Rachael LaJo. ;-)
Class of 2025 College of Adult and Graduate Studies
CCU Commencement Ceremony - May 9, 2025
❤ ❤ ❤
Mom took the pic on the right - the sun flare and curly hair makes it everything I wanted it to be! I got several compliments on the cap, and one of the CCU photographers even stopped me and asked me to turn around and look up. lol So I'm super grateful to Rach for taking the time to make it awesome!! Most of the graduates stuck with the plain black cap, but there was one other graduate who had a great decorated cap and sparkly pink high heels, and I believe she and I would be friends if we got to know each other! lol
Okay, let's start at the very beginning... a very good place to start! ;-)
Me, Lauren, and Amy sharing pics in the Roomies text group on our way to Colorado on Thursday!
A brief tour of the CCU Campus with Mom! ❤
We ran into Lauren and her fam while touring the new Armstrong Center chapel building!
(Pic on the right is in the Anschutz Student Center.)
Our Southwest flight and Budget car rental (silver Chevy Blazer) went pretty smoothly. Driving in Denver traffic is never my favorite, but I did fairly well over the past two days! Mom and I shared an In n Out Burger for a late lunch near the CCU campus, and we had plans to meet Holly Dei for an early dinner at the Cherry Creek Grill. We shared a couple appetizers and meals there, and Mom loved their deviled eggs and BBQ ribs! We had a good talk catching up on life, took a quick driving tour of the Cherry Creek area - a really nice suburb of Denver, then checked out the Modera Apartments rooftop view before touring Holly's apartment!
Holly's place was really nice, and we got to meet her new rescue dog, Jack, which was fun!
She had a steamer we borrowed for my Graduation gown and hood, so that was awesome!
Since I had it all out anyway, I got a cap and gown pic with Holly Dei!
Rooftop pic with Mom and Holly overlooking downtown Denver! After that, we had an hour drive to our hotel - the Marriott Courtyard in Loveland... we were there for such a short time, but it was one of the nicer hotel rooms we've had (with a couch and living room area, three chairs, two queen beds, and two TVs).
I really felt God's love and kindness in this being the verse of the day that popped up on my phone notification - gracious, I receive that! Leaning into the idea of being anchored in Him while deliberately untethering myself from the soul ties and expectations of others has been helpful and healing for me!!
*Also, God was kind in clearing up the marathon-induced breakout - a small thing that mattered to me, and He knew that, and I'm grateful!!
Top left pic is in the hotel lobby with Amy and Lauren (Michelle and her fam stayed somewhere else). Top right is me with Sophie and Amy, then Lauren excited to be near James Brown (from the CBS NFL Live show - our commencement speaker), then Michelle and Amy on their way into the ceremony!
Joy did not make the trip to Colorado this time, but I was grateful to get some more time with these three - Michelle, Lauren, and Amy!
Michelle in her comfy slide shoes, Amy and Lauren, selfie on our way over to the Blue Arena! The ceremony started at 9:00am, but they had us arrive by 7:45 to check in and mill around at the building next door - mostly pointless and disorganized, but a good time to snap a few pictures pre-ceremony!
In the middle of the main commencement speech, a child pulled the fire alarm, and it took them a while to get things going again... definitely memorable! The left pic is Mom's view from her balcony seat - the crystalled cap was definitely helpful in spotting me, as I knew it would be!!
Jeremiah 29:13 is one of my favorite verses, so I was happy to see it up there.
A classic "Oklahomies" pic with Michelle and Amy!
And this sunset pic was pretty - an illustration as Dr. Brown was talking about the importance of depth relative to height - having really strong roots and a firm foundation when you want to build something big with your life!
They used name cards to know how to pronounce our names - the way they did them phonetically made it feel more confusing, so I rewrote mine. lol. They did well! =)
Footwear pic: Lauren, Michelle, Amy, and me -- they emphasized comfy footwear, and I briefly considered switching to the slip-on tennis shoes, but it wasn't that much standing around in the end, and I'm sooo glad I stuck with the original diamond boots decision! Two pics during the ceremony and one on our way in. Shea (going on to get her PhD in Sports Psychology) and Austin Britton (met and really admired him at Res 3, and yesterday was also his birthday) joined our group and sat with us through the ceremony. I assumed we'd be required to walk alphabetically, but they gave us name cards and said to sit wherever we wanted!
Mom and I after the ceremony! ❤
So grateful she joined me for this trip at the beginning of Mother's Day weekend! She was super frustrated that she didn't get a good video of me walking the stage, but that problem was resolved quickly with a phone recording from the online ceremony video! There should also be a few professional photos taken by CCU photographers coming soon.
A kind note and grad gift from Lauren! Love our pic outside after the cermony!
Matthew Stock, a long-term Cambodia missionary and one of my favorite men of CCU, with me and Lauren! (Sadly, Jonathan didn't make the trip for this ceremony.). P.S. I didn't get the memo to buy the white sash and blue and white honor cords, and I so would have if I'd known! The communication was not great on all that.
Pics with Michelle, Lauren, Amy, then Michelle and Amy!
This video = Amy, Michelle, me, Shea, Lauren, and Austin graduating! I sincerely couldn't love it more that Austin sets his diploma down to make a heart-hands gesture to his family!! lol It brought me so much joy to see that... he's the best! Also, I posed it up for the photo with Dr. Burkhart handing me my diploma - which of course you don't see in this video because they move quickly, and it's while Michelle is shaking hands with the University President, but I so didn't realize there was a second photo op there. lol Hopefully I'll be smiling and it'll at least be a good candid.
A goose family of 7 whilst we stopped to share a lemon bundtlet before heading back to the Denver Airport, then one final pic with Mom on our flight home!! Shoutout to Southwest Airlines for on-time flights and awesome wheelchair assistance in both airports - it made our trip so much smoother and more enjoyable!
It was a short and sweet Colorado trip this time, and I love that we still have the full weekend ahead! I'm so grateful for the memories and photos above, and I am grateful to feel more hope and confidence that God is working on my behalf and will open the right doors at the right time as my life moves forward!! I slept in past 10:30 then unpacked this morning, and now I'm gonna get ready to go watch Miss Parker Elizabeth in her presh ballet recital! God is alive and actively at work - I hope and pray that you feel His love and kindness in new ways this Mother's Day weekend!!
"It is with passion, courage of conviction, and strong sense of self that we take our next steps into the world... remembering that first impressions are not always correct, you must always have faith in people, and most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself!" ~Elle Woods ;-)
We had a delicious breakfast for dinner meal + the chocolate cake with Oreo icing - all good! Mom and I are flying to Colorado tomorrow morning, and I wanted lovely curls for Graduation. It always takes me forever to get them right, so I brought my Halo extensions hair for Rach to curl. Naturally, I'm holding that hanger and flinching every time the hot curling iron gets close to me whilst Rach elevates and ices her bleeding ankle (the same varicose vein that erupted during Kyndal's birthday party). Somewhere in there, I was struck by the comedy of all this and asked Mom to take our photo! lol
Apparently, this is normal for varicose veins that start bleeding openly. Once again, Rach bled through multiple towels and used pressure and ice to try to slow and stop the bleeding...
Rach: "I didn't think it would be this bad. This is INSANE!!"
Mom: "Dad's getting towels to help, and Lindsey's grabbing her camera!" #accurate
Rapidly soaked riiiight through the gauze and layers of paper towels and medical tape! Sorry if you're squeamish about that... maybe skip this post. lol
Twice, it stopped for a tiny minute then started back up when she put any weight on her leg. After a literal hour and 20 minutes of that, I insisted that we go to the nearby ER/Urgent Care. Mom took J&K home while I took Rach to Saint Anthony's. Comically, we got seated inside, and it stopped bleeding fairly quickly. I encouraged her to walk on it, and again, the bleeding started back up immediately... then she echoed my "Take some steps" in a mocking tone. lolol
After bleeding through several small kitchen towels, we had taken a huge beach towel from Mom and Dad's house on our short drive. Rach was filling out the paperwork when I noticed blood dripping onto their waiting room floor. She got blood on the pen as she bent down to clean that up, then she somehow knocked one of her press-on toenails off her other foot. She was angry-laughing as she put that in her pocket, saying "WHAT ELSE!?" whilst I was laughing too hard to be super helpful! The officer came over to grab her paperwork, and Rach told him there was blood all over the pen, so he let her keep that as a special souvenir. lol
(A couple minutes later...)
Rach: "Oooooh, now he's sanitizing the clipboard. This is so embarrassing!"
Me: "Don't worry about it - I'm sure you're not the first person to bleed in the ER."
We waited about five more minutes, and in that span of time, the bleeding actually fully stopped and she was able to walk around on it without issue. Thennnn the doctor came out to get her.
Doctor (realizing Rach was joking around about it all): "Those varicose veins just bleed like crazy! You can follow up with your doctor to get that fixed... You're welcome to check in if you want, but all we can do for you here is amputate your foot!" lol (Pic = the angry veins once it finally stopped bleeding. Woof.)
The whole thing was fascinating and entertaining. Rach is often funny to me, but never more so than when she's mildly flustered or irritated, which she definitely was by the end of the night! Earlier, while Rach was curling my hairpiece - LOL - I freaked out about the curling iron and dropped it on the ground right where she'd just cleaned up a pile of blood. Five second rule!? lol I just washed it that morning, and now it may smell like blood and/or bacon, but whatevs, you can't smell a photo!! lol In the end, we laughed a lot and all was well. And we spent zero dollars and less than 30 minutes at the hospital, and Mom got to help a bit with the laundry and packing for Kyndal's 5th Grade Creation Nation trip (in progress right now - hope she has a total blast)!
Way back Wednesday: The 2-year-old Jace Michael, 11 years ago today!
And the 24-year-old very blonde Lindsey Claire, 17 years ago today! =)
Suggested shortly after my marathon, I'm in a new FB group called "Slow AF Running Club." lol It's mostly fun and supportive and inspiring posts, and I'm enjoying that. This one made me laugh!
Another post from that group.
Just me using ChatGPT for some free therapy as Mother's Day approaches.
Not getting into that more here, but it's been a whirlwind of unanswered questions lately. Here again, I'm reminding myself to stay tethered to Jesus and anchored in eternal hope!! Easier said than done, but our walk with God is worth every bit of effort we put into it.
He is with us.
One day at at time.
God's grace is sufficient.
Today's trouble is enough for today!
Okay, I'm headed home to pack soon. Excited for our Colorado trip ahead... prayers appreciated for safe travels!
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