Hi, friends. It’s been a while.
I know I didn’t promise any specific regularity for this sub stack, but internally I was looking to post about once a week. So now that six weeks have gone by, the guilt has risen and become it’s own barrier to writing and sharing. Funny how that happens.
Life feels like a lot right now, both in some overwhelming ways and some great ones, so I feel like it’s best to give you kind of a “state of the soul” today. Both for your information, and my own need for processing. And then, to give you a bit of a manifesto as I enter a summer sabbatical of sorts. Thanks for being here.
The last year has been one of the most intense years of personal growth in my life. Every corner has felt the upheaval: transition of best friends leaving the country, intense interpersonal conflicts, taking on the all-encompassing task of building a house, almost monthly travel for my husband and I, transitioning our kids from homeschooling to regular school, preparing to scale our businesses and ministries at the same time, taking on new roles within our faith community, and even physical traumas like Covid, ruptured ovarian cysts, and sexual harassment. Finding physical and emotional rest has felt impossible the majority of my days.
And yet, in a year of such radical struggle and transition, I have felt the quiet peace and healing of the Lord in the most profound ways. I have sensed his callings into new spaces in my work and ministry. I’ve felt his love for me in such personal and intimate ways that it can’t be denied. I’ve felt the equipping of my heart and body and mind for a new era, a new season of my life. It’s hopeful and thrilling and scary, but in the best way.
This contrast, between the flagrant challenges of the last year and the hope and goodness underlying it all, has left me feeling a bit unbalanced. These parts of me feel segregated, though they don’t want to be. I feel off-kilter, like I need to find wholeness again.
So, I’m sensing the need for a season of recalibration, a time for me to integrate the experiences and movements of the last year into a peaceful conglomerate known as Karli in her Next Era. I need to retire, take a sabbatical, and find myself again on the other side. And I’m going to give myself that time.
From the time of publishing this (early May) until September, I’m stepping off the hamster wheel of productivity and taking space to figure it out. And this isn’t just about Substack, it’s about my whole life. I’ll still be parenting, obviously, and moving our family into our new home and working to scale our eco-tourism business (hopefully 3 properties live by August), but I’m taking a lot of the pressure off.
I have a lot of questions about life and faith, and I want to take the time and space to bring those before the Lord.
I have grief to sort through, both present and from the past, and I want to gift myself with the quiet to sit with that grief.
I need to give time and energy to nesting into our new home, and making it a place of peace and rest for our family. It’s our home base in the chaotic life of overseas work.
I want to breathe into these new callings and spaces, and take time to listen well to what the Spirit is whispering.
I want to really marinate in my studies (both for lay counseling and spiritual direction) and allow them to form me deeply.
I want to write and process as it all naturally flows out of me, not because of standards or rhythms I’ve imposed own myself.
I want to watch birds and grow flowers and appreciate beauty and know that these, too, are valuable acts of worship. To be is enough.
I’m saying yes to these things.
What I’m saying no to:
Being distracted by social media
Pressure to share, especially a highlight reel
Pressure to create
Falling into past rhythms because they are easy
Identities I’ve given myself that aren’t true or right anymore
Ignoring my grief
Failing to notice the beauty around me
Striving for my body to be any specific way
Stepping into things before I’m ready
Not stepping into things when I know I need to
In essence, I am ushering myself into my barefoot-in-the-garden, incense-burning, meditating, unruly-haired spiritual director era. I’m giving myself the space to find myself again on the other side of all this simultaneous trauma and growth. I’m giving myself space to heal.
I hope you’ll come with me. I hope to share my reflections and questions and discoveries with you along the way, but please understand if they don’t come at any regular rhythm (though they might). They could come two a week, then off for a few. I don’t know. I’m leaving it all open, and I hope that’s okay. For something you are often paying to read, I get that that might be frustrating. I get it if you need to bow out- zero hard feelings. And yet, maybe this will be more valuable to you than ever. I know it will be, to me.
Grateful for each of you, and the safe space you’ve permitted me along this journey. I hope I can be that for you, too.
I love this. Blessings on taking the time to marinate and incorporate this ending seasin into the next one.