From Adam Young

 

Every person has been wounded—and your wound is not only in the past.
The ways your heart was harmed—through cruelty, absence, or the silence of someone who should have shown up—didn’t simply disappear with time. Those wounds have shaped the way you learned to live. Your drivenness, your walls, your need for control, your inability to rest—these tendencies have grown in the soil of your pain. 

Your wound can become the place where you are held captive.
Isaiah 61 draws a direct connection between a broken heart and captivity. Whatever you have built your life around to protect yourself from being wounded again can slowly become the thing that keeps you bound. Jesus was sent to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free. That's very good news for people with a history of trauma. 

Healing begins with naming—and then grieving.
You cannot heal what you will not acknowledge. Naming your wound is not about blame; it is about honesty. And once you name it, healing requires something that is often harder: to feel your unfelt feelings. To enter the grief. To sit with the sorrow instead of running from it.  

Our farm beauty

Mannn ...

.... too much time is going by when I don't post! I'm really going to try and post more often.

I think the hard thing continues to be that my kiddos don't want me telling all about their live. So then it is like, what do I tell about. 

Here are some highlights of our recent life:

• Isaac got his wisdom teeth out. Needed to do this at the hospital due to his allergy.
• We are about to start Week 3 of homeschool. The two classes I am teaching are taking a LOT of time for me to grade all the things.
• The boys start their college classes on Monday. Sidge is taking 16 or so hours at Walters State. However, they will all be at the Morristown campus. Isaac is taking one liberty class and one Walters State. They are both doing Algebra II with John at home.
• The girls are now taking all their classes, minus math, at the co-op. I am teaching their English classes. (And for Hannah, I am teaching an English/History/Bible combo). 
• I am still the Vice President of the Heritage Board. 
• Work is chugging along for JB.  

2026-2027 School Year

 

Today was the first day of the 2026-27 school year at our homeschool cooperative: Heritage Home Scholars. I am on the Board and teach two English classes -- a middle school English (which Hannah is in) and a British Literature (which Abigail is in.)

Abigail is a sophomore. This is probably her last year at Heritage. Hannah is a 7th grader! How can that be!?

The boys no longer attend the cooperative at all. Sidge is taking full-time college classes at Walters State Community College and taking Algebra 2 at home with Dad. He'll graduate high school with his AA. He is a senior.

Isaac is taking two classes with Liberty online, one at the local community college, and doing Algebra 2 at home. He is also doing a lot of theatre and training at the Blair Academy in Johnson City in voice and piano. He is also a senior.

Time goes so fast ....

Robbie Couch

 

Our elderly neighbor, Robbie, went home to Jesus this last week. She leaves behind her sister, Faye, whom she has lived with her entire life. Her daughter, Kim and her are celebrating in heaven I am sure. Kim passed away about a year after we moved here to the farm (back in about 2016). 

Vermont

A few tears

I continue to learn. 

And I continue to dream of "feeling" like myself again.

And yet I am reminded, often, that Old Wendi is gone. She served her purpose. She did a good job. But she isn't coming back. She can't come back. 

And so I wait. 

In this sort of difficult middle. 

For the "new Wendi" to appear. 

This week was a little tough. My mentor in the program I am in resigned unexpectedly. In addition, I got called back for some repeat medical testing. Chances are very good it'll be fine, but it's unnerving. In addition, one of the Couch sisters, our neighbors out here on the farm, finally lost her battle to cancer. 

When my mentor departed, I felt sad. And I immediately saw old Wendi knocking on the door. "Hey. Don't be sad. Sadness hurts. Let's skip that. Can we?"

But new Wendi knows that skipping emotions isn't good. I can't bypass them spiritually either. I need to feel them. I am sad Parag left the program. I am grieving his departure. 

If I am being honest, I think I am grieving other things too. My boys are seniors now. They don't need me anymore. The season that they needed me is in the past. They'd like me to not mother them at all. And that's what I am trying to do.

But I miss the little boys that I got to be a Mama for and sometimes wish I could go back and do it all again and slow down time and soak up every single minute. 

I love my kiddos. And I'm sad that they are growing up. And happy at the same time. 

Sigh ... continuing to heal and grow over here in TN!