Preparing a new nest.

What we leave and what we bring.

Here’s another thing in your email inbox that you could click onto. I’m deleting almost everything that falls into ‘could’. I’m focusing on ‘must’ and ‘want’.

Yesterday I had to go into town for groceries, but I wanted to multitask that drive and be in church with just my daughter. I wanted to sit next to her after being without her for three weeks. Distracted only by worshipping Jesus. Three birds. One stone. I am efficient.

It’s the season of combined church services in our small NZ town. For those not on holiday, we step out of our congregation walls and worship together. We let go of our differences. It was easy to be distracted from worshipping Jesus as I looked around the room. Excitement and heartache met me. And that feeling of overwhelm was summarised in one line in a prayer from the front.

We have more in common that less.

2026 - a new year. A new season. We’ve got a new house lined up. The God of the impossible has done it again. A plan is locked in for my three school children to start on the first day in a new city. We sit in a whirlwind of logistics we must complete. I glimpse our new life and realise we are blessed again with a completely fresh start. What furniture will we take, what will we leave? What routines, habits and attitudes do I want to take, what do I need to leave? It’s like New Year’s resolutions on steroids. And with this new start, we have new information and new tablets, which are like a superpower.

I homeschool child #4. It wasn’t what I wanted. It was what he needed. I’ve decided to let go of my determination to integrate him back into mainstream school. It’s still what I want, but I accept that there could be a better plan that I can’t see. It’s ironic really, because our new house has a gate to the primary school in our back fence. The access is unreal, but the lock is on my side.

Child #4 and I have ADHD in common. The diagnosis is a newer discovery for me than it is for him. I now astronomically understand, you can’t do what you want to do when you’re disregulated.

Letting go of my plan to integrate him back into mainstream school has some practical implications for our new season. I will no longer match his academic curriculum and resources to the local primary school, in hope of making the return transition easier. I will focus on the best way for him to learn. I will manage my needs of regulation better, so that he is more regulated. We will just focus on settling; finding our community and our new nest. I will find His plan by just doing the days one at a time in this new season.

Along the way, we will read. We will write to our friends. I’ll explain for the millionth time that infinity isn’t a number. We will talk again about hawks that pick-up children with their giant claws. He will make every conversation link back to Russia. Mataio decided last year that Russia is the biggest country and therefore the best. Sigh. I will help him read the clock and understand that what is happening that day is manageable, even if it’s new and scary; even if the day holds boring stuff that he doesn’t want to do. I might even get us a dog to come along for the ride. He is heartbroken from farewelling our fluffball Indie. I will manage to do what I need to do and want to do.

Before my nervous system completely crashed, life was hard, but it was good. We were on this new adventure in a new town. We had to endure another covid lockdown, which I feared would be my undoing - living in a shoebox sized house. I had good self-care routines - good nutrition, daily exercise habits and I was reading through the bible and soaking in the bigger narrative of it all. We couldn’t attend church, but I was so excited about Jesus and what God was doing that when we were ‘allowed out,’ I was a racehorse coming out of the gate. I ran fast. ADHD helped me do it ‘all’. Fight for my children and their complex needs. Until ADHD was no longer an asset. Then I crumbled. I couldn’t keep up.

I’ve come to fear what I can’t explain.

And I think that’s why I keep wanting to write on Substack. If I can just make one of my thoughts make sense, I feel better. The problem is, I have another hundred thoughts coming up behind. I can’t write and explain enough to make it stop. I can’t talk enough to make it stop. I actually don’t want it to stop because before my nervous system was shot, my mind was an asset. I’ve experienced both sides of the ADHD coin and I want the other side back. Now I know I have ADHD, I know how to get back and even better, I now have the tools to get there.

I’m going back to reading through the bible. I’m ‘supposed’ to finish the plan within 365 days, but this is not a competition or a goal to smash out. It’s the perfect combination of what I want and need. I’ll throw in the footnotes the plan I’m following through the ‘You Version’ app¹. This lady (with the initials TLC!) summarises back to me in an audio/video clip what I read that day (just in case I was distracted when I was reading or didn’t understand!) That feels like God’s mercy to me. Since my nervous system crashed, when I try to lean into Him, I’m distracted. The guilt pours on pretty fast, and the cycle down follows quickly.

Today I’ve landed in the book of Job. The book all about the great guy who had suffering inflicted upon him and despite everyone trying, it couldn’t be explained. This is a snapshot of the TLC summary for today:

God didn’t create the plan for testing Job, but He allowed it. He wasn’t the active agent in the evil perpetrated by Satan, but He was sovereign over it. And in His MERCY, He limited it.
Tara Leigh Cobble.²

God’s mercy. Selah. Settle in that.

My word for 2026? Settle. It’s time to make a nest in God’s mercy.

Image: my son Owen being spat out of a water slide. Be like him. 6-7 this life to the max and settle in the pool that you are spat into. Don’t overthink it.

1. https://www.bible.com/en/reading-plans/42399

2. Check out that video link for her summary of what I read today and the context of this quote.