There was a time when I thought building something meaningful meant doing more.
More planting.
More preserving.
More preparing for what might come.
And in many ways, that’s how this life started for me.
I can still picture one of my first gardens, tucked into the side of a mountain here in Virginia. I didn’t have much, but I worked with what I had. I planted what I hoped would come back year after year. I gathered branches and tied them together with twine to make trellises.
It made sense to me then.
It still does.
That garden eventually became someone else’s, and we moved on to a new piece of land—a blank canvas my husband found where we could begin again.
And we did.
We built a life rooted in growing. Growing food, raising animals, growing our family, learning skills that felt both new and familiar at the same time. And over the years, I experienced all of it—the beauty of it, and also the weight of it.
There were seasons of abundance.
And there were seasons that brought me to my knees.
I’ve lost entire crops. I’ve had plans fall apart. I’ve walked through moments on this homestead that felt too heavy to carry. The kind of moments that sit with you long after they’ve passed.
Some days are hard. Some days feel heavy. And some days don’t make sense at all. But I’ve come to see that even those days have their place. The hard, challenging, and difficult days have a way of helping you see the good days a little more clearly. They shape your perspective. They soften you. They remind you what matters.
But even in those seasons, I kept coming back to something simple.
Find your gratitude.
Not because everything feels good.
But because God is still present in it.
A few years ago, I had to slow down in a way I hadn’t before. I was writing my book, raising my children into adulthood, helping my parents build their home beside ours. There wasn’t room to keep pushing at the same pace.
So I paused.
I still planted. I still tended what I could. But I stopped trying to do everything.
And in that slowing down, I started to see things differently.
There was a season where I lost every tomato in my high tunnel, completely gone. And not long after, a neighbor showed up with bushels of tomatoes.
There were losses in our livestock that left me heartbroken. Moments that didn’t make sense and didn’t feel fair.
And yet, even in that, I could see it.
God provides.
Not always in the way I expect.
Not always in the timing I would choose.
But He provides.
For a while, I felt this urgency to prepare. To store more, to preserve more, to make sure we had everything we might need. And while there is wisdom in that, I realized I was being called into something deeper.
I got quiet.
And what I felt laid on my heart was this.
Yes, prepare your home.
But don’t forget to prepare your heart.
Because some of the most important things we carry can’t be stored in jars or stacked on shelves.
They’re planted.
In the way we live.
In what we choose to focus on.
In what we pass down without even realizing it.
I’ve held onto a verse for many years now.
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
2 Corinthians 5:7
And over time, I’ve come to sit with it in a different way.
Maybe it doesn’t just mean to walk by faith despite what we see happening in the world around us.
Maybe it means something even closer.
Maybe it means not walking by what we see in ourselves.
Not by our doubt.
Not by our fear.
Not by the ways we feel like we fall short.
But instead, walking by faith in what God sees.
Trusting who He says we are.
Trusting that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Trusting that even when we feel unsure, He is not.
So now, when I think about what I’m planting, it looks different.
Yes, I still plant seeds in the ground.
But I’m also planting something deeper.
Gratitude.
Faith.
Trust.
The kind of things that don’t just grow for a season,
but continue on, long after we do.
As the seasons change, I’ve learned to pause and listen.
To plant what needs to be planted.
To continue to preserve and prepare, but in a different way here on this homestead.
I’ve always believed that what I share will reach the person who needs it, right when they need it.
And so, to whoever finds this, whether you’re walking through something heavy, uncertain, or even something good,
Keep finding your gratitude,
Kaylee