Strong(er) in December/Stronger in 2025

Sometimes progress isn’t linear. Day to day, I don’t think I am making any gains, but then I look back, and I am think, “Wow, God. Thank you! I actually did go somewhere!”

I set out this year to become stronger in faith, marriage, and body. It’s hard to quantify faith growth, but I did finish the The Bible Recap, daily podcasts, Bible Project intros, and all. While not my favorite Bible reading plan, by reading in big chunks like I did, I did learn some things about the ways that Scripture hangs together as a hole. Praise God for how he shows up in Scripture over and over again.

I mostly listened to my one (or more) marriage podcast(s) a week. I kept praying for my husband thanks to the note on my daily to do list. We finished our marriage devotional. We took some trips (like the Hoover Dam Half Marathon trip in December) and went on some dates. (We finally got to see the cougar shadow!) We still miscommunicate a lot, but I think I am spiraling less, and therefore we recover faster. (Thanks, counseling, for helping a lot with that!)

This year, I graduated physical therapy (or asked to graduate, and they said, “Yes.”). I have added physical therapy exercises for my legs to my daily arms, routine, however. I got through all of the new free workouts published on the Nourish Move Love YouTube channel. I think my endurance has strengthened through my running. While I cannot do a full-pull-up, I did go from 50-125 pounds resistance band support down to 15-35 pounds for my last go-round of the assisted pull-up program. If I work really hard, I can get my nose to the bar unassisted. I am not really any bigger or buffer than I started the year, but functionally, my strength has grown. I also found out that I can sometimes up my dumbbells to 15 pounds for workouts—something I discovered unintentionally when I grabbed the wrong weights, but then patted myself on the back for afterwards.

Overall, I have realized that a lot of physical strength comes down to mental strength. I have also realized that I can't have it all. Pull-ups had to get rushed to get out the door for running. If I really wanted to get physically stronger, I would need to drop the running. I think that applies for my other goals as well. Time with my husband and pouring into that relationships sometimes meant sacrificing my own personal time and sleep. Trips meant less finances for other things. God-time meant less frivolous time, a worthy sacrifice, but still a sacrifice.

Overall, I'm not sure I gained a lot of quantifiable strength. By God's grace, I think I just might have learned about prioritizing and gotten a little stronger in practicing that. Believe me, I have a long way to go, and I think that lesson of not being able to do all the things with strength will carry into 2026 and beyond.