May | Follow the Light
Narrative + Field Notes
She looked down at the growing bouquet of dandelions in her hand and had a little laugh to herself as she thought, “my kids think I love dandelions.” She was standing nearby them as they foraged around in the grassy field for the fluffy yellow flowers, delighted by how they believed to be making their mama so happy.
What a gift it must be to grow up believing that you had made your mom so happy, would that be the dominating memory in their minds? She despairingly hoped so.
During the course of the month several well meaning friends and family had messaged or called her to ask how they were “settling in”? And after the chaos of last month, she was happy to report that they were beginning to find their rhythms again and it was feeling good!…until it wasn’t…to which she didn’t update anyone. The month unfortunately devolved into nervous system dysregulation grand central station. She had been slowly over the past few years beginning to accept that she and maybe several of her children, were a little…neurospicy…However, this month, that acceptance was rapidly sped up by what she was witnessing take place in her home and herself. She basically couldn’t deny it anymore. Which was actually a very good thing because trying to fit a round peg into a square hole obviously doesn’t work. But she’d been trying to smash the peg to fit because she didn’t want to accept that the peg was a different shape than “normal”.
“I’d rather take my chance following the light than to live in the dark.” - Angel Studios, David Movie
In her quest for solutions that would help them, she ran into countless resources that leaned very heavily on earthly wisdom…things like allowing children to vent their emotions to avoid suppressing themselves, taking on neurodivergence as an identity, and plenty of gentle parenting tactics. The quest for biblical wisdom on neurodivergence was much harder to find. It made her question again, whether she was coming to the right conclusion about what was going on. So, she became a scientist, practicing observation and coming up with questions. Once she understood neurologically and physiologically what was happening, she then dove into her Bible. And just like Psalm 1 says, meditated on it day and night (well, she did her best to do this). The meditating caused her to mull over the scriptures throughout her days and see how it applied and made sense as it played out in life. Asking God for heaps of wisdom and praying for direction the whole time. This process was certainly not without tears and nowhere near linear. But eventually, things began, little by little, to make sense. She started to see how biblical wisdom could be used to train up a neurodivergent child in the way that they should go. And also, how to equip herself with the skills that she hadn’t learned because she’d always thought she was a ‘normal shaped peg’.
So, what began as a search for understanding became an invitation to honesty. She started noticing patterns in herself that she had spent years explaining away or simply accepting as part of her personality. The perfectionism that kept her stuck, the fear of getting things wrong, the tendency to study, prepare, and overthink before taking action, the exhaustion of trying to fit herself into a mould that had never quite fit. In learning how to guide her children, she was also discovering how much grace she needed for herself.
And perhaps the most surprising realization was that she had become very skilled at withholding good things from her own life. Not because she didn’t want them, but because they carried risk. Joy carried the risk of disappointment. Creativity carried the risk of failure. Visibility carried the risk of criticism. Even hope felt dangerous at times. It was often easier to stay guarded than to step forward in faith.
God was not coaxing her merely to stagnantly understand herself better. He was teaching her to walk differently. To trust Him more than her fears. To fear Him more than the opinions of others. To stop waiting until she felt completely equipped before embracing the good things He had placed before her. In many ways, the entire journey seemed to be leading her toward a single question:
Would she continue following fear, or would she follow the light?
Perhaps this is why her youngest son’s favourite song has lodged itself so firmly in her heart this month. For weeks now, he had marched through the house singing at the top of his lungs, “You’ve got to follow the light!” He sang it while eating breakfast, while jumping off couches, while hiking in the forest. There was nothing timid about him. His personality had been unfolding lately with increasing clarity, and she often found herself thinking of David, the shepherd boy with a lion’s heart. Before he was a king, before he was a warrior, he was simply a boy who trusted God enough to step forward when others stepped back. A few years ago, when she was pregnant with her youngest boy, she prayed that her son would have a strong voice and boy, did God answer that prayer abundantly.
She did not expect though that his voice would become a reminder to her own soul.
Because the light he sung about was not calling her toward a perfect life. The children would still argue. Someone would still spill the milk. There would still be days when the house was loud, and the laundry overflowing, and her nervous system feeling stretched thin. She knew she had a choice about which path to follow, the dark or the light. But she was becoming increasingly convinced that she needed to fight hard and harder to follow the light. And maybe also pause and rest and play more in order to guide her kids down the right path too. She was the mom. She could continue to follow the familiar path of fear, self-condemnation, and endless attention to what was wrong. Or she could fight for joy. Not a shallow happiness that pretends difficulties don’t exist, but a deeper joy rooted in the goodness of God. The kind of joy that notices beauty. That delights in children. That keeps hoping and creating and looking for light even when shadows remain.
When she imagined the years ahead, she knew she did not want her children to remember a mother who spent her life defeated by herself. She wanted them to remember a woman who loved them deeply, delighted in them often, and kept turning her face toward Christ. A woman whose life reflected something of His warmth, His gentleness, and His joy. Not because she did it perfectly, but because she kept on ferociously following the light.
“You can’t live in a grey twilight that knows neither the defeat of your way nor the victory of the High King’s. You can’t accommodate Jester’s [the devil’s] view and your Father’s [God’s]. They’re incompatible.” - No Mercy by Preston Gillham
“I’m so done with my writing sounding so negative. I want colour. I want joy. But why do I feel like this is something I can’t begin to do?” she questioned herself. Lately, she had been wondering why so little of the colour she noticed ever made its way into her writing. The strange thing is that she had always noticed it. The rising of steam off a hot cup of tea dancing in the sunlight, the glee of children playing in the mud, the smell of onions caramelizing in butter, the butterflies twirling through the garden. These moments had never been absent from her attention. What had been absent was her willingness to write about them and make them important.
For years, she quietly assumed that seriousness earned respect and that delight was frivolous. Beauty belonged in her sketchbook, her camera roll, or the corners of her day, but not at the centre of her work. The stories she shared were the wrestlings, the lessons, the hard-won insights. Those felt substantial, defensible, and worthy of being spoken aloud.
But she was beginning to wonder whether she had been hiding more than she realized. Not hiding her struggles, but hiding her joy. Hiding her wonder. Hiding the things that made her stop in the middle of a busy day and whisper, “Wow, look at that.”
Perhaps this is what it meant to remove a mask. Not to become someone new, but to stop editing out the parts of herself that had been there all along. To trust that a life spent noticing beauty was not a shallow life. To believe that wonder was not the opposite of depth, but perhaps one of its deepest expressions.
For a long time, the questions underneath everything had been: Could she handle what happened if this went badly? Could she sustain what happened if this went well?
Following the light meant shifting the question to: Would she trust God enough to take the next step, whether she felt capable or not?
By accepting the way she was wired differently, she was seeing a revealing in how much energy she’d spent managing perceptions, compensating for weaknesses, and trying to prevent mistakes. Removing that mask wasn’t going to just affect her writing. It affected how much goodness she was willing to receive, create, and share.
Following the light meant accepting the limitations that God had given her. It meant surrendering her desire to seem impressive to others.
Following the light meant stepping out in faith and trusting that the water would hold under every step she took.
Parenting was really hard right now. Like, really hard. She cried in her closet with the bedroom door locked several times a day. Her husband worked long hours. She was far away from all friends and family and taking a FaceTime call only created another sibling conflict and nervous system crisis for her to manage that she didn’t feel she could handle. She felt weary and longed for joy. But that joy wasn’t just going to happen. She had to fight for it. Joy was a fruit of the spirit not an automatic way of being, fruits need cultivating. She was so thankful that she knew a very good gardener.
“It’s in those moments after I have prayed and had lots of chocolate and calmed down, then I have to remind myself that rocky beginnings and rocky middle phases don’t predict final outcomes. Just like solid beginnings and solid middles don’t predict final outcomes. Not only was it too early to call it failure, at no point in the story of my children’s lives is it ever my job to call it. My job is to love and persevere till the last breath leaves my body.”
- Elsie Iudicello, Wild + Free Episode 59
Mother’s Practice
Waking Up Before the Kids
A morning routine was something she’d tried to have many times. At one point, because they were trendy, at one point because she knew she should. But this time, she learned why they were so important and how to work with your brain to make it happen. Through a video by Lauren Mefford, she learned how her brain worked upon waking and how not setting the tone in her body, greatly affected her and her home for the rest of the day! They were greatly in need of all the nervous system regulation they could get. And there was no better way to do this than by waking up before the kids to spend time basking in the glory of her Father.
Mother’s Table
Bun Cha Bowls
They got takeout from a Thai restaurant that month. As she sat in the restaurant waiting for the food to be ready, she read the menu quite thoroughly. As she did, she was reminded of one of her favourite meals from the time she worked at a Vietnamese/ Thai restaurant in highschool: Bun Cha Bowls. So naturally she had to figure out how to make these in order to satisfy the craving. Thankfully, they were very easy! And delicious. She made them several times that month.
She was a visual person so she found this video recipe to be very helpful
She omitted the chilli pepper and swapped the sugar for maple syrup. She also used ground beef because that’s what she had on hand most often. For the toppings, she kept it simple with shredded carrots, green onions, and crushed peanuts.
Mother’s Apothecary
Electrolytes
It was beginning to get sunny and hot and one of her children only seemed to sleep past 4am if she took him for a 5km bike ride everyday…so all of this equalled = a need for electrolytes! She found some electrolyte tablets (which were not thee healthiest option but effective for this season), and dropped one in a big mason jar of water daily. She also loved sipping a cool adrenal cocktail on the back deck in the afternoon, soaking up all of the sun that they had so dearly missed during the winter. A few mixtures she was enjoying lately (ratios to your liking):
Lemonade: Lemon juice, maple syrup, salt, coconut water, bubbly water
Aloe Limeade: Lime juice, maple syrup, salt, coconut water, aloe juice, bubbly water
A nourished mama = a nourished family.
In the Home School
Sensory Seeking
Several times a day, ordinary moments could suddenly become crisis moments, as one overwhelmed child struggled to regain control of emotions, impulses, words, and actions that seemed to outrun his ability to manage them. She felt at a loss as to how to help and parent and disciple, how to train and teach and equip. The land of neurodivergence was new territory. How could she help her child? One way was through reaching their sensory processing threshold everyday. Things like wrestling, swinging, rocking, climbing, biking, running, massage, moving heavy objects, crashing onto mattresses, bear hugs, and more.
Tending the Home
A Weekly Rotation
So, as she was learning about the way her brain worked, she was relieved to discover that she was not lazy. She enjoyed routines and rhythms however she also enjoyed novelty…these two things didn’t really go well together, which made habits and structure something she craved and also bucked against (facepalm, yes.) So, she was experimenting this month with a cleaning rotation that provided structure and novelty at the same time. She learned this similar idea from Ma Ingalls but she edited it to match her life better…it was: Monday - Laundry, Tuesday - Organize/ De-Clutter, Wednesday - Deep Clean, Thursday - Meal Plan / Grocery List, Friday - Laundry & Hair Wash Day. The rules were: She got to focus on one category of housework for the day but she got to choose what that might be. For example, laundry day might be a load of kids clothes and a load of towels, or maybe she felt like washing bed sheets that day, didn’t matter, she could choose! So far, it was working ok. She just seemed to keep falling off the bandwagon when she was lacking energy in her luteal phase, or when the weather was nice and all she wanted to do was spend 3 hours outside exploring with the kids…or when she got distracted by something shiny like falling down a rabbit hole of research. And once off the bandwagon, it was hard to get back on. So, she liked this idea but it definitely felt like a work in progress.
Northern Rhythms
Family Hiking & Exploring
One sunny morning, bursting with the thick sweet aromas of spring air after a night of rainfall, they decided it was the perfect day for a hike. They ate a hearty breakfast and set off for a trail on the other side of the lake. It was glorious. The forest was completely alive that morning. Birds swooped and sang in the branches above, ladybugs sunned their wings on saskatoon berry flowers, the wild blue clematis climbed their way up into the sunlight dancing through the aspens and balsam poplars. Hiking was a highlight of her childhood, something she so loved about her family culture/ traditions. A long Sunday afternoon hike was something she had done so many times growing up, along with many other mid week hikes, hiking trips, and general forest exploration. She was always so excited to embark on a hike with her kids and introduce them over and over again to her long time love of God’s creation. During this specific hike, their trail took them down to the water’s edge, where the kids all tore off the shoes and socks to go jump in the fresh water. They giggled as their toes touched the squishy sand and released bubbles of gas trapped underneath, to which they humorously decided the beach must be called McTooty Beach forevermore. They found a handful of pond snail shells, a loon serenaded them on the water, they found the hoof of an animal still attached to the bone that had been someone’s dinner the night before…that someone being a few wolves — they’d found their prints all over the sand; and their daughter cracked open a rock to find a fossil inside! What a joy it was to be brought back to experience wonder as one does as a child.
From Full Hands
Crafts with the Kids
Going on the theme of nervous system regulation, she played more this month. Doing something she loved, with the people she loved, benefitted everyone greatly. They had been inspired by one of their favourite books (Farmhouse by Sophie Blackall) to create their own collages. Aided by a few youtube tutorials, they set off with scissors in hand to work on their own creations. It was great fun! She didn’t make anything she was proud of but the time spent doing something like this with the kids was so special. A memory she cherished from this month.
Mother’s Memory Work
People with understanding control their anger; a hot temper shows great foolishness. Proverbs 14:29
Closing Blessing, Links & Resources
May you be emboldened to step out in faith to follow the light.