Mary, Teach Me How to Ponder
- Leah Brix
- 6 minutes ago
- 3 min read
How can I even begin to describe 2025?
2025. The Jubilee Year of Hope! What a fitting theme for a hope-filled and fun year!
2025. The year I took back my breathing and had my deviated septum corrected, along with sinus surgery. Because I could efficiently breathe for the first time in my life, the self-proclaimed running expert of our family hit the pavement with me. I panted, trying to survive, as he skipped along, chanting out breathing patterns or singing Eye of the Tiger to motivate me. Thank God we live in the country and nobody saw us!
2025. The year my 6 oldest kids finished their first “real” school year. It was a HUGE learning curve, but a necessary transition for our family.
2025. The year the Army celebrated its 250th birthday. How do I know that? Because I had birthday cake and sang with a bunch of teenagers at a military camp in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, to celebrate.
2025. The year I lost 30 pounds on the Carnivore diet. Plot twist: I got pregnant and gained a bunch of it back from all the sour candy and pizza I ate in the last few months. But baby #9 has a soul that will last all of eternity, and is 100% worth all the body changes I get to experience, and then some!
2025. The Year I traveled to Palm Beach, FL, Flemingsburg, KY, Bloomingdale, OH, Washington, DC, and Fort Myers, FL.
2025. The year our local high school had its inaugural Varsity Soccer team, and I cheered on my oldest son, who was the starting striker.
2025. The year I started Magnify, a Women's Apostolate in my parish cluster—a true labor of love, worth every minute of planning.
2025. The year we decided to take a break from farming for a while to spend more time together as a family.
2025. The Year I picked up a microphone again after having PTSD from working at a radio station in college. I’m not trying to have false humility here… I really wasn’t good at it because I was too nervous to just enjoy it!
Our Catholic Country Chronicles podcast is a blast, though, because I'm recording it with my sisters next to me, and we surround it in prayer. It's awfully hard to get nervous in that environment!
But 2026. Sweet 2026. What can we expect from you? The only thing I am praying for this year is rest. I need a rest from new projects, from traveling, from weird diets, and from any unnecessary commitments.
I have never been one to do a word of the year or anything, but I went to a really sweet Catholic ladies' night out a few days after Christmas, and we used a word generator. My word was brave. The word felt very “meh” to me.
On New Year’s Day morning, I asked Mary to guide my year. It was the great Solemnity of Mary, and I couldn’t help but think of how fitting it was that we should start the year under the guidance of the Blessed Virgin!
It was during this prayer time that I spent time with the word ponder. Ahh. Now that word gave me the Baby Bear feeling of being "just right."
To ponder. Something I am horrible at doing! I recently described the scene in my brain as a tornado - mass chaos as thoughts, ideas, worries, insecurities, and a host of other things swirl about.
To ponder requires deep reflection on truth, goodness, and beauty. It means thinking beyond worldly and surface-level things and reaching out into the unknown. Contemplating the Mysteries of our faith and our role in Salvation History. Sitting with the hard things. Savoring the beauty of God’s glory. Sifting out the filth and discovering what is really important.
My daily prayer for 2026 is “Mary, teach me to ponder. Fill my head with only good things so I can quiet the storm of my mind.”
Lord, teach me to pray.
Mary, teach me to ponder.
Angel, remind me to do both!
Have an amazing 2026, dear reader! I hope there is plenty of adventure and fun in store for you, but I also hope you join me in finding rest in learning how to ponder.
Until next time, your sister in Christ,
Leah
