Hey Reader

Sixteen years ago this week, I delivered a baby who wasn't supposed to make it to viability. I came home from that hospital convinced I had to become perfect to deserve her.

I spent a lot of years trying.

Here's what nobody told me: motherhood is not only a ministry. It's a mirror.

Every time I went to fix something in my child, the mirror turned around. The patience I was trying to teach was the patience I'd never given myself. The neurodivergence I was so carefully helping her navigate was sitting right there in me, unnamed, for years. I kept reaching for tools to help her — and the one that finally worked was getting help for myself.

That's the part of the ministry no one frames on the wall. You don't just shape them. They show you your unfiltered reflection.

So many of the things I "got wrong" in those early years, I got wrong because I didn't know yet. Some lessons can't be studied ahead of time. They can only be lived. You don't get to skip to the version of yourself who already understands — you have to become her, slowly, usually while someone small is watching.

So if you're holding a younger version of yourself in contempt right now — the mother who was harder than she meant to be, who didn't know what she knows now — I want you to set her down gently.

She wasn't failing. She was learning in real time, with no rehearsal. That's not a flaw in you. That's the whole assignment.

I wrote out sixteen of those lessons this week — one for every year — and put them on the blog. Some are about them. More than I expected are about me. If you read only one, read number nine: the more you connect, the less you have to correct.

One more thing, because it's been on my heart all summer. The mirror gets especially clear in the fall — new teachers, new rooms, new people deciding who your child is before they've met them. So in July I'm opening something I've wanted to build for years: my Back to School Parent Boot Camp. It's for the mother who's tired of walking into that first conference already on defense. We'll get you ready — the words, the posture, the plan — everything you need to be proud of your reflection.

I'm letting Truly Yours subscribers in first. Details are coming soon, but if you want your name on the early list, just reply to this note and I'll save you a seat.

Sixteen years in, I'm not the woman I was in that hospital room. Thank God. And I'm still not finished. Neither are you. That's not the bad news. That's the grace and mercy of God.

Thank you for celebrating me. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for cheering me on. I'm so glad you're here.

Truly yours,
Karla