Until 2026

Reflections and Rest

Dear friend,

This past year has been very, very good. It has also been a challenge in a variety of ways that I’m still not certain I can correctly articulate.

Our little family is thriving, children are growing and stretching themselves, my husband is progressing steadily in his seminary studies, and the farm is still full of life (10 new sheep arrived last month!) Our eldest will be starting college next Fall, and church activities are in full swing… everything is vibrant and exciting.

This makes it difficult to understand how to process so much goodness against the backdrop of national and global turmoil. I often feel like I have to compartmentalize the darkness, especially with the work I do. Each day is a new exposure to the extremes of humanity - pure light, deep depravity, and heartache.

A year where I had the opportunity to visit with the Speaker of the House, attend the White House for an Executive Signing, and walk the halls of the State Department has also been stained with extreme violence and the dam breaking wide open with the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September. After that day, it has all metastasized into a larger and much more apparent cancerous mess inside the political class, which inevitably bleeds into the lives of us normal people.

Reporting the news, uncovering stories that aren’t making the mainstream, and constantly consuming the headlines is something I very much enjoy doing - always have - but it is also something that will eat away at you if you allow it. And so, some of us in that industry try to figure out how to balance knowing too much without letting it replace the most tender parts of our souls.

As I reach the end of this year, I’m realizing that since Kirk’s death, I haven’t done an excellent job at that - at balancing. I’m tired, a bit jaded, and anxious about the direction that I see our culture taking. It makes me sad and makes me question.

Is what I’m doing contributing to the constant cycle of noise? Am I turning eyes toward the truth that humanity needs, or just offering my opinion, which isn’t revelatory or even needed? What good is sharing news stories if they only serve to highlight the degradation of man further? Should I spill any ink about the latest podcaster kerfuffle or showdown in Congress?

What is the point of it all?

And yet.

I receive daily emails and sometimes have the pleasure of meeting you in person. Overwhelmingly, I hear that people are hungry for a news source that layers the problems of our time with the truth of scripture. That doesn’t shy from the horrendous sin nature of man while also reminding us of the Lord’s providence and control over all we watch and hear. I hear from you. It’s something that is needed.

I feel the Lord wants me to persist, and I will listen! I want to play my small part in His grand plan - I want this work to be useful, not spinning wheels, not feeding an agenda, not jockeying for more followers or exclusive invitations.

I want Him to use me however He sees fit. I want to humbly be a vessel for His truth.

It’s Christmas week…and the new year will be upon us before we blink. In the four years I have been doing this work, I have never taken a “vacation” from reporting the news - always on call, if you will. Something’s always breaking, and I wanted to answer the call.

This year, I am going to take some time. Some time to pray and seek the Lord’s wisdom for how I approach the headlines and deliver them to you and your children. Some time to pray, rest, and perhaps recalibrate my vision for a platform that somehow weds modern cultural commentary with the everlasting truth that Christ alone provides. I need to be quiet and listen, if I’m honest. Just sit with what I’ve been watching and let God guide me, instead of trying to figure it out on my own (which always fails.)

Friends, I pray you have a blessed Christmas season with your loved ones and can usher in the new year with the joy and hope that can only be found in and through the Christchild becoming man, so He could eventually offer salvation to all. Let’s take a collective breath, settle into the season, and allow His promise to wash over us. The news will still be there waiting for us, come January.

Until 2026,

Rachel