NLC Connect - June 3, 2026

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about full-circle moments.
As I prepare for an upcoming trip to Lithuania and get ready to share my testimony with our youth group, I've found myself reflecting on all the ways God has woven together the threads of my life. Looking back, I can see His fingerprints in places that felt confusing, painful, and even random at the time.

One of those stories begins with a comforter.
When my daughter Emma was just nine months old, our family found ourselves in the middle of a medical crisis. What began as a frightening situation quickly became a season filled with difficult decisions, uncertainty, and more questions than answers.
As a young mom, I was terrified.
We spent days navigating hospitals, specialists, and treatments. Eventually, Emma's condition required an emergency transfer from Valley Children's Hospital to Stanford Children's Hospital. Everything happened so quickly. There wasn't time to process what was happening, much less prepare for it.

If you've ever sat beside a hospital bed wondering what comes next, you know how lonely those moments can feel.
During that season, I depended heavily on the compassion of nurses, doctors, friends, and complete strangers. Their kindness became a lifeline.
One month after Emma came home, we returned to Valley Children's for a follow-up appointment. While we were there, a nurse approached me.
At first, I was surprised that she was looking for us. Then she explained.
When Emma was in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, there had been a comforter waiting for her. The transfer happened so quickly that the nurse never had the opportunity to give it to us. Rather than letting it go, she held onto it, hoping that one day our paths would cross again.

She handed me the comforter and told me she couldn't take credit for the gift.
"This is from the Mennonites," she said. I remember being deeply moved.
At the time, I only knew about Mennonites from a historical point of view. I certainly didn't know that this simple comforter would become part of a much bigger story.
I brought it home and treasured it.

Over the years, it became more than just a blanket. It became a reminder of God's faithfulness during one of the hardest seasons of our lives. Every time I saw it, I remembered the nurse who cared enough to save it, the strangers who had made it, and the God who had carried us through those uncertain days.

Then life kept moving.
A few years later, in the middle of a global pandemic, our family found ourselves invited to attend a Mennonite Brethren church.
A few years after that, I accepted a position with MCC.
Now, part of my work connects me to people around the world through an organization known, among many other things, for providing comforters to families facing hardship, crisis, displacement, and disaster.

One day I shared the story of Emma's comforter with a coworker.
She listened carefully and then smiled.
"I'm pretty sure I know which church your comforter came from."
I just sat there for a moment.
What once felt like a random act of kindness suddenly felt connected.
The comforter that comforted me during one of the darkest seasons of my life likely came from the same faith community that would later become part of my own story.
A gift from strangers had become a thread connecting years of God's faithfulness.

The older I get, the more I realize that God often works this way.
When we're in the middle of the story, we want answers. We want explanations. We want to know why difficult things are happening and where God is leading us.
But most of the time, He doesn't hand us the finished picture.
Instead, He gives us the next step.
A nurse who remembers.
A comforter made by strangers.
A church we never expected to attend.
A job we never imagined having.
A testimony we never thought we'd tell.
Years later, we look back and realize that God was stitching together something beautiful all along.

The comforter still lives in our home.
Its fabric has faded a little over the years, but its meaning has only grown deeper.
It reminds me that even when life feels uncertain, God is at work.
It reminds me that small acts of kindness matter.
And it reminds me that sometimes the things that make the least sense in the moment become the stories that make the most sense years later.
Perhaps that's what a full-circle moment really is—not discovering that everything happened for a reason, but discovering that God was present in every part of the journey.
Even when we couldn't yet see the pattern He was creating.