you are my procedure

Life is but one step at a time, but because you're with me, I will not fear

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It’s been a week since I’ve injured my back doing Romanian deadlifts and I’m finally back in the gym after taking care of Aiden for a week. This week my focus is on energy - I need to recover well with good sleep, especially go get over my sickness, so that I can be better with my husband and father duties. This week was very difficult keeping Aiden at home all week while suffering from back pain. But the worst is over and I can focus on recovery.

Consistency,

Maintenance,

Mobility,

Mindfulness,

Patience,

Output

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Who or what interaction recently made you feel seen, understood, or less alone in your perspective?

Gelly – coming back home, she took over Aiden duty because she knew the day that I’d been through with the kids. I felt very seen.

What specific internal discipline or personal virtue (like your commitment to your health or work) are you seeing "pay off" right now?

I see 6 weeks of dietary and physically discipline paying off quite literally on the scale but also just with the sheer amount y of more confidence I have in my physical ability. It makes me want to continue the compounding effect that progressive overload weightlifting can have.

What is a specific friction point or "messy" challenge you’re currently facing, and what is one small, tactical way you can gain more command over it today?

I’m going to be with Aiden all week because we don’t have childcare here. I need to be good about ensuring he’s entertained enough that he won’t be crying when I’m on calls, starting with getting him up early on a regular schedule.

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Inconsistency is creeping in - with my reading, journaling, and now even my 10,000 steps a day. Structure around the habits I want to build reinforced is the key but I’m starting to see cracks in my system. I need to habitualize reading in the morning and reading in the evening. I also need to make sure I carve out walking at the end of the day. My diet is working because I have structure and discipline- I need to maintain this.

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Something hits me at my core to hear that Adney – who rose through the ranks exactly the same way that I did, from CX, to associate CS, to regular CS – is moving onto an agentic organization where he will be making double our currently shared salary. Pure projection of "wow, I wish I could do that." Absolutely thrilled for him and glad to call him friend. It kicks me in the butt, in a very good way – adjacent to what I've been saying, this year is the advent of the agent. And I'm in a very good position to thrust into this unchartered territory.

I need to work harder and faster to be the first to get these projects that are tangiel, right in front of me, off the ground. I need to get to senior in September so that I can position myself in the fork in the road that I said I would: move with my current org remote to Hong Kong, or find another role in Hong Kong.

2026 is a big year. Let's get it.

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I made a private posit to my colleagues at the pre-CCO kickoff – we are now an AI company. And we really are. The agents are actually working. I really need to get this CS outreach project off the ground - be the first to make it happen - and then mark this as my flagship project that I delivered upon to justify my senior status.

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After a week’s streak, I succumbed. Not rooted in the word, not discipline in prayer, not stable in consistency. But much better than before. My weight continues to drop – an affirmative reminder that consistent routine matters if I stick to it with discipline. Let’s make this day 1 and be consistent.

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For the first time in my life, I need to be cautious about food anxiety. I have a clear goal, I’m able to maintain and track and systematically be consistent for the first time ever. And for the first time, I went one day eating 1,100 calories without feeling hungry. Truly shocking. But with online consultation, I’m weary now that this could be a bad habit of the mind, and it can lead to psychological problems. I’m now keeping track on a weekly basis, not daily. I’m at Popeyes right now, and that’s okay, because I’m still in a deficit for the week to be able to hit my April goal. I’m very excited that the structured consistency that I’ve labeled as a “12 week habit plan” is improving not only my body, but my mind and even my soul. But I need to keep it healthy, and not extreme.

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Prayer – I want to be connected to you because you are in it of itself, goodness. I repent that I don’t depend on you - help me to change the habit of my mind and my soul. Fill me in moments of frustration, anxiety, disorder and lack of control, and scale my eyes to see you in the matrix of everything around me, particularly in times like last night.

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Mark 9 – the disciples couldn’t drive out the demon from the young boy, and Jesus has to step in. When they ask him, “why couldn’t we drive the demon out?“, He responds: “ this kind can only come out by prayer.”

He’s telling them, “ were you trying to use my power without relying on me?”

Prayer is the act of constant, desperate reliance on God. If I’m not praying, I’m aren't relying; I’m just performing.

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“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

– Mark 9:23

“Believes” isn’t necessarily characterizing Jesus as a genie in a bottle here. Belief is more alliance than it is wishing. Where we are aligned to God‘s heart, not even death is outside of his jurisdiction. “ if you are “in” Jesus, I wouldn’t ask for things that contradict God’s character.

LORD, are my desires that I lift up to you pleasing to you?

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Has working out consistently – that is, doing something difficult as a habitual practice every day – making me a better parent? I seem to have more patience and tolerance than I did before the 12 week program. Or is it that I am grounded in the small mustard seed of faith that I’m eager to plant in myself in Jesus as the Gospel of Mark inspires me to?

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Mark 7 – Jesus arrived after the “sign” that was promised by the prophecy that Elijah would come again before the Messiah in John the Baptist. But many did not use the spiritual awareness to understand this. In the theme of preventing anticipation for political upheaval and convolution of the messianic message, he scoffs at the Pharisees’ request for a sign that he is the Messiah. Why? It’s not because he doesn’t want them to see - it’s already being revealed, but more importantly, it’s telling that they want the proof so they don't have to do the work of following him into the unknown.

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If you have "strong faith" in thin ice, you will drown. If you have "weak, trembling faith" in thick ice, you will be saved.

– Tim Keller, on the justification of faith

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We often mistake faith for a finished cathedral—a massive, vaulted structure of perfect doctrine and political foresight. We assume that to be "healed" is to have passed a final exam in theology.

But the desert roads of Mark tell a different story. They tell of a God who responds to the desperate, the messy, and the technically incorrect. The Syrophoenician woman didn’t have a manifesto; she just knew she was hungry and that even the dogs get the crumbs. Jesus doesn’t wait for us to understand the "soul" before He touches the "skin." He meets us in the physical ache, the immediate crisis, and the superstitious reach for the hem of a garment.

Why? Because faith isn’t a list of facts you’ve mastered; it is simply the direction of your hunger. He rewards the "simple" not to keep them small, but to prove that the Kingdom isn't a gated community for the enlightened. It’s a field where the seed is planted in the mud of our confusion, trusting that the growth happens in the quiet, long after the miracle is over.

LORD, is it really that simple? That we bring the desperation, and you bring the rest? I need to keep at the center of my devotions to you that progress isn’t knowing everything—it’s just turning toward You while I’m still blind.

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These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rule

– Mark 7:7, Jesus responding to the Pharisees with a reference to Isaiah

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John's death – for Herod to save his face and reputation in front of all his guests, not necessarily because he wanted to kill him himself. John must have sat in the dungeons, wondering where this coming Kingdom was that he was told by God to prophecy about. The more I read, the more the scales over my eyes are being lifted – it's never been about building a political system that adheres to Christianity. It has always been one of the heart, one of the soul – one that draws us back to the Creator.

The contrast between Herod's banquet and Jesus's banquet. One filled with social pressure to perform and adhere to social standards of elitism. The other filled with compassion, both for the soul and for the bellies of five thousand.

What do I need to let go of in my mind regarding the expectations that we have for how we are shaping political, economic, and social structures? We lift it to you.

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Mark 4 – parables that “hide” the upside down kingdom that was never intended to be used for political gain. I think about everything that is happening in the world today – Donald Trump and the power grab in Venezuela, the advent of artificial general intelligence and the conversations about the end of the world as we know it, the Epstein Files and its correlation to black mail tied to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It’s absolutely insane and there is a layer of justification caked over all of these efforts with the name of Jesus. Absolute hypocrisy at its finest.

I absorb scripture with less resistance this year than the past few years as it is so blatantly reflected in Mark 4 and the parable of the seeds you did not come here to save our political structures - you came to save our souls. And as much of a cop out that seems to have been, the salvation and restoration of our souls is all that we can hope for in this time.