A RETURN BEFORE IT WAS A NAME.
Holistic Return began as a personal return. I stepped away from the noise to rest, to wander, and to remember why I started – to remember who I am and how I was made. (I mention that a lot here.)
Along the way, I found that the greatest break-throughs came in the quietest of moments. The moments where time almost stands still – and every muscle in your body stands still with it. It was in the twilit and magical of the ordinary: the soft sun just before the sun sets, driving for miles in open country, honest food, and materials that carry a purpose far deeper than their label.
The journey, it turned out, was the medicine. But that medicine didn’t come easy. And it certainly didn’t go down with a spoonful of sugar. It was something I neither asked for nor would have chosen for myself. But it was everything I needed.
So I came back to share it – the questions, the small revelations, the lessons that keep arriving. Not as someone with the map, but as someone a little farther down the same road.
Because at the core of overcoming a season of storms and darkness, is the deep knowing that there is a life within you yearning to be lived.
— the road less traveled by –
MY NAME IS LISETTE
It’s a derivative of the Hebrew name for Elisheva meaning “consecrated to God.” And He is woven into the tapestry of my story. It is the soil from which everything else grows.
I am a wife. A woman. A mother. A homeschool teacher. A homemaker.
But I am also a daughter. A sister. An aunt. A cousin. A friend.
My days are filled with the ordinary and the sacred – home, homeschool lessons, prayer, meals, laundry, lessons in the rowdy moments, and learning to slow down so I can listen well in the midst of rushing seasons.
I’m a homeschool mom. A boy mom raising men going through childhood. It is the patient work of building character, courage, honor, and nobility; of building a reverence we can only model and marvel in awe as we watch it take root.
I am a wife. I am a partner. Equal, not the same, but just as powerful. The shedding of what the world told me I was supposed to want versus the gradual uncovering of a design that already fits so perfectly well – if I just let it.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
– robert frost
But I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep…”
THIS IS NOT THE END
The story is by no means complete. I’m still learning what it means to be present in every stitch and every thread in the weaving of my tapestry. I’m still learning to trust the deepest part of me that knows things I cannot see or verify, and calling that struggle faith instead of failure. I, too, am learning what it means to live out my design.
I am a friend, learning what it means to be worthy of the friends I’ve kept. A reflection of the friends who’ve kept me, who have loved me and loved on me while I was wandering the desert. Friends who stayed through the quiet seasons. Friends who remained a constant, my North Star if you will, in the comings and goings of a heart still struggling to find its footing. Friends who spoke life into a parched soul.
— what endures –
AN INHERITANCE
Holistic Return is my way of turning around to say, “you’re not alone, friend. There’s light this way.”