Behind Project Joyful Family

Hi, I’m Jill.

I’m a mom, a widow, a list-maker, a convicted Martha, and apparently according to my kids a bit of a dork. I like order, although you probably wouldn't know that by looking at my life—or sometimes my house.

Life has given me plenty of opportunities to ask the harder questions: Do I really trust God? Do I believe He is good when life doesn't feel good? Do I really believe I'm His daughter when I can't see where He's leading me?

I'm just a mom who loves her kids and wants something good for her family. I know that doesn't mean pretending everything is good. Life can be really hard. But I also believe that if we want joy, we have to be willing to look for it—to see the good in each other, to notice the good still around us, and to ask God to help us see it when we can't.

Losing my husband, Mike, changed me. It deepened my faith and challenged it. It made me stronger in some ways, but also less secure—more aware of how fragile life is and sometimes more timid about living it. It also made me more determined to make faith something real for my kids.

And life kept changing.

Over the years, loss and circumstance brought more of our family together. What started with my kids and me moving in with my parents eventually grew into something that now vaguely resembles a family compound in the mountains. We're city people, so we're not particularly good at the homesteading part. But we are pretty good at showing up for each other.

My sister and her kids eventually joined us, and somewhere along the way we've found ourselves raising our kids together. I'm pretty sure neither of us would have drawn up our lives this way, but we lean on each other. We divide the responsibilities, help with each other's kids, hold each other accountable, and pick up the slack when the other one needs it.

She's also the person who pushed me to start writing again and is helping me turn Project Joyful Family into something more than an idea I've carried around for years. Right now, I'm the one doing the writing—but I'm hoping you'll hear from her eventually, too.

These days, life includes a house full of family, five teenagers, more relatives nearby, a lot of cooking, a lot of cleaning, and me frequently getting yelled at for putting someone's cup in the dishwasher when they were still using it.

It's messy. Sometimes it's absurd. We annoy each other, love each other, laugh at each other, and keep moving forward.

And that's where Project Joyful Family comes in.

This idea first came to me after Mike died, when my kids were little. But life looks very different now. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being my project. It's ours.

After a long season of life feeling very heavy, things are starting to get a little lighter. There is still grief and there is still change, but maybe it's time to let ourselves imagine what comes next. To make plans, even knowing they might change. To hope. To embrace something new without diminishing the people, the life, or the love that came before it.

So that's what I'm doing here.

I'm writing about faith when faith is hard. Family when family is messy. Grief, laughter, teenagers, dinner, dirty socks, ridiculous moments, and the ordinary work of trying to love each other well.

I don't have it all figured out.

But I keep trying.

Because having a joyful family is a project.