The Jar Is Not Even Halfway Full

I am sitting here on a random Saturday morning, holding my son, and I cannot stop thinking about how grateful I am for this life.

It happens like this sometimes. No particular trigger. Just a quiet moment where it all lands at once and I find myself almost overwhelmed by it. A girl from Upington in South Africa, sitting in Perth, Australia, with her own little family. If you had told teenage me that this is where I would end up, I probably would’ve laughed in your face.

But here I am.

I think it is so easy to forget how far we have come. We move so fast from one thing to the next, always chasing the next milestone, the next goal, the next version of our lives, and in the rushing we miss the fact that we are already living in something we once prayed for. I know I do this. I am doing it less now, but I know I do it.

I also think about the people who are no longer here. Friends and family who should be sitting in their own Saturday mornings and are not. And it makes me sad, genuinely sad, but it also makes me hold this life a little tighter. Because I get to be here.

That is everything…

If you know our story, you know that Callan did not come easily. We tried for a while. There were hard seasons, a misdiagnosis, many negative tests, a lot of tears, and at least one moment where I was standing in my kitchen asking God what he was doing. And in that moment, clear as anything, I felt it: fast. Just fast. Get yourself right, get yourself ready, because the blessing is coming and you need to be in the right place to receive it.

It was around the end of January 2025. I felt so deflated that day. And then I just started. Five days, no food, just God and a lot of quiet. I have never felt closer to him than in those five days. Well, except maybe during labour, where I was very loudly reminding him that I could not do this without him and he needed to show up immediately.

He did, as usual.

Callan is everything I prayed for and more than I knew to ask for. And I have to remind myself of that in the sleep deprived moments, in the moments where he is pulling himself up on something he absolutely should not be pulling himself up on for what feels like the millionth time.

These are the moments I prayed for. I need to sit in them.

Which brings me to the jar.

At the end of 2024, my friends and I made prayer boards. We also made gratitude jars. The idea is simple — whenever something good happens, you write it on a little piece of paper and drop it in the jar. When it is full, you open it and read everything back. A little archive of your own goodness.

And that is not because my life has not been full of good things. It absolutely has. It is because I keep moving past them without stopping to write them down. Something beautiful happens and I think, yes, that’s lovely, and then I am already onto the next thing. The jar sits there, half empty, while my life has been overflowing.

I want to change that. I talk about slow living, I write about it, I think about it constantly, but I think the version of slow living I am actually reaching for is rooted in this. In gratitude. In being intentional enough to notice the good things while they are happening, not just in hindsight.

So here is what I am going to do. I am going to start paying attention to the jar again. Writing things down. Sitting in the moments instead of sprinting through them.

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And if you want to do it with me, get yourself a jar. It does not have to be pretty. Write one thing today — just one — something you are grateful for right now in this exact season of your life. Put it in the jar. And let’s do this together.

I’ll share mine if you share yours.