The newsletter was supposed to launch on December 2nd and I had a plan. I had the content ready. I even felt that particular kind of confidence that comes from checking every box ahead of schedule, the kind where you allow yourself a small, satisfied exhale because for once, you're not scrambling.

And then life happened.

It's December 10th now, and I'm writing this from the other side of a week that looked nothing like I expected. Not because I failed to prepare, but because preparation doesn't shield us from interruption. It never has.

It started with Pluto, our Great Dane. For three days, he didn't want to play. If you've ever loved a Great Dane, you know this is significant. Pluto is almost seven years old, but he still carries the energy of a puppy, jumping, fetching, bouncing through the house like he hasn't aged a day. Three days without play isn't a mood. It's a message. So when he stopped, we knew something was wrong.

The vet confirmed he had an infection, one that, left untreated much longer, could have turned fatal. Thankfully we caught it in time. Treatment came, and with it, relief so profound it felt like grace made tangible. The newsletter deadline suddenly seemed very small compared to the gift of more time with our big, goofy, beloved lugnut.

Then came the plumbing. A clogged pipe we didn't know existed. The kind of discovery that makes your stomach drop, until the plumber tells you that the cap breaking off is actually what saved us. Without that small failure, both bathrooms would have flooded. Yes, we would have caught the problem sooner, but the damage would have been exponentially greater. What looked like a problem was protection we didn't know we needed.

I share this not to dramatize a difficult week, but because I suspect you've had weeks like this too. The ones where you had a plan, and the plan had other plans.

We place so much trust in our systems. Our routines. Our carefully constructed rhythms. And those things matter, they create the scaffolding that holds daily life together. But somewhere along the way, I think many of us start believing that if we plan well enough, nothing will derail us. That if we're disciplined enough, prepared enough, faithful enough to our calendars and checklists, we'll finally achieve the elusive state of "having it together."

It's a comforting illusion, yet it s still an illusion.

Preparation matters. It just isn't a shield. Faithfulness shows itself most clearly when plans fall apart.

Ironically, the story I originally planned to share in that inaugural newsletter already carried this lesson.

A few years ago, my life held a rhythm that worked beautifully. I had a steady, committed yoga practice. Same time each day. Consistent movement. I felt grounded, capable, and aligned in my own body, like I had finally figured out this one corner of my life.

Then life changed. I married my husband after three years of long-distance dating, merged households, shifted routines, moved across the country, changed jobs more than once, and eventually helped plant a church. All good things. All meaningful things. And yet, in the midst of building a new life, my once-solid practice quietly unraveled.

I would restart for a few weeks, sometimes a few months, and then life would interrupt again. Each time, I carried a quiet sense of failure, like consistency was something I should have mastered by now. Like everyone else had figured out how to hold their lives together, and I kept dropping mine.

Eventually, something shifted. This time, I didn't return to the mat with a rigid plan or an ambitious goal. I didn't decide how many days a week I should practice or which poses I needed to conquer.

I changed the measure.

Instead of aiming for perfection or progress on paper, my goal became much simpler: to show up today with just a little more intention than I did yesterday. That might look like holding a plank one second longer. Or staying present in savasana when my mind wandered the day before. Or choosing a shorter, gentler practice instead of doing nothing at all.

Not every step forward is dramatic. Not every path is linear. But every purposeful action, every moment of recommitment, is growth.

This is what "Better than Yesterday" really means to me. It's not about linear progress or flawless execution. It's about recognizing that worse-than-yesterday days still count. That progress measured by grace lasts longer than progress measured by pressure. That faithfulness isn't flashy, but it's sustainable. It's the kind of growth that doesn't demand applause, only presence.

Showing up again is leadership. Not the kind that demands attention, but the kind that quietly builds a life worth living.

Choosing faithfulness over pressure. Progress defined with grace.

There's a verse I return to often: "His mercies are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23). I used to read that as a promise about God's forgiveness. I still do. But lately, I've also come to see it as an invitation, permission to begin again without carrying the weight of yesterday's shortcomings into today.

This week, I saw God's mercy in a Great Dane who's now back to his bouncy self. In a broken pipe cap that prevented something far worse. In the quiet reminder that interruption isn't the opposite of faithfulness, it's often the context for it.

God doesn't seem surprised by the interruptions. Maybe we shouldn't be either. Maybe grace has always been less about perfecting the plan and more about staying present when the plan unravels.

Maybe you're holding expectations of consistency that were never realistic. Maybe you've labeled as failure something that was actually just life being life. Maybe there's an area where you've been measuring progress by perfection instead of presence, and the weight of that measure has started to feel heavier than the thing you were trying to build.

If so, I want you to know: you're not behind. You're human. And showing up again, even late, even imperfectly, still counts.

This is why I started Better than Yesterday. Not to help women do more, but to remind us all that we are allowed to begin again. Each issue is a small offering, a reflection, a reframe, a gentle nudge toward grace-measured growth. No hustle. No pressure. Just faithfulness in small steps, and learning to measure progress with kindness toward ourselves.

If that sounds like something your inbox could use, I'd love to have you join me.

Click Here to Subscribe to the Better than Yesterday newsletter.

Starting late doesn't nullify the intention. The plan changed, but the purpose didn't. Today still matters, even if it looks nothing like yesterday. And the beautiful thing about grace? It doesn't keep score the way we do.

Today counts. And tomorrow, we can show up again.