Hello beautiful friends! Welcome to my Messy Life in Progress. I am so happy to have you here and I hope the posts I share are helpful, uplifting, inspiring, and maybe even edifying on your walk with Christ through this messy life. My name is Jessica and I am a Sabbath keeping, Biblical Holy Day observing, God and Christ loving, mountain living, wife, mother, homemaker, boo-boo cleaner upper, homeschooler, and friend.
Many of you know me from my website Delicious Obsessions, where I have been a holistic health coach and blogger since 2009. On that site, I have spent the last 15+ years talking about all things real food, natural living, nutrition, and holistic health. I have been taking a break from one-on-one coaching for the last few years as my priorities and views on life have shifted and evolved. I may, at some point, get back into coaching, but I’m not sure.
I have worked in the food world for most of my life (starting at age 14), either in a restaurant setting or developing recipes for my website and national food brands. Food has been my passion for 3 decades now (wow, am I really that old?!), but over the last couple of years, I have started to lose that zeal for recipe development and all the topics that once lit me up. When I first started my blog in 2009, I was so fired up for sharing information about real food and natural living. I had been following the Weston A. Price Foundation for years and finally got to a point where I wanted to share that passion with others.
From 2009 to 2020, food, nutrition, and natural living were my primary areas of focus. Along the way, I added a bunch of nutrition and health/life coaching certifications, studied eating psychology, and thought I had FINALLY figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. In looking back, I am so thankful for all of this education but, what most people didn’t know (because I kept it hidden), is that I was struggling with an eating disorder and mental health issues that whole time. I actually had been struggling with those things for most of my life, although it was easier to ignore when I was young.
I constantly felt like a hypocrite because I had all of this information in my brain and surely I should know how to fix myself. But nothing I tried worked — tons of counseling, tons of professional training and education, reading every self-help/intuitive eating/body image/food psychology book out there… While I would go through periods of being “healed”, I would always relapse at some point, usually when an overly stressful thing happened and I would revert back to my comfortable habits and patterns with food. Over the last few years, I finally realized what was missing in my healing journey — God. I spent so much time on “self-help” that I forgot to look upward to the ultimate healer and helper. I have A LOT of work to do still, but this is one area that I will be discussing more on this site, because I know I am not alone.
When my son was born in the Spring of 2020, many things in my life shifted. One of the most important things is that God used his birth, and the chaos of the world at that time, to call me back to Him. And this time, I listened. I grew up attending church but left in my late teens/early 20s and went on a 20 year hiatus from anything religious. I feel like God started calling me back to Him in 2015, but I didn’t really start paying attention until my brother died suddenly in 2017. Things intensified after my Dad died in 2019 and then, once our little boy was born, my whole perspective on life shifted.
Since 2020, I have experienced so many things, both good and “bad”, although, I don’t really view anything as “bad” anymore. I have really come to believe and trust in God’s will for my life and I know that He will lead me where I need to go in order to refine and sanctify me in the way He knows is best. The “bad” things that happen in my life are typically caused by my own carelessness and stupidity, but God uses every single one of them to help me grow. Am I perfect at trusting the Lord in all things? Far from it. But, when I look back at where I was in 2020 (and before) and where I am now, I can see clearly God’s hand all over my life.
Way back in 2019, I thought of this blog name one day when I was throwing pottery at my local studio and I immediately purchased the URL. I didn’t know what, if anything, I would ever do with it. But in early 2025, shortly after my mom died, I kept feeling drawn to starting a new site to talk about all of the things that are most important to me now. I realized that at this point in my life, I care more about deepening my relationships with the Lord, my family, and my friends, than I do about creating recipes and writing about nutrition. Good nutrition — focusing on real, whole foods — is still important to me but it’s not something that fires me up like it used to.
So, here we are.
On this site, you can expect to find my musings about Christian living, motherhood, homemaking, homeschooling, and all the mess in between. There may occasionally be a foodie item thrown in there here and there, but it will only happen when I feel called to do it. For all things food, nutrition, and holistic health, please visit Delicious Obsessions where I have over 1,000 articles and recipes covering a wide array of nutrition and natural living topics. I dream of one day starting another podcast (check out my former podcast here), but that is something I’m not yet ready to pursue.
I am so thankful that you have stopped by and read this far. I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to reach out and contact me here if you have any questions or suggestions. Also, don’t forget to grab your free copy of My Daily Prayer Journal here. I created My Daily Prayer Journal from my own personal needs, but after speaking to others, I knew it could be helpful for others too.
I hope you’ll stick around and follow along as I share real life as it unfolds. We’re all in the midst of messes, but keeping our eyes focused on the Lord will get us through to the end.
Here’s to your messy life in progress, with love,
