THRIVING: A Six-Month Check-In

Six months ago, I came out swinging.

As 2025 limped across the finish line, bruised and battered, I planted my flag in a single word for 2026: THRIVING.

Not surviving. Not enduring. Not "making it through." Thriving.

I wrote about abundance, opportunity, joy, prosperity, creativity, speaking on stages, publishing books, performing again, making buckets of money, and finally stepping into a bigger version of the life I felt God had been preparing me for all along. I was tired of feeling like I was constantly recovering from one thing only to get hit by the next. I wanted momentum. Expansion. A holy "watch this" moment.

And honestly? I believed it was coming.

So now that we're halfway through the year, I figured it might be time for a little check-in.

How's that whole THRIVING thing going, Jere?

Well, for starters, God has not yet made me a bestselling author, internationally sought-after keynote speaker, Broadway star, and millionaire.

Frankly, I feel like we've all waited long enough.

I was fully prepared for Him to open the heavens, pour out blessings beyond measure, and maybe throw in a six-figure book deal and the new orange VW bus while He was at it. Instead, He seems to have gone with His favorite approach: growth.

Which, if I'm being honest, is a little annoying.

Because growth is slower than miracles. Less flashy than breakthroughs. Harder to post about on social media. But truth be told, I did get many of the things I was hoping for—they just looked different. 

Somewhere over the last six months, something shifted. I realized I was spending so much time looking for the next thing that I wasn't fully appreciating the thing God had already given me.

The truth is, I spent a good chunk of the last year or so trying to "level up," which I now know mostly translated into "get out."

Applying for jobs.
Interviewing.
Sending resumes.
Chasing opportunities.
Wondering if my next chapter was somewhere else.

And then somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened. I stopped looking and things have started happening.

Not all at once. Not dramatically. No flashing neon signs from heaven. Just a quiet series of moments that slowly convinced me I might already be standing in the middle of the thing I'd been praying for. Which is ironic, because for years I was convinced my next chapter was somewhere else.

Not because every problem magically disappeared. Not because everything suddenly became easy. Not because I woke up one morning with absolute certainty about the future.

I stopped looking because, for the first time in a long time, I started noticing what was right in front of me.

I spent a year building a theatre program from the ground up at Mesa High that feels like it's just beginning to discover what it can become. We produced Footloose. Our students performed on the stage at Gammage. We sold out every performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream before opening night. I watched students grow, take risks, find confidence, and discover parts of themselves they didn't know were there. I got to build relationships with students, families, and colleagues.

And maybe most surprisingly of all, I found myself falling in love with teaching again.

Not every day. Let's not get crazy.

But enough days that I started paying attention. Enough days that I stopped obsessing over the next door and started investing in the one that was already open. And I've started preparing for what next year will look like.

And maybe that's because while I was busy looking for the next chapter, life kept happening.

My daughter left on a mission. One of the greatest joys and hardest heartbreaks of my year happened on the same day.

Allyson and I celebrated twenty-four years of marriage this spring. Twenty-seven if you count the dating years. Twenty-seven years of first apartments, tight budgets, raising kids, career changes, victories, heartbreaks, laughter, grief, and everything in between. Somewhere along the way, she stopped being just the person I married and became the person I've built an entire life with. The older I get, the more I realize what a miracle that really is.

When I wrote my original THRIVING post back in January, I spent a lot of time talking about what I hoped would happen this year. What I somehow forgot to mention is that one of the greatest blessings of my life was already sitting right beside me. Through every dream, disappointment, detour, and reinvention, she's been there. And that's a kind of thriving I probably didn't appreciate enough. Honestly, I can't imagine telling this story without her in it.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I found myself growing too.

Not in the flashy, "look at me crushing my goals" kind of way. In the quieter, deeper, harder-to-measure ways.

I became more comfortable in my own skin. I stopped apologizing for who I am. I started making peace with the fact that my journey isn't supposed to look like anyone else's.

And perhaps one of the things I'm most proud of is this blog.

Not because it's become wildly successful or because I've gone viral or landed a publishing deal. I'm proud of it because I kept showing up. Week after week. Story after story. Even when I wasn't sure I had anything worth saying.

I made a promise to myself that I would write honestly, and for six months I've done exactly that. More importantly, people have responded because I think they see pieces of themselves in my questions. And that has been one of the greatest gifts of this entire year.

Now before anybody starts sending me inspirational memes about manifesting abundance, let's keep this thing honest.

I didn't become a millionaire. My book isn't published. Nobody has called asking me to keynote a national conference. My back still hurts. The credit cards still exist. I still miss my mom. I still have nights where I stare at the ceiling wondering what exactly I'm doing with my life. I still wrestle with anxiety. I still compare myself to other people. I still have moments where I wonder if I've somehow missed my shot. 

And perhaps most importantly, I still have absolutely no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

At almost fifty years old, that feels like information I should probably have by now.

The difference is that six months ago I thought thriving meant the absence of those things. Now I'm starting to wonder if thriving means learning how to live a beautiful life while they're still there.

Maybe that's why this whole Living in the And thing has resonated with so many people—including me. Because the older I get, the more convinced I am that life is rarely one thing or the other.

I can be grateful and grieving.
Successful and struggling.
Confident and uncertain.
Hopeful and exhausted.
Financially stressed and deeply blessed.
I can miss my mom and still laugh until my stomach hurts.
I can ache for bigger opportunities while genuinely loving the life I'm living right now.
I can be thriving and still have hard days.

What I've loved most about committing to write consistently this year is discovering that Living in the And isn't just the title of a blog. It isn't a catchy phrase or a clever tagline. It's the lens through which I increasingly understand my own life.

What I love about this reflection is that it isn't really becoming a goal review. It's becoming a story about maturity. January Jere was ready for God to change his circumstances. June Jere is beginning to wonder if God was changing him all along. That's a much deeper story.

Looking back, I can see that I spent a good chunk of the last year trying to "level up," which, if I'm being brutally honest, mostly translated into trying to get out. Out of uncertainty. Out of discomfort. Out of waiting. Out of wherever I happened to be standing at the time. But that's not just a job thing. That's a life thing. I think a lot of us spend so much time waiting for the next chapter to begin that we forget to fully live the one we're already in.

And when I look back over everything I've written this year—Potential Is the Ugliest Word; Fine Is Not the Finish Line; Living in the And; Everything Ends. That's Why It Matters; The Exhaustion of Running From Myself; and now this—I realize they've all been wrestling with the same question:

What if the life I'm looking for isn't somewhere else?

Not because ambition is bad or growth is bad. But because contentment and aspiration don't actually have to be enemies.

Maybe that's another "and."

Maybe I can still dream bigger, hope for more, write the book, speak on the stages, and chase the opportunities God places in front of me while also refusing to put my life on hold until they happen.

Maybe thriving isn't found in finally arriving somewhere else. Maybe it's found in fully showing up where I already am.

So where does that leave me for the next six months?

Honestly?

I don't know.

And for perhaps the first time in a very long time, I mean that in a good way.

Six months ago, I thought I needed a detailed roadmap. A five-year plan. A crystal-clear vision of exactly where God was taking me and how He intended to get me there.

Today, I find myself a little less interested in controlling the destination and a little more interested in paying attention to the journey.

That's not me giving up on my dreams.

I still want to write the book.
I still want to speak.
I still want to perform again if I can physically handle it.
I still want to direct meaningful work.
I still want financial freedom.
I still want to make an impact.

Those desires haven't gone away.

But I'm no longer willing to postpone my happiness until they arrive.

For the rest of 2026, I want to keep writing. Keep building. Keep creating. Keep showing up. Keep trusting. Keep becoming.

I want to continue investing in the people and opportunities God has already placed in front of me instead of constantly scanning the horizon for something different. I want to stay open to whatever comes next without becoming so obsessed with the future that I miss the present.

Most of all, I want to remain teachable.

Because if the first six months of this year taught me anything, it's that God's plans are usually better than mine—even when they don't look anything like the version I wrote in my journal.

So here I am.

Six months into my Year of THRIVING.

Not richer. Not more famous. Not standing on a stage accepting an award while inspirational music swells in the background.

But maybe a little wiser. A little more grounded. A little more grateful. A little more present.

And surprisingly, that feels a lot like thriving too.

If the first half of 2026 has taught me anything, it's this: life rarely unfolds the way we expect it to. The prayers get answered differently. The blessings arrive in disguises. The lessons take longer than we'd prefer.

But sometimes, when we stop looking so hard for the next thing, we discover that God has been quietly working in the current thing all along.

So here's to the next six months.

Here's to staying open. Here's to becoming even more authentically and genuinely me. Here's to continuing to live in the and. And here's to seeing what happens when I stop trying to get somewhere else and fully embrace where I already am.

Check back with me again in December. We'll see how this whole thriving thing is going.

If these first six months have taught me anything, it's that God tends to tell better stories than I do.

And I'm excited to see what He writes next.