(This page was last updated on June 26, 2022.)
Hello! Thank you for visiting my blog and swinging by my “About Me” page. This blog is primarily about two things: my life, in general, and my faith journey.
So… about me….
My life
My name is Rachel. I’ve been married to Tim since December 2005. I’m a dog mom to a seven(ish)-year-old rescued Pittie named Jaxx. We live in the farming/prairie region of south Puget Sound in Thurston County. Our property is on 4.5 acres about 18 miles from Olympia and 70 miles south of Seattle. Mt. Rainier towers over the area where we live, and it’s always a thrill when “the mountain is out!” We are beginning our journey as small-time farmers, so stay tuned for that! We began a small farming operation in Spring 2022 to grow some of own own food, but had to scale back our plans this year due to illness I have been dealing with.
I live with chronic pain, having poorly controlled Rheumatoid (or Psoriatic) Arthritis – my doctors can’t decide which one I have. I also have pseudo-gout, terrible knees, and some other issues that sometimes limit my mobility and take me to dark, dark places mentally.
My faith
I have been chasing a deeper relationship with God for more than 20 years now, and that chase has taken me to some incredible places.
Religiously, I have been on a life-long journey and presently find myself very theologically conservative. Faith, and seeking God, has been a focus of mine since I was in my early 20s. Honestly, I sometimes wish it wasn’t so important to me, but it is. Connecting deeper with God has been the goal, and it has taken me down some very different roads.
I was raised non-denominational Christian in a teeny-tiny country church before we stopped going when I was in my early teens. I converted to Roman Catholicism in 2006 in order to marry Tim, but we left Catholicism in 2009 for Protestantism (specifically, United Methodism) because of the sex abuse scandal that left us sick and disgusted. I then left Christianity completely in 2014, and began practicing Judaism in 2015. I officially converted to Judaism via Reform Judaism but through a Reconstructionist rabbi in 2017 after living as a Jew for two years. I thought I had found my “spiritual home” in Judaism and threw myself into it, and while I was satisfied in Judaism for a while, I became really frustrated with the religion itself and disillusioned with my religious community during the pandemic. I went from happy and satisfied to miserable and feeling like God was so, so very far out of my reach. I felt like I was pretending because Hebrew wasn’t my language and these holidays weren’t what I celebrated while growing up and didn’t have any real connection to, emotional or otherwise.
And then, out of nowhere (but really somewhere because He was there all along), Jesus came knocking. Through some deeply personal, private experiences that occurred during 2020/2021, I realized that I made a lot of poor choices based on my anger at Christians in general. Because of the disgusting, completely misguided support of Trump (an opinion that is not up for debate and is a hill I will die on) from so many Christians, coupled with my admitted complete lack of actually knowing WHO Jesus is (fact: I had never even read the New Testament), I not only rejected the religion but Jesus Christ. I have since realized that I will never be happy living Jewishly as it’s not the faith in which I was raised, always felt foreign to me, and it was never a “fit” but an escape. I am no longer Jewish.
After quietly accepting that my home was, in fact, in Christ during early 2021, I earnestly dove into His Word, and I feel in love with Him – truly in love with Him – for the first time in my adult life. I “officially” returned to Christianity via Catholicism that fall, repented of my apostasy, and began to explore life as a new, “born again” Christian. I quickly remembered the many issues I have with Rome, though, and decided that, although I came back to Christ through Catholicism, that was decidedly not where He was calling me to be. My theology is predominantly Wesleyan in nature, with a hint of Anabaptist theology thrown in for good measure. My search for theologically conservative Wesleyanism led me the Church of the Nazarene. I have since found the most fantastic church with pastors who preach a convicting message and the most warm, welcoming, prayerful, and worshipful congregation. I have a long way to go but righting my wrongs, correcting my mistakes, and above all, loving Jesus, is my goal.
Life on Wild Hare Farm 
Captivated is a good way to put it. My husband uses the word obsessed.
Sorry I’m just now seeing this comment! But obsessed is probably the more honest word, because when I love something, I LOVE something!
I love your work. Especially how you write smuckleberry. I recently found your new story about puck crashing a jet and reconnecting with rachel. It was really good. I saw on your blog that you’re going tro come back to seattle in aug. That’s my town! seattle’s awesome. ANyways, I hope you keep writing puckleberry. you write them so well. Just saying. 🙂
Puckleberry will always pop back up. They are the shipping love of my life, so I’m not sure I’ll ever leave them behind for good!
Great writing and a true joy to read! Thanks for putting it out there for the rest of us to devour and enjoy!
Aww thank you!
You are truly an interesting person. I just read where you now live near Seattle. I love the northwest. My parents lived north of Seattle in Stanwood for about 30 years so I’ve been out there many times. Well, I’m going back to reading more of your writing…
Rachael…great to meet a fellow blogger who shares a passion for writing. Interesting about your fondness for the forties era…perhaps you lived a previous life during that time and it was cut short. Thank you for visiting and following my blog…I am thoroughly enjoying reading my way through yours! Merry Christmas from Canada!
Thank you! If you scroll back far enough, you will see my entry about the haunted radio! And you might not be far off about a past life in the 40s. Sometimes I feel like I miss it!!!!
Strange to see from all those trinitarian faiths you did not come ot accept Jesus as the way to God , him being the Messiah, but choose for a faith where they still look for the Messiah, except when you would have chosen for Messianic Jews or Jeshuaists.
May we do hope you consider your quest for the God of Israel and come to see that in Christianity there are many groups who worship the Only True God of Israel and not a Trinity. If you would like to become a Jew, why would you not become one who accepts Jeshua as their Messiah?
Because a true Jew does not see Jesus as the Messiah. And I do not see Jesus as the Messiah. You do, that’s great. But my studies have shown my otherwise, which is why I rejected Christianity and chose the path I did. Have a nice day.
Raised Protestant, marrying a Catholic and first converting to that trinitarian faith we do not know if the Anabaptist church you attended for a while was a trinitarian or a non-trinitarian one.
Pity you never really believed the Jesus story. but good to see that what you believed about God resided within Judaism, because there is the base of everything, also of the real Christian faith (= non-trinitarian faith). Lovely to hear that after a long conversion process under the tutelage of a rabbi, you entered the mikveh and emerged in a new way of thought and of life.
Having gone to the basic faith of People of God we can only hope that you shall come to see that rebbe Jeshua was a special man who opened the way to God for all people.
We noticed you had already some good conversation with some Jehovah’s Witnesses and do hope you also shall meet other true christians who believe in the Only One true God, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah. We also do hope you shall be able to meet other Jews who have found that Jeshua (Jesus Christ) is the way to God. It would not be bad to have a look at the thoughts and teachings of real Messianic Jews (the non-trinitarian Messianics) and real followers of the Jewish master teacher Jeshua, the Jeshuaists for example.
In any case we wish you a blessed life with lots of opportunities to grow in the faith God wants you to have (because in the end it is always He Who calls His people).
I’m only approving this comment so that I can reply. I understand that you’re trying to “make believers of all nations,” but:
1) I don’t need to be evangelized. I don’t come to your site to talk to push my beliefs on you, and I’d appreciate the same respect from you. I was a Christian for my entire life until a few years ago. I’m WELL-VERSED in both trinitarian and non-trinitarian Christian beliefs. I’m highly educated and have been a student of religion for most of my adult life. It’s not a lack of understanding that led me away from Christianity – it was discovering the truth through study that showed me that Christianity is false.
2) “Jews that have found Jeshua” as you put it are not Jews at all. Messianic “Jews” are Christians who use Jewish practices as part of their worship, but the Jewish world does not recognize them as Jewish. Anyone who sees Jesus as the Messiah is a Christian, not a Jew. They can claim Judaism as their own all they want, but it is not true.
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Hey Rachel. My name is Sherry Lott Hays. If you look in Capt Pete, you will find my dad’s name, Ellis Lott. He was the Asst Tank Commander. I was very lucky and got to talk to your Great Uncle at length. He actually came down to Louisiana and visited with my father. My dad had so much respect for CPT Pete. He even was in contact with his wife. Did you know that their tank was featured in Popular Mechanics while they were at Fort Knox. I have pictures and my brother actually has the magazine. Dad was captured and spent 813 days as a POW. What an amazing and great generation.
Hi, Sherry! I sent you an email. Did you get it?
I guess I missed it, sorry. I went back and looked the only things I see are 3 messages, including this one, about following 14th and Oak,