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Two years ago, I was putting words to a voice memo I’d recorded during the worst of it. Three years of compounding losses had finally brought us to our knees—on a farm we’d willingly inherited. Here’s what I learned when the hits just kept coming—and why I’m still here.
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from getting hit year after year after year.
When it’s not just one bad season. When it’s three years of things going wrong in ways you couldn’t predict, couldn’t prevent, and couldn’t outwork.
On a farm you chose to take on.
That was 2021 through 2023 for us.
The Weight of a Willing Choice
Here’s something most farm bankruptcy stories don’t talk about: We willingly inherited this operation.
Nobody forced us into farming. We weren’t trapped by circumstances or family obligation. We looked at this farm, saw the opportunity, and said yes.
We chose this.
Which made everything that came after so much harder to swallow.
The Slow Bleed Nobody Talks About
Farm bankruptcy stories usually get told like they’re sudden catastrophes. One bad year. One wrong decision. One disaster that changes everything overnight.
That’s not how it happened for us.
It was three years of compounding losses. The kind that chip away at your reserves—financial and emotional—until one day you look up and realize there’s nothing left to hold on to.
2021-2023 brought us:
- Multiple groups of cattle that went upside down financially
- Custom cattle clients who didn’t pay their bills (and if you know cattle margins, you know how devastating that is)
- Severe storms that didn’t just damage crops—they damaged infrastructure
- The kind of cumulative losses that make you question every decision you’ve ever made
Especially the decision to say yes in the first place.
We started selling equipment. Anything extra. Downsizing piece by piece. Watching the operation we’d willingly taken on shrink month by month.
Somewhere in the middle of it all—I don’t even remember exactly when—I sat in my truck and recorded a voice memo. Trying to process what was happening. Trying to make sense of why we were still fighting when everyone around us was gently suggesting it was time to let go.
When you’ve willingly chosen something, walking away from it feels like admitting you were wrong from the start.
The Banker Who Said No (And Why We Found Another Way)
Here’s the thing: This wasn’t even our first time being told no.
Back in 2019, our farming banker said no to expanding into cattle. Just… no.
Most people would have stopped there. We didn’t. We created 76 Cattle—our direct-to-consumer beef brand. Built it from scratch. Found a way to get into cattle when traditional financing wasn’t available.
That scrappy determination that got us into cattle despite the banker’s no? That same stubbornness that made us say yes to inheriting the farm in the first place?
By 2023, it was starting to crack under the weight of reality.
You can only rebuild so many times before you start to wonder if you’re being faithful or just too stubborn to admit you made a mistake.
What Three Years of Loss Teaches You About Surrender
By the time I turned that voice memo into a blog post in March 2024—while we were filing Chapter 12 bankruptcy—I’d learned something I couldn’t have learned any other way.
God had brought us to a point of total and complete reliance on Him.
Not through one dramatic moment. Through three years of slow, steady stripping away of everything we thought we needed to be okay.
We had to take everything we’d built—and everything we’d chosen—and literally lay it on His altar.
The farm we’d willingly inherited. 76 Cattle, the brand we’d built from scratch when the banker said no. Our identity as the people who “made it work against all odds.” Our pride in never giving up. Our need to prove that saying yes was the right choice.
All of it.
Not in a “please bless this because we want to use it for You” way.
In a “You can take this. You can have it all. If this isn’t what we were supposed to choose” way.
Trusting that He would still provide. That He would give us what we needed and point us in the right direction—even if that direction was walking away from everything we’d willingly taken on.
Even if it meant admitting that maybe we’d been wrong.
What Changed When We Finally Stopped Fighting
By 2022, we were doing the practical things:
- Selling equipment
- Downsizing the cattle operation
- Preparing—emotionally and financially—for what felt like our “final year”
But we also did something that felt completely counterintuitive in the middle of the crisis: We started looking for open doors instead of trying to prove we’d made the right choice in the first place.
Every single day, we asked to be guided by clear open doors or very clearly shut doors.
And then—in the middle of 2022 and 2023, while we were still bleeding financially, while we were still selling equipment and preparing to quit—something happened.
Cattle started showing up.
Not because we were out hustling for business. Not because we had some brilliant marketing plan. We weren’t even looking. We were literally preparing to walk away.
People started calling. “Do you have room to background calves?”
We went from virtually empty pens to almost a full feedlot in a matter of months.
God was giving us clear, open doors to walk through—right in the middle of the storm.
So we did.
We kept walking through those open doors even as the losses continued. Even as we didn’t know if we’d still be farming in six months. Even as we moved toward filing bankruptcy.
By March 2024, when we officially filed Chapter 12 bankruptcy and I finally put that voice memo into writing, we’d learned something crucial: God’s provision doesn’t always mean the crisis is over. Sometimes it just means He’s giving you what you need to keep going through it.
Two Years After Filing: What the Journey Taught Me
Here’s where I’m supposed to wrap this up with a neat bow and tell you we’re completely recovered, right?
We’re not.
We’re still rebuilding. Still making decisions one open door at a time. Still trusting God when doors close—and they still do sometimes.
But here’s what’s different now:
✅ We learned that God can provide in the middle of the crisis—not just after it’s over
✅ We discovered that open doors don’t mean the struggle is finished—sometimes they just mean keep walking
✅ We found that surrender and provision can happen simultaneously—you don’t have to wait for one to get the other
✅ We learned that community matters more than proving we made the right choice when you’re in year three of things falling apart
The truth about farm financial crisis that nobody talks about: Sometimes God provides in the middle of the mess. The cattle showed up while we were still selling equipment. The pens filled while we were still preparing to quit. The doors opened while we were filing bankruptcy.
It doesn’t always make sense. It doesn’t mean the crisis is over. It just means He’s still there, still providing, still guiding—even when the foundation is crumbling.
You’re Not the Only One Carrying the Weight of Your Own Choices
If you’re reading this and you willingly chose this life… if you’re in year two or three or five of things going wrong on a farm you said yes to… if you’re exhausted from the cumulative weight of it all AND the pressure of proving you made the right choice…
You’re not behind. You’re not failing. Choosing something hard doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to struggle with it.
And you don’t have to walk through it alone.
I created a Facebook group for farm wives like us—women who chose this life and love it but are tired of pretending they have it all together. Women who need a safe place to talk about the real stuff: the compound losses, the years of struggle, the weight of willing choices, the fear, the faith that keeps us going even when the math hasn’t made sense for a very long time.
No hustle culture. No “you chose this” judgment. No “just trust God more” platitudes. Just real women, real struggles, and real community.
Join us here and find your people. Because sometimes the best thing you can do after years of fighting alone is finally admit that choosing something hard doesn’t mean you have to carry it alone.
What about you? What did you willingly choose that’s turned out harder than you expected? How has that affected your ability to ask for help? Come share in the group—these are the stories that free the rest of us from the shame of struggling with our own choices.
As I’ve grown as an entrepreneur, mom, gardener, and livestock owner, I struggled to find a planner that met my needs and kept me organized. So, I MADE MY OWN. You can look at it on the link below and buy it on Amazon.
Look inside the 2025 Planner 2026 is very similar
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