I have dealt with paralyzing fear for much of my life. As a child and a teenager, when I fell in love, became a wife, when I became a mother, when I wanted to follow dreams in my heart that were impractical and deeply rooted in my soul–every step of the way, fear has steadily…
Author: mackenziechester
My name is Mackenzie Chester. I am a wife and mother of eight. Welcome to my blog, The Sacred Everyday, where I write about waking up to the miracle of ordinary life.
Love Like Ocean Waves
It’s the ocean again. This time in a dream. I found out two friends would be traveling there, and I silently imagined myself asking them if they would mind if I tagged along. Without the fare of gas, with a place to stay, without a family to care for. There would be nearly no expense….
Translating the Heart: A Personal Journaling Retreat
Most of the time, I do not even know what I think or feel until I write it out. I have often thought that journaling is a way of taking thoughts captive, and once you see thoughts on paper, you can see them for what they are—truth or lies, something to hold onto, or something…
Birth, Motherhood, and Wholehearted Surrender (Podcast #32)
I have written a lot about birth on this blog. God has used it like nothing else in my life as a metaphor for wholehearted surrender. In today’s podcast, I share a bit about birth, about surrendering hopes, surrendering regrets, surrendering fears, and ultimately surrendering our whole hearts to God. I hope this is an…
Open Journal: Heidi’s Birth Journal
Because I have eight children, people often assume that I just breeze my way through pregnancy and birth and that it is no big deal to me by now. If you have been with me any amount of time, you probably already know how life-changing every one of these births have been for me. How…
The Memory of an Unexpected Rain
The time we left the little houseIn a whispering rainAnd ran to the shore,Umbrellas in handI became, again, a child,My daughters, dearest friendsWe three, splashing, fully dressedIn the lapping wavesAnd laughing. The experience I imagined in full sunSand glittering, shore shining,A perfect day at sea,Dimmed, bending to theShimmery silver and muted beautyOf an unexpected rain…
Secrets in Every Story
There are secrets in every story. What we show the world is a carefully curated set of words and images to represent an entire life. Most often, the details we leave out are of greater importance than the ones that we can speak out in a coherent sentence. We are so much more than our…
Searching for More (Podcast #30)
It is human nature to want more. We are so easily caught up in the search–a better life for our children, a more meaningful existence, convenience, efficiency, easier, faster, better… There is a searching that leaves us restless with what we have been given. And there is another searching that steps back, reevaluates what we…
My Daughter Plays the Piano
My daughter plays the piano and I am carried through time. I hear the first chorded cry, after the lifesong of her body broke open my womb and burst forth like a melody. Our voices, separate, but blended as one. The movement of her youth is passed. A lively staccato that made us dance and…
Walk Through My Journal
I started this journal last May, the day Haven was born. My first entry is a prayer of gratitude, written in the hospital hours after that sweet baby was placed in my arms. Journaling is the way I pray, the way I process my life, the way I move from fear or discontentment into a…
Nothing is Wasted: Motherhood and the Surrendered Life (Podcast #29)
When I look back over what I dreamed my life would be 19 years into my marriage, I could not have imagined the impact motherhood would have on me. So many of the goals and aspirations of my life have shifted and refocused themselves into the everyday rhythms and rituals of raising a family and…
Rhythms for Motherhood and the Creative Life (Podcast 28)
This is the story of my life as a creative soul–going all the way back to my childhood, my teenage years, the early years of college and marriage, and then into the wonderful and difficult and all-consuming seasons of motherhood (15 years and 8 children into it..). I share the things I truly needed as…