Journaling is the best way to travel through time. This post is a collection of journal entries that span the Decembers of the last 25 years of my life. I wrote the first when I was just 15 years old. I am surprised at the person I used to be, and I am amazed at…
Tag: childbirth
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…
Motherhood Begins With Surrender
Motherhood begins with surrender.For the sake of love, yes,but surrender all the samethe body the mind the soul the spiritbends to the body that breaks openthe womb, the silent seedthat buries itself into the earthof the secret place within If birth isn’t surrenderForget everything I’ve ever saidOr don’t you remember when all you could do…
The Birth Story of Haven McCabe
Our baby’s due date came and went without the first sign of nearing labor. Each following day could have been the perfect beginning of a birth story. The day Randy discovered the song of the wood thrush and absorbed himself in writing a piece of music using the intervals of the bird’s song. There was…
Beauty in the Midst of Darkness
There is so much darkness in this world. It presses in against us. In the middle of the night, it enters into our minds in the quiet spaces and works to leave a shadow that lingers even when the morning comes. We wake to light, but its brilliance is dimmed by the memory of those…
Singing Out a Baby, the Birth Story of Rune O’Carolan Chester
“I am walking into this labor differently than I ever have before. I am walking into it with a spirit of fight. Not just trying to keep my peace, not just trying to stay calm, not just surviving and getting to the other side. I am walking into this labor with the desire to put…
The Poetry of This Morning (On the Day Before My Due Date)
The poetry of this particular morning is not lost on me. May 15. The day before my due date. I woke early this morning after a night of mild, sporadic contractions, wondering if today will be the day that we will meet our son. It could happen at any moment. The waves of contractions reminded…
On Words (In every storm, mercy…)
Words are a comfort to me. They press in around me while I am lying awake in bed. I can feel the word mercy wrap me up like a weighted blanket. I have heard the heavy clank and felt the ground shake under the weight of that word as it anchored my soul to the…
Having Children: A Spiritual Journey
Over the last few weeks, I have been rereading old blog posts and speculating about my life. The past year has been both incredibly sweet and difficult, trying to balance daily life with six young children with all the demands of three meals a day, the never-ending laundry, growing a home business, homeschool, planning for…
Waiting on Azalea Jane, a birth story
I am writing this weeks after Azalea was born, and it reminds me of the way you feel the next morning after waking up from a nightmare. In the middle of the night, a dream can feel so terrifying. Your heart is pounding. You felt that it was so real. The next morning, when you…
The Best Day of My Life
Tomorrow is my due date. I can hardly believe that in a few short hours or days, the secret face of this child will be revealed, and we will be holding her in our arms. God has done a huge miracle in my life to make me brave for this day. I wrote in my…