We never really know what we are building with our lives. I try so hard to understand what it’s all about. I pray for vision, I research my past for clues, I desperately seek God for the next step. This is the life of faith. And though we may think our lives will look one…
Tag: grief
Every Morning I Wake in an Ocean (Chapter 4 Read Aloud of The Sacred Everyday Book, available exclusively on the podcast, epsiode #37)
This chapter is a collection of writings that were born out of many difficult seasons of my life. The exhaustion of motherhood, the weight of raising a family, the struggle to find my breath after grief knocked the wind out of me. I share my search for hope and beauty in spite of, and often…
Standing in the Hallway of Sorrow (Chapter 3 Read-Aloud about The Search for Beauty in Grief) Podcast #36
Today I send my most vulnerable and intimate words out into the world, written at moments in my life when grief was shaking me down to the very core. In this chapter of my book, I share about miscarriage and the death of my beautiful mother. These words chronicle the numbing pain of loss, the…
I Go Back to the Ocean of My Childhood
When you were a childdid you lose yourself at the seashoreand forget life aches? Did you run to the waters laughing? I go backto the ocean of my childhoodwhere I was a girlphotographed by my mother,my father looking out to sea I want the waves to whisper somethingbut they are stillsuspended in memorythey do not…
Sometimes Small Hopes Die
Sometimes small hopes die. And there is a grief that comes to us that cannot be measured by reason. A future that has lived in the illuminated imagination of the mind is set backward in time and exists only in shadowy remembrance. Upon the sunrising, we are met with a difficult choice: To live in…
Hope on the Inhale
hope on the inhaleafter the gut-punchthe diagnosis, bleak prognosislook into the mirrorbut your eyes can’t focuson any beauty but what’s lost hopeon the inhalein the breaking of headlinesthat beat on the shoreline, the rising of feartidesthat pull you back into despair hopeon the inhaleafter the deep sighafter the long cryafter the fists-raised-why hopeon the inhaleafter…
Grief and the Path to Beauty (Podcast Episode 2)
You can also listen and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Sit down at the table with me as I wrestle to understand grief, how it lingers with us, how it changes over time, and how it can ultimately lead us into a greater appreciation and gratitude for the beauty in our lives….
Early Morning Read Alouds
Have you heard about my newest project? It’s called Early Morning Read Alouds. In these daily Facebook Live videos, I sit at my kitchen table (after just rolling out of bed around 4:30 a.m.) and share my heart and writing. I love doing this! And I am honestly a little surprised that I have been…
Looking Deeply Inside Myself (The beautiful work of journaling)
5:17 a.m. My eyes open in bed. I had a dream that woke first my mind, then my body. My face is pressed against a sweet, softly-sleeping baby. In the dark I lift him up and carry him across the room to place him gently in his crib. He doesn’t wake. A small miracle. I…
First Birthday (love song for a baby)
You came to me from a distant landThe secret place of my innermost beingYou traveled miles and milesTo find me You came in the space between my two greatest sorrows. When the lamp of my womb went out, suddenlyLeaving me with a cold-wind feelingLike the door to every chamber of my heartHad been left blowing…
Broken Open-Hearted Love
Yesterday I learned that a dear friend is dying. There is no time to visit. No time to wrap up loose ends. This news just rips it all back open–that wound that I thought was nearly healed. The blow from my fall where I realized that death is actually a part of the human story….
Vision and Hindsight, A Tale of Two Lists
The year flew by. This morning I was sitting at the kitchen table, lamenting all the things that I meant to do last year–my open journal with the list I scribbled down, wide-eyed, like a child on her birthday, a January ago. Beautiful vision. And just like that, I blinked, and those twelve months are…