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…
Tag: mackenzie chester
My New Book: Chapter 2 Read Aloud
I have been looking so forward to today, knowing I would be reading the next chapter of my book, The Sacred Everyday: A Search for the Exquisite Beauty of an Ordinary Life. This book does not yet exist in print form, and you can only find it here on my podcast, where I’m releasing these…
Dear Friends (Family Newsletter)
Dear friends, For some time, I have been wanting to write a newslettery kind of post to let you know a little more about my life, our family, and what is going on in my heart. At the end of the post, I will be asking you a question–feel free to respond in the comments,…
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….
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…
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…
The Sleeping Face of My Beautiful Boy
After the lullaby, I see the sleeping face of my beautiful boy, two years old. And at once, all the world is still. Time moves forth from this moment in reluctant ripples. Slow-moving reflections of memories, past and future that will become a whole life. Separate from my own, but always flowing in and out…
my heart trembles and sings
my own dear child eyes of bluest bright, alight body in holy motionbrimming over with lifesongand the beating, beating, beating heart beautiful breath that flows inside you like a melody for the gift of your love and living presence my heart trembles and sings (This is the image I saw outside my office window as…
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…
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…
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…