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: mourning
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….
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…
Grief is a River
Grief is a river that now runs through my life. Sometimes it is slow and steady, passing gently over rocks of remembrance, pooling up in beautiful, idyllic scenes where the late afternoon sun brushes through the trees and paints the waters and the riverbank in bright splashes of quivering light. The aching beauty of having…
My Beautiful Dying Mother, A Birth Story
Mama had nine children. I am the youngest, and I have often felt a deep sense of gratitude that she surrendered her life to this process so many times. I see it as no small miracle that I even exist in the world. And that my seven children exist. Mama was always the first person…
Being There (On the Shores of Life and Loss)
A week ago we cried over the body of my beloved Mother. She is gone. This keeps hitting me like ocean waves, one after the other. How it swells. How it breaks. It all seems like a dream. The next day was of course a birthday. My daughter’s third. The only time to cry was…
Marking a Season
I miscarried nine days before our 15th anniversary. There we sat, across the table at a little cafe, drinking coffee together. Our six living children were home with a friend who gave us the day together to celebrate our marriage. The week before, Randy and I had privately laid the whisper of a body down…
Miss and Carry (A Little Life Remembered)
I miscarried nine days before our 15th anniversary. There we sat, across the table at a little cafe, drinking coffee together. Our six living children were home with a friend who gave us the day together to celebrate our marriage. The week before, Randy and I had privately laid the whisper of a body down…