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: sorrow
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…
Choosing a Life of Celebration (Podcast #20)
The choice is always before us: A life of desperation or a life of celebration. In today’s podcast, I invite you to celebrate your life and to celebrate with me as I look back over this incredible last year. I am truly overflowing with gratitude as I remember the love and faithfulness of God 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 of Beauty
Let me start by saying I do not pretend to be an expert on grief, and I truly hope I never am an expert on grief. My life has been colored by it just enough for me to know that this is something that’s going to stay with me forever. And that it is worth…
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…
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…
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…
Standing in the Hallway of Sorrow, thoughts on losing my Mother
(In honor of my beautiful, selfless Mother who went home to be with Jesus yesterday afternoon, hours after I wrote this post.) I am going to write something that is braver and stronger than I now feel, but I believe it with all my heart. Daddy met Mama on a Sunday morning at a little…
Joy and Sorrow (How Does Your Garden Grow)
It still hits me in waves. Not like it did last spring. When my little garden was blooming and sheets of rain came down steadily day after day. I drank tea in the music room and looked out over the mint and the marigolds and all the beautiful shimmering living things growing there in the…