Blessed
I sat this afternoon with a friend. This friend of mine, she’s sick. Her future is uncertain at best. We needed tissues, my friend and I. We talked about Heaven, about family, about dying. About God’s grace, portioned out day by day. We talked about flowers and her love for gardening and about music that heals the soul. We talked about faith and the long path it sometimes takes to get there. She held my hand, and we prayed like we were drowning, desperate and gasping for the presence of the God who brings peace. The way life goes, with its twists and turns, is not for the faint of heart. And perspective is never clearer than when we’re nearing the end of the road. The sky was bluer when I walked out her door. The laughter of my children made me want to freeze...
Read MoreDribbling Glory
Last week, a former student stayed with us. We’ve known her since she was a kid, so she knows a lot about us. But for five days she was privy to all that makes us a red-blooded, human family: our arguments, our chaos, our morning breath… Living side-by-side with people, seeing them in all their pre-coffee, bed headed glory, reveals new facets of their character. Letting others into private spaces where they can see the unfiltered us takes courage. It’s risky. The stakes are high. Having someone observe us day in and day out forces the “R” word out into the open. Reality. And reality is not always attractive. I am a broken, messy person, and the things in my soul are sometimes not very pretty. There are parts of me I would rather have nobody see. But...
Read MoreNomad
I was in the middle of writing an entirely different blog post, but something happened today that has completely sidetracked my thoughts. My aunt Patsy’s husband, my sweet uncle Don, graduated to Eternity. He’s one of the most joyful and gentle souls I’ve ever known. And while we’re so very happy for him that he is breathing the air of a place that is free of pain and heartache, we are left here to sort out the pieces. Shortly after my mom passed away in 2011, I went through a couple of months of depression. I’ve always written songs as a way of ordering my thoughts, so in that season’s deepest night, I wrote one called “Nomad”. Broken and aching and wounded and weary Falling and failing and fighting and torn Crawling on my knees to get where...
Read MoreLosing Control
Since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to know how and why things happen. I like to understand what’s going on, to be able to predict an outcome, to have a certain amount of control over my world. Which is why I’ve had a hard time recently. For the last year and a half, I’ve been taking a medication to prevent the chronic migraines I’ve had since college. It helped for a time, but over the last few months, my migraines began to come back full force. Nothing I tried really made a difference, so after talking with my doctor, I decided to wean off the medication. The side effects of this medicine were difficult to deal with, even on the best days, so I was looking forward to having those chemicals out of my system. What I didn’t expect was how rough the weaning...
Read MoreThe Waiting
We thought it would be easy. We didn’t plan for our first baby. She arrived, an unexpected gift, eleven days before our first anniversary. So, naturally, we thought having more kids would be quick and uncomplicated. But we waited, and the years passed. One miscarriage. Then another. Our girl grew older and noticed all the other kids with siblings. She was lonely, she said. She wanted a sister more than anything in the world. And the fire burned deep and I needed to know why, but no answer came. Just a seed of quiet acceptance that grew until the day we gave away the crib, the clothes, the toys. But without telling us, she kept praying, unaware of all the reasons why her heart’s desire wasn’t likely to be granted. If I had known how she prayed, I might have...
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