I find myself full of longing at Christmas, yearning for what I’ve missed and for what comes next. There have been years when I’ve wanted to hold tightly to the last days of December, finding comfort in all the joy that has transpired and filled up our days. And there have been years where I…
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How to be thankful when you’ve had a hard year.
I cannot picture eating turkey on the fourth Thursday in November anywhere other than my grandparents’ rural Tennessee home. Perched on a hill and surrounded by trees, their home is large and sunny with an embankment on the back side that slopes downward toward a small pond where I spent every summer of my life…
An Invitation to Hurt is an Invitation to Trust: guest post at The Content Mom
There was no way we could hide it from him. We’d brought a baby home with every intention of adopting him, but the entire process was being derailed. Our seven-year-old was with us from the moment the plan began to unravel, and I knew I couldn’t hide it. He was watching and asking valid questions….
Fear, Anger, and a Deep, Deep Well
The dregs in my coffee cup have gone cold as I sit on this swing and watch the sun filter through the trees. It’s dawned on me only today that the window barely peeking over my fence is situated at my neighbor’s kitchen sink, and if they’re doing dishes at this early hour or pouring…
The Weary Work of Waiting
I asked what’s hard right now. And you said a lot of things. A lot of hard things. One common thread, a blue one soaked in grief and tears and worry, was about waiting. Waiting to be married, waiting to have children, waiting for a diagnosis, waiting on work, waiting for the right words to…
Just One Important Thing
It’s been nearly two weeks since things began to unravel. What has always felt strong seems laden with fragility, a thin layer of glass that could be shattered with the faintest touch of pressure. And I’ve learned that in the breath of a moment the phone can ring, the words can come tumbling out in…
when your mom has a brain tumor
For Mom. I was making mashed potatoes when he called. Being born and raised in Tennessee, this is something I’ve never messed up, but by the end of it all, I was left with a gummy, sticky mass of potato starch not fit to eat. She fainted, he said. She was painting and fell off…
Held in the Fire
Pain is white and blue, the hottest center of a flame. Not a gently flickering candle, but an explosion of blistering heat, a fire that blazes without burning out. It starts at the base of my spine and reaches out to my hips, radiating down my right leg with fiery tentacles that entangle themselves around…
{the beauty of the dry spell}
(originally posted July 14, 2016) It snowed early that year, before Thanksgiving even. Every morning the skies were bleak and cold, and the trees had long given up any pretense of fall. Those frozen mornings when the sun didn’t have the will to shine brightly enough through the thick gauze of gray were reflected in…
{the morning person myth VLOG}
(Originally posted June 30, 2016) My husband, William, joins me for our very first VLOGGING experience. He has some strong feelings on why you should read the Bible in the morning. *I apologize for the abrupt ending of the video. I lost a few posts when I recently migrated my blog to a new web host,…