Christmas is over. The New Year has come and begun. The holidays daze is done and I’m left in the wake looking ahead at winter.
The decorations are packed back up and put away- all that is except the stray ornament that managed to hide in the hours of clean up and is now hanging out solo waiting to be worth the walk into the basement.
I’m waiting. Waiting for a call, waiting for big news, waiting for a life-altering … continue reading
Recently I had the immense privilege of speaking at our home school co-op’s semester closing program. I wanted to share my words here as well. While written out with the intention to be spoken, they may not be as well suited to impact in places when read. But the message is just the same- Christ must be and is our superior treasure! In this season of gifts, please see Him as your greatest one!
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Merry Christmas!
Christmas time… a … continue reading
The trees were all turning brown.
All just giving up, browning, dying, without even the attempt at color.
Too parched, too worn out, too long of a blazing hot dry summer to give way to one last heaving breathe of beauty before the fall.
Instead just brown.
I guess this is how I often feel- dry, defeated, crispy. Too worn out, too long of a hard hot season to give any color.
We were driving one day and I saw … continue reading
I watched the roller coaster climb and couldn’t even bring myself to believe he was on it. Fighting my own nausea despite not even being on the ride, praying ceaselessly, and resisting panic, I mainly planted myself in denial. This could not be happening. How could I let myself believe that my petite-not-even-40-pounds-just-turned-7-year-old was slowing climbing up that coaster and would actually plunge back down? I was confident he wouldn’t reach the ride-with-an-adult height minimum. And he had. And how … continue reading
I grabbed my gratitude journal, the one I had been neglecting for the last few days, stuck in a funk, and, almost immediately, I put it right back.
The journal inside of a devotional explaining the importance of giving regular thanks. But in this moment all I can think is, what should I be thankful for? Mass shootings? A friend’s dad being taken too soon? Honeymoons turned nightmares? I leave the journal on my nightstand. Make a different mental list.… continue reading
I remember once, my brother asked, does it make it harder or easier?
This baby, this little one, placed in our care.
After the losses, the babies taken, the pain and grief; the now holding and swinging and swaddling…
Does it make it harder or easier?
Yes, I said.
It makes it harder, and it makes it easier. The baby stuff out, not getting dusty in dingy basement; music playing, lights shining, joy bringing. This makes it easier. A … continue reading
You only get eighteen summers.
That’s what the memes and posts tell you, remind you, warn you.
Eighteen summers with your little one.
Eighteen.
That’s it until that’s it, so cherish each one- eighteen, seventeen, sixteen…
I remember seeing the posts often last summer, scrolling and then the taunting of it all.
I saw the posts from my couch where most of my summer was spent. A catheter bag like a leash, and fresh surgery wounds healing, and what summer? … continue reading
There’s a sign in ASL. It’s the same as the sign for “scar”. But it’s done across the forehead. It’s the sign for “trauma”.
Because isn’t that where trauma lands? The deepest wounds, harshest scars. Right across the mind.
When everything happened last year, there was a distinct point when I realized it, I knew it, it was done. And I told it to my husband: “My mind broke.”
“Your mind isn’t broken,” he was quick to sweetly reassure me, … continue reading
I remember, not even very long ago, when I didn’t understand why Mother’s Day had to be flavored with sad.
When church services and Facebook feeds paused for grief and remembered loss and honored the hurting, I resisted. I didn’t understand. Why did this sadness have to invade my happy day?
But then suffering would invade my life, and death would invade my womb, and isn’t this one of the strange gifts in trials? An understanding heart?
I come to … continue reading
I had to go to the doctor last week.
It wasn’t for anything major, and for most people, that wouldn’t cause a wave, but for me it caused floods of PTSD symptoms. A panic attack at work, and hours of battling catastrophic thinking and hyperventilating, I clung to the only help I could.
Jesus.
Isn’t it Him, always only Him, the Rock that is higher than I, the hiding place I have?
A few days later, the doctor ordered blood … continue reading