After going through a miscarriage at the end of January, it was strange just a couple weeks later to be facing Lent.
I had practiced Lent for several years before that, to help prepare my heart and sharpen my focus for the Easter season, but that year, it begged a new question- how does one do Lent in loss?
Lent is often practiced by giving up something, but it can also be the practice of the addition of something. Frequently, … continue reading
There’s just something about loss anniversaries that’s inexplicably hard. And it’s grief, yes, but it’s something more than that, something about being in the same spot of the cosmos that you were when things happened. There’s a heavy darkness that comes, that you know isn’t just the sadness in your heart but it’s the wound in your spirit being pressed.
A couple Sundays ago, it was the anniversary of when we took the first pregnancy test that would end … continue reading
I remember sitting in the service on Sanctity of Life Sunday, expecting the usual pro-life lectures, anti-abortion stances, but what came next surprised me.
Because in that Sanctity of Life series the topics were on foster care and miscarriage.
And I still feel just about as stunned now at remembering it as I did then sitting there hearing it for the first time.
What kind of church takes the podium on Sanctity of Life Sunday and leaves the opportunity to … continue reading
The numbers roll over, 2020, 2021, and I hear the comments, see the hope.
This is the year, this will be the year, to fulfill all the shattered dreams of 2020 and live our best lives, and restoration is at hand! So long, 2020, couldn’t get rid of you soon enough.
And I hear the comments, see the hope, but my heart skips a beat, my stomach knots, and my mind whispers: Be careful what you wish for.
I remember … continue reading
“We are not adrift in chaos.” I hear Elisabeth Elliot say it often as I replay her words in my mind. Her lectures on suffering were an integral part of my journey last year, when the mind was muddy and heart too broken, and words of truth needed. Not just any truth-filled words, but one that came from a voice that knew the path of suffering.
Elisabeth Elliot certainly earned that position. Sixty-three years ago yesterday, her first husband, Jim … continue reading