the counting of 2020
I started counting down last week, marking the days that would make up the ending of 2020. I counted to thirty-eight.
it’s okay to be angry-just don’t live there
When someone asked me a decade ago why I wasn’t already writing for special needs parents, my gut response wasn’t pretty. It was honest, but not pretty at all. I was scared to write for special needs families. To be able to write in a way that addresses the very real pain points in a way that could be encouraging would mean I’d need to deal with my own pain as a special needs parent. I’d need to dig deep and digging deep can unbury a lot of unpretty things.
if I ever go down
If I ᴇᴠᴇʀ ɢᴏ ᴅᴏᴡɴ...may I have praise hands in the air, a song beating in my heart, and gratitude leaving my lips. Thankfulness ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴇᴀsᴛ I ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ offer. God has given 𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒆 in my valleys, built 𝒇𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒉 in my storms, 𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 in my bow.
the reminder of pearls
𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲, ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞. . . I was pretty sure that she had it 𝑎𝑙𝑙 together and had life figured out. I took her 𝑛𝑜𝑡-𝑠𝑜-𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 advice and slowly started changing the core of who I was to fit ℎ𝑒𝑟 ideals; I thought that’s what good girls do, you know? Our relationship was still fairly new and I watched her closely. She knew how to carry a room with her laughter, had…
retrospection
We came to a pandemic.
As an enneagram six, I pondered all the worst case scenarios and plotted statistics into my autoimmune survival plan. I stocked up, sheltered in, ready for the long haul.
reimagine
By four years old, I knew in my heart that I wanted 3 things: I wanted to be a nurse, a mother, and a wife. I wanted them pretty much in that order-I was four years old, wisdom or experience clearly wasn’t available yet. At nine years old, my babysitter gave me my first journal-just a simple, small, dime store journal that I could hide my hopes and dreams, fears and horrors-safely held under lock and key. As space ran out…
friends that love
It’s been a heavy week. It couldn’t be polished pretty or wrapped in a bow. This week, I needed to kneel.
I was the one that needed to listen
I’d first read her words sitting on the floor between the stacks at our community library. I wanted to know what all the hoopla was about-this lady poet from the inauguration.
I read her words that floated beating like bird wings.
rise
I opened a text from my husband & saw a picture of our 𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑃𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑒(we name our houses) engulfed. This once tiny treasure, this little slice of holy we were blessed to inhabit for five years, was being dismantled by flames to create space for a new dwelling place.
It had been a safe place away from the hustle & bustle where our boy could heal, our marriage restore, our souls revive.
Our lives had fallen apart & then, at 𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑃𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑒, it fell into place. We rose as God transformed the ashes of a holy ground into a plume of sheer beauty & grace that still has us gobsmacked. When we arrived at 𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑃𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑒, our life felt like drowning fire, choking like smoke, burning the eyes, & trying to steal oxygen.
We fought hard for any peace in those flames, clawing until we found a glimmer of light, & chased the silver linings like a daily methodical manna.
𝑇ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑗𝑜𝑦.
every tall tree first had to…
𝐖𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐭.
Lɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ʙɪᴛs ᴀɴᴅ ᴘɪᴇᴄᴇs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀɴ ɪɴᴛᴇɢʀᴀʟ ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʜᴏʟᴅs ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴏᴛs ᴏғ ᴡʜᴏ ᴡᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ɪɴ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ.
What we have to remember is that the dirt can either 1.) nourish us or 2.) make us a muddy mess depending on how we approach it.
just five minutes
𝐈 had 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 could 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.
The year was 2012 and Ann Voskamp said I needed to walk five minutes of fresh oxygen into my cells each day(full disclosure: it was her blog post that told me-those daily blog posts coming to my phone were a lifeline). I’d been breathing through a cracked open window for two weeks in tiny snippets by that point and the idea of fresh air felt like a heap of timid amazing.