Feeling Heard Changes Everything
I had known this woman for a few years simply as the mother of one of my best friends. I knew a bit of her hard story, but only as it pertained to her daughter (my friend). Then my world started falling apart, one huge piece at a time. I was lost. The ways I had...
Poster Girl for Divorce
I promised myself as a little girl that I would never get divorced. I promised myself as a teenager that I would never get divorced. I promised myself on my wedding day -- before God and my new husband and our families and friends -- that I would never get divorced....
Why Am I So Needy?
I seem to have a pattern with men (and by pattern I mean that this has happened maybe two or three times in my life). Ready? What they offer me (in my head) isn’t enough. I don’t say this like a diva who thinks she deserves the sun and the moon and stars, because I...
When You Feel No Comfort from God
Several years ago I found myself in the middle of the worst (up to that point) and longest crisis of my life. Something swept into my sweet little life and set up camp for 441 days (but who’s counting). And in the middle of all that, two of my best friends moved...
When You Don’t Feel Free
While going through Freeway, I heard Mike Foster tell the story of when, as a little boy, he used to collect caterpillars – as many of us did when we were children – and would place them in a jar and watch them weave a cocoon around themselves and then delight in...
Looking Back
This is the perfect time to press pause and reflect on how this (crazy) year has been on your heart, mind and body, sweet girl. Set aside about thirty to sixty minutes, if you’re able. Light a candle. Pour a cup of coffee or tea or hot chocolate. Get out your journal....
Arrival
Oh sweet one, it’s finally here. He is finally here. We may have trudged through this holiday season, limping emotionally, dragging baggage and pain and fear and unknowns. We may have put up the tree, we may have written the family letter, we may have bought everyone...
Christmas Fears
I’ve been reading the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke this month as I prepare my heart for Christmas. And I found something that surprised me. In the one hundred and thirty-two verses of those two chapters, an angel tells three different people to not be...
Waiting
I’ve caught myself saying things like this over the past month: I desperately need Christmas this year, and I’m holding out for the miracle, and I need the arrival. But what does that even mean? How can I be waiting on something - or Someone – who already came? How...