Another Blank Page
There’s something special about the turn of a new year. I enjoy watching it play out on social media. I love to see people acknowledge the things they’ve survived and turn with a hopeful eye to the new year. It’s a white page waiting for the first strokes of paint to color it beautiful, an empty journal waiting for the first words of prose to fill it, a blank staff ready for the opening notes of a new melody. December 31st feels like standing on a precipice, waiting to take the first step into something exciting and new. And then sometimes the clock strikes 12, and you get slapped in…
Waiting After Christmas
I sit amidst piles of boxes and stray wrapping paper as the chaos of the last few weeks comes to a pause. It’s an inhaled breath, held and waiting before we exhale back into normal. The holidays are coming to a close; with one last hurrah, we’ll ring in a new year, the list of holiday to-dos will be finished, and Hallmark and I will both go back to our regularly scheduled programming. The days after Christmas always feel odd to me. For 24 days in December, anticipation and excitement brew, twinkling in our eyes like lights on a tree. Then the morning finally comes, and we celebrate. The paper…
Silly Traditions & New Resolutions
Ten years ago, John and I rang in the new year/new decade on a snow-covered rooftop in Seoul. We took our dogs and two bottles of sparkling cider to the top of our apartment building and looked out across the skyline for fireworks. We couldn’t see any from our vantage point, but we laughed at our failed plan and enjoyed each other’s company anyway. As the clock struck midnight, we participated in our annual cider chug– a silly tradition started by my brother in the early 2000s. Each person cracks a bottle of sparkling cider or grape juice and races to drink their beverage first. The bottles had chilled in…
The Gift of Friendship
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year… I hope you’re singing that song in your head, though you might disagree with the sentiment. Instead, it might be the most expensive time of the year, the most stressful time of the year, the most depressing time of the year, or the most lonely time of the year. The holidays have a way of sending emotions into overdrive. Twinkling lights, Hallmark movies, and sugar cookies can make some people overflow with joy. But for others, the happiness everyone else seems to feel causes a quick descent in the opposite direction. It feels like Eeyore walking around underneath a raincloud, wondering how…
As White as Snow
The snow came in overnight, silently and persistently dropping tiny flakes for hours while we slept. When I awoke, my window offered the view of a pristine, white blanket that had covered the gravel, half-dead grass, and copious amounts of dog poop in my backyard. Buried by a thick layer of snow, there was no proof of our sloppy yard maintenance or the four dogs that live in our home. There was only the perfect, blinding whiteness of the powder-soft snow, coating every inch of ground, smoothing over rough edges. Colorado abounds with beauty that points me to God, from the mountains to the sunsets to the rolling prairies, I’m…
Home is Where the Heart Is
Home is where the heart is, or so the old adage goes. But that doesn’t accurately encompass the complexities of military life. My children and my husband are my heart, and they’re here with me, but Colorado doesn’t feel like home yet. So when does a place feel like home and not just a place you live? I recently posed the question on my Facebook page confident that my military connections would have the answer. Responses included: When you can get to the grocery store without navigation When you make real/genuine friendships When you feel comfortable in the area When you’re involved in the community (both an answer and a…
- Adoption, Depression, Faith, Family, Grief, Hydranencephaly, Life, Love, patience, Special Needs, Special Needs Parenting, Unexpected
National Adoption Month
November is National Adoption Month. It’s also the month that Wonder Woman was born, and marks the day we heard those life changing words over the phone, “She is yours.” My cell reception was awful that night and the audio cut in and out as I paced across blue kitchen tile and said her name over and over to our social worker, hoping she would accurately hear it. This name was treasured by us and had been held in my heart for years as I waited for a baby girl. The most important thing—the only thing—I could do for our little girl right then was give her her name. Despite…
- Adoption, Faith, Family, Hope, Hydranencephaly, Life, Special Needs, Special Needs Parenting, Unexpected
Impossible
“It’s impossible.” I told God. Well, I didn’t tell him those exact words, my actions did. I stopped praying for something that’s been heavy on my heart. I gave up hope. I know he’s the God of miracles, but I’ve been praying for years and this thing felt too far gone. I became frustrated praying for something that repeatedly went unanswered. My persistence didn’t seem to pay off, things are no better than when I started praying. It is extremely hard to have faith in God when it feels like he’s letting you down. My mind attempts mental gymnastics to not face the reality that God can simultaneously be sovereign and…
Under Pressure
I was excited walking into the first week of homework for a new-to-me Bible study on marriage. I’ve been doing women’s Bible studies for years on a variety of topics and books of the Bible, but this is the first time I have focused on my marriage with other women. Given the solid relationship John and I have enjoyed for over a decade, I was confident that this would simply build on our secure foundation. Fast forward to the second week of homework and I found myself sitting in my bed doing said homework amidst a pile of pillows and tears. I wanted to throw the book onto the floor,…
Disappearing Mountains
I recently got prescription glasses. I was the last hold out in my childhood family of 4, but driving around in a new city and squinting while attempting to read street signs wasn’t my cup of tea, so I caved. It’s not a strong prescription, but when I slipped on the metal frames and looked out across the horizon I was amazed at the clarity of the mountains here. I didn’t realize that the slightly blurry haze to their peaks was the result of my impaired vision, not their distance. On a clear day, when the sun shines down from a brilliant blue sky onto the mountains, the view is…
