OMG (Oh My Goodness)… Find the joy through the tragedy is, I believe, imperative. It’s this one thing that allows us to find the hope in every situation, and some times things look pretty darn stark. In every life, we have our own set of “darkest days” we have to live through. No two people on the face of the planet go through the exact same set of dark days because each and every person on the face of the planet is simply different. Even identical twins, triplets, quads, and so on, have been … [Read more...]
Miraculous Breakthroughs (they really do happen)
I did week 3 day 5 of the study guide back on November 5, 2015. This was a huge break-through day for myself as I discovered some things God was showing me. I literally snapped out of a very depressive state. It was one of the greatest feelings I've been through and grateful the Holy Spirit worked through me the way He did that day. Now I'm going to share it with you what I wrote that day. We are asked to turn back to Psalm 68:5-10 for week 3 day 5, only we’re going to use another study … [Read more...]
Are You a Good Host?
Wow, I had decided I would continue to post some of what I wrote when I first did Jen Hatmaker's study guide in the back of her book A Modern Girl's Guide to Bible Study. I was trying to find the post I'd started but the draft has disappeared for some reason. As I was scrolling through all my posts, I saw a bunch of drafts. So I decided to open them all up and saw that I'd already typed up about 5 days worth of quiet times from when I did it over a year and a half ago. I figured I might as well … [Read more...]
Going through Mari’s stuff
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve started going through Mari’s stuff. I still remember the day we went into the house we’d been renting and sat there packing up every single item that either was Mari’s or we needed for her. Nothing got thrown away. Even her juice cups and light switch covers all got saved. At that point, Mari may have been gone about two to two-and-a-half months. I felt like if I threw something away belonging to her, somehow it’s like I was throwing her away. My grief wouldn’t … [Read more...]
T is for Time #atozchallenge
Time, is there really ever enough of it? No, not really. How many times have you heard someone say they wish they just had two or three more hours in a day to do something? I've heard it many times throughout my lifetime. It's probably been like this since the beginning. However, no matter how much we would wish it to be true, we will always have just twenty-four hours in a day. The thing is even if we did have those two or three more hours in a day those wouldn't seem enough either. We'd … [Read more...]
What I’d wish for if I had more time each day
What if we had all the time in the world each and everyday to do whatever we wanted. Well, I can't just name one thing as there are so many I'd love to be able to do all the time. 1. Spending quality time with my family. I think this goes without saying. :D 2. I'd love to be able to read as much as I want when I wanted to several hours throughout the day. Reading for pleasure. Reading to improve my writing. Reading nonfiction. I love to read. 3. I'd love to be able to have as much time as I … [Read more...]
Happy Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving. It's a time of year where families gather round their tables to eat a big feast of turkey, ham, yams, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, apple pie, pumpkin pie, or whatever family tradition yours might have. But before you eat, many families will go around the table and say what they are thankful for over the past year. Five years ago on this very day I remember how hard it was for me on that first Thanksgiving with Mari gone. (Click here to view the post from … [Read more...]
Day 168: Hero (or Heroine) Story
To try to put into words what today's post is about, I don't know if I could give it the justice it deserves. Here is what I read for today: When he was fifty-one years old, Reynolds Price learned he had a ten-inch malignant tumor in his spine, and he believed that his happy life of writing and teaching was over. Surgery and radiation left him a paraplegic, in unspeakable pain, and not sure that he would survive. But he did survive and was able to manage his pain through hypnosis. He then … [Read more...]
Day 156: Gratitude
In life there are so many things that can bring us down. The loss of a job. A house being foreclosed on. A spouse who’s had an affair. The loss of a parent; a spouse; a son or daughter. The list could go on with all the things that make us sad and miserable. However, it’s what we do when these things happen that matters most. When Mari died it would have been so very easy to curl up into a ball and just wither away as the pain was so acute and utterly deep. I’d cry out of the blue for what … [Read more...]
Day 149: The DVD in Your Head
Whether you are a writer or not have you ever had an idea that just goes round and round in your head until you do something about it. As a writer, it might be your story and your characters constantly talking to you. Or maybe a scene that is playing out before you. For me, I've relieved what happened to Mari in the hospital more times than I can remember. It's something that's always there and can easily be brought to mind. I think it's because it will forever be apart of me and is embedded … [Read more...]
