Revealing Grace

Quite a while back my community group in Arizona was sharing our stories of faith. I opened up and shared, through teary eyes, about the voice I had been hearing in my head that was telling me it would be better off if I died. I’ve written a little bit about that before and how scary it was to hear such a convincing voice.  The next day our community group leader, Brian, came by the office where I was working.   “I’ve been thinking about what you shared with us last night,” he said. “Now, I am not a prophet or anything, but I just feel like God wants me to tell you that that voice you heard was not for you .”   At the time, I was skeptical. The voice had been convincing and I knew I was struggling through depression, but I continued to listen.   “I think you heard that voice so that you will understand,” he continued. “I think God wants you to understand what your kids [on the reservation] go through, what people who are in that kind of pain hear and...

My heart song is poetry I think. Its lame, I know. But when I am truly deep within an emotion, I pick up my phone or my pen to express it and it always comes out in poetry. So I roll with it. Grief and loss, betrayal- it all requires a lot of different emotions as we process. Things felt in one moment may be the opposite of things felt in the next. It is all important and always valid. So here is a little poetry from the other night when I could not sleep and I could not see the beauty in the pain. Here is a glimpse into what my heart sometimes feels when I breathe in the solitude and I hate every part of this stupid rebuilding (my life, my trust, my self) process. **If poetry makes you cringe and think of high school english class, don't be intimidated or skip over this one. Poetry is just a paragraph with weird spacing and capital letters. I believe in you.** Shattered Shaky Bordering on the line between I'm ok and I can't do this today. My skin is but a thin ...

My soul needs the mountains to breathe. The mountains are where I can think clearly, where I can put one foot in front of the other and grow stronger emotionally, mentally, and physically. They are where God speaks to me and where I find the space to hear Him, where I can sit by a rushing stream with my brother and we can listen to our surroundings and be at peace. So this past weekend I went backpacking with my brother in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is a fact that a weekend in the fresh air, by mountain streams and without access to phone service, is more healing to me in this season than most anything. I will admit that I went into the weekend angry. I was/am so angry at my husband for what he has done to me, for the ways he has betrayed me. I started hiking and I couldn't shake the bad thoughts. My therapist says it would be less normal if I wasn't angry, so I gave myself permission to be mad. But as I continued up the mountain I reminded mys...

Have you ever had those days where you just don't feel ok? Sometimes weeks pass. Weeks pass and nothing seems to get better. But the last shred of optimism clings to you like a shadow. Eventually there must be a corner. There must be a step that leads to a new horizon. Surely peace is just a few steps away from the pain. This idea gives you the kind of hope that makes you feel like you can breathe again. Surely a new horizon will cause the bad feelings to peel away as a snake sheds its skin and make you new. Surely , the optimistic shadow whispers with a push, you must keep walking to the corner.  So you walk. And you walk. And you walk. But that corner never seems to come. There are other corners turned but they all seem to lead back to the same place and the shadow of despair looms large. People join your walk for a little while, but they don't understand what moves your feet, they don't know for what you search. Eventually they go off on walks of their own an...