Revealing Grace

I remember the first time I felt joy in my sorrow.  It had been months without it, though I hadn’t quite realized it had been so absent until the moment it blossomed just ever so slightly from my soul again.  I was sitting at my favorite Thai restaurant in Pasadena with a friend I had not seen in years. We had almost miraculously reconnected while I was in town and we sat for hours reminiscing on the good, the tough, and the great moments from our grad school years. We talked about what was going on in our lives now and I shared my story, still raw and full of emotion and pain, shedding tears, encouragement, and honesty.  Before we knew it hours had passed and I realized that something special had happened but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. As I tried to explain to my friend what a gift they had given me that evening, all of a sudden it dawned on me- it was the first time I had been truly happy in months.  It had been the first time that I la...

You know that saying about rock bottom? Yea. That doesn't apply to my life. "The only place you can go is up!" That silver lining seriously is not cutting it for me at this point. More like, "Surprise! You thought it was rock bottom but shit just gets worse!" Again, and again, and again. It has officially been five months of really hard stuff. Its been a rough four years but man, these five months have taken the cake. I have been betrayed so many times and it seems that right when I get my footing again I get kicked back down into the dirt. I do not say it lightly when I tell you that the devil has been out to kill me. I don't know what you believe about good and evil but I believe that we are in a battle- a serious spiritual battle, not a figurative one. I think that the forces of good and evil are battling it out for the world, and though I believe that God (the ultimate good) will win in the end (and has already claimed that victory through the d...

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...

I'm tired. I am tired of this season, of feeling down, of waiting for something good to happen or for the next chapter to begin. I am tired of wondering and questioning, of not sleeping enough and sleeping too much. I am tired of not knowing what I am supposed to be doing and I am tired, mainly, of being still. When I was in Arizona I had it all- a house, a husband, 2 dogs, a job, teenagers to care for, and mountains to hike. I had purpose. I had people to take care of, to feed, to clothe. In fact, for the last four years in Arizona my whole life has been about pouring into others. I was caring for teenagers, friends, my husband, and yes, even my dogs. And then all of a sudden, I have none of that. Not even one little ounce of it. All gone. All stripped violently from my arms in a story that is too long to tell you right now and too fresh for even me to fully understand. I went from having everything to having nothing. I had a life and now I have a blank space before me that...