On the floor of my kitchen, back against my fridge. This is the place where my grief often meets me. It’s the place I found myself when my house was empty for the first time after my husband’s death. It’s the place where I found myself just about every morning for the weeks that followed. … More The Place Where Grief Meets Me
“I heard this Dolly song the other day…” I have this reoccurring dream where I see my dad. It’s a different setting each time. Once it was in my childhood kitchen, once it was at the grocery store, once it was in this wooded area which might have been my mind’s very lose interpretation of … More A Life of Many Colors
I didn’t want to celebrate this day. I honestly didn’t even want to participate in it. I wanted to distract myself enough to believe that somehow life now simply skips from October 11 to October 13, and then we could all just go another year without acknowledging that we are now living in year two … More We Always Celebrate
The flowers were attracting flies. I wish I could give a great, heartfelt beginning to this story. I wish I had some spiritual nudge, some inclination that someone needed these flowers in that very moment. But where this story starts is… I had a lot of really beautiful flowers in my house, and they were … More The Giver of Free Flowers
Jesus wept. It is the shortest verse in the Bible, and for some reason, when we’re kids, that’s the detail that we focus on. It seems so cool, that there is a two-worded sentence in the Bible. It becomes a main question in our Sunday School trivia games. What is the shortest verse in the … More Jesus Wept Too
You used to pray Bob Dylan lyrics over me when I was a baby. I blame a lot of my idiosyncrasies on this fact. Why does my heart memorize the lyrics of 1960’s music as though it is the secret to life? Probably because of Bob Dylan. Why is 80% of my readership about 30 … More Forever Young
After 3.5 years deeply immersed into the College Culture, I graduated from Taylor University knowing one thing for sure: There are two types of college aged women in the world: 1. The “Ring Before Spring” Girls. (Also known as the “MRS degree” culture.) AND 2. The lovely, “No ring, ever, ever. Guys suck. I don’t … More Watch Where You’re Swinging That Pendulum
I killed our hydrangeas. Yeah, you know those pretty bushes with the big beautiful collection of flowers? I love them. I needed them. I had two perfect little spots in my front garden where I was determined to plant them. So, my husband and I drove all over Indy, and we finally found them, paid … More Bloom Where You WANT TO
I’ve never had trouble apologizing. If I disrespected my parents, I would apologize. If I accidentally bumped into someone in the school hallway, I would apologize. If someone accidentally bumped into me in a school hallway, I would apologize. I learned from an early age that this is the way to prevent further conflict and … More Not Always Sorry
The first time my husband (boyfriend at the time) was diagnosed with cancer, I gained 25 pounds. Just let that sink in for a second, because you better believe that was a shock to me. That means, in the year period between diagnoses and treatment I nearly put on another fifth of me. For a … More Grief, Relief, and Ice Cream
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