Gilead

Sometimes I think someone should give me a pulpit. I think I could preach a really good, impactful sermon. I mean factor in that I never went to seminary and usually to become a pastor you have to have a belief system that is a little less... abstract and I'm completely disqualified from the role. But none the less every once in a while i get all fired up and imagine myself speaking to a room full of people that have to listen to me and usually this fantasy ends somewhere with inspirational music playing and people shouting "Amen" in the aisles and usually some tears because cue the waterworks when someone gets something right about your life you haven't been able to realize for yourself. Ok, maybe pastor is the wrong calling for me. I think you have to be a little more humble and less focused on self to take on that job title, and in all honesty I don't think I'd want it anyway because I've heard its not all its cracked up to be. Inspirational speaker m...

Twas the morning on the day after Christmas, and this holiday season nothing seemed to go as planned. I've written the following lines time and time again but they never seem to come out right. It was the morning on the day after Christmas and every time I sit to document the going ons of this season I get about as far as "Are you kidding me?" (Usually with more curse words strung somewhere in that sentence) This was our first Christmas without Paris, and a large part of me is issuing a sigh of relief because never again will we have to experience our first Christmas without him. Another part of me is sighing because, while we have made it through the monumental first Christmas, we have years of more Christmas celebrations and birthdays and holidays to survive without him. Shortly before Christmas, i ended up being taken to the hospital by ambulance. Once again my life narrowed into this moment of emergency. And while I did make it home for Christmas day, it wasn'...

I'm sitting in front of the Christmas tree, all twinkly with white lights. The stockings are hung - 3 in a row, even though only 2 of them will be filled this year. I'm breathing in this moment of peace, stillness, the silent night. Advent is a season of waiting. We wait, with anticipation, for Christmas to arrive. We look forward with hope. I've always found advent to be a magical time of year, but this year the season is tinged with a sort of heaviness. I shared earlier about how I wasn't going to celebrate advent this year, but how the promptings of a friend and her sharing of the beatitudes reminded me that this season is just as much for those who grieve as it is for those who rejoice. Today i want to talk about Elizabeth. She's not who we think of when we think of the Christmas story, and yet she is one of the first characters introduced in Luke's gospel. I overlooked her story every year, thinking nothing more of her than this story line as an entry po...

It's been a while since I've sat down in this tiny space in the middle of the internet and shared my thoughts. The last few months have been full of grieving, loving, learning and growing. I'm currently in the middle of a social media detox, and while its giving me tons of new inspiration and energy, I also realized i miss connecting with friends online. So I'm turning to my old blog to share some thoughts I have on this advent season. I've shared before how I love advent. I've moved away from a lot of christian traditions but advent and lent are still 2 traditional church observations that i adore. I didn't do anything for lent this year (Or maybe I did? The grief fog was so real I'm missing huge chunks of memory from around the time Paris was born) and I almost skipped over advent without giving it a second thought. The first Sunday of advent i was exhausted and didn't make it to church and, when Cody came home and told me they lit the first adven...