Exactly one year ago, with trembling hands and a hopeful heart, I shared my story with you. A story of messes and mud. Of failure and finding. A story of how mercy found me. And why I champion God’s grace and believe in second chances. I told you of my struggle with perfectionism, sin, and guilt […]
When a Fallen Tree Takes Time to Grow Again
Because of my story, I receive emails every single week from women who are desperate for answers. Desperate for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do to fix the mess and pain of the life they’re living. And if there’s one thing I know for sure, sin brings pain–deep, gouging, life-altering pain, the likes […]
When Pain Blinds Us to the Truth
The truth is hard to see when we’re in pain. Doubt settles in like an opaque cloud clinging to a mountain and never letting go. Confusion rolls in as a fog, preventing us from seeing more than a few inches beyond our face. And we can’t see the sun that shines above the thickness. We […]
Life in His Laundry Room
I bend and sort the clothes, turn socks and flip shirts inside out, one piece at a time. And I’m always amazed how much laundry we have each week. Laundry stained with spills, smeared with soil, and marked with the activity of long days. Stains from running and jumping and playing. From kneeling in the […]
When You Wonder if There is Purpose in Pain
She loses her job this week and walks away with one less key on her ring and a feeling of loss in her heart. It happens so fast. Abrupt, sudden, and unexpected. Everything becomes ordinary all at once, and none of it is easy at all. After years of giving with grace and mentoring with […]
When You Wonder if His Mercy Can Find You Too
I wear it around my neck these days, this Word mercy, that changed everything for me. This richness of God, sent from the profoundness of His deep love. A generous love I can barely grasp– a kindness I’m still at a loss to comprehend. I remember a time I thought I actually understood it, in […]
Sharing our Story: Beauty amidst Brokenness
Last December, I took a big leap and wrote my story out for the world, with the goal that just one person, who felt beyond hope, would know mercy could find them too. I asked God to allow me to know of just one person who was helped as a result of reading the words […]
I am Your Healer {Letters from God}
I remember when your heart thought it couldn’t go on. How you cried to me in the night when there was no one there but Me. How you were so broken and your pain was so great and you thought you might break right in two. I remember the circumstances of your failure. How you […]
When You Wonder if You’ll Still Belong — When the Truth is Finally Told
It is five years after I remarry when I finally begin to make friends–when I start new. Because after the affair and the divorce and the loss of all I know, I have no other choice but to start again. We attend couple’s bible study every Tuesday for three years with the same five couples, […]
When God Gives Suffering :: {How to Suffer Well}
I started a new exercise program last week. It’s called Insanity and now I know why … it is insane! I’m sore in places I never knew existed, which serves me right since I’ve pretty much been taking an “exercise vacation” since running my half-marathon last October. Yes, it’s true. Me and exercise … we […]