WHEN Para o Dia das Mães que pertence a cada uma de nós Em algum momento, ficamos com tanto medo de magoar alguém no Dia das Mães que nos esquecemos de realmente celebrá-lo. E amiga, eu acho que está na hora de mudar isso. Eu entendo. De verdade. As intenções são boas. Ninguém quer ser a responsável por fazer uma mulher em luto chorar na terceira fileira. Ninguém quer ignorar a mulher lá atrás que já espera anos por um teste positivo. A sensibilidade vem de um lugar real, e essa parte é linda. Mas em algum ponto entre ser cuidadosa e ser gentil, começamos a pedir desculpas em silêncio por algo que Deus jamais pediu desculpas. E amiga, não estou escrevendo isso de uma distância segura. Eu perdi um bebê. Vivi uma temporada em que fiz as pazes, quietinha, com a ideia de que talvez a maternidade não fizesse parte do meu futuro. E então Deus, do jeito inesperado e surpreendente que só Ele tem, me enviou um menino que eu não havia planejado, mas de alguma forma sempre tinha orado....
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WHEN For the Mother's Day that belongs to every one of us Somewhere along the way, we got so afraid of hurting someone on Mother's Day that we forgot to actually celebrate it. And friend, I think it's time we fix that. I get it. I really do. The intentions are good. Nobody wants to be the one who makes a grieving woman cry in the third row. Nobody wants to ignore the woman in the back who has been waiting years for a positive pregnancy test. The sensitivity comes from a real place, and that part is beautiful. But somewhere between being careful and being kind, we started quietly apologizing for something God never apologized for. And friend, I'm not writing this from a safe distance. I lost a baby. I walked through a season where I quietly made peace with the idea that maybe motherhood wasn't in my future anymore. And then God, in His wildly unexpected way, sent me a boy I hadn't planned for but had somehow always prayed for. I lost my mom, my greatest exam...
The Quiet Ache in the Crowd It’s been a while since we caught up, my last post was back on March 17! A lot has happened since then, as I spent the last few weeks in Brazil visiting family, wandering through vibrant markets, and soaking in the incredible specialty coffee and cafe culture of São Paulo. I'm still a big city girl in the heart, and I confess it was refreshing! I have so many beautiful stories and pictures to share from the trip, but we'll save the travel journal and the local cafe finds for a separate post soon. Getting back to the quiet reality of our everyday lives, though: we have never had more ways to reach across the globe, yet we have never felt so far away from the person sitting across the table. I was sitting in my favorite booth at a local cafe the other day, nursing a warm matcha latte, watching the room fill up with people. It’s a familiar scene, everyone together, yet remarkably alone. So many times, a person is surrounded by a crowd and still feels co...
What We Mean When We Say Family We use the phrase church family so easily, and I have used it myself more times than I can count. But I have been asking lately whether we truly live as though it means what we say it means. Because family does not disappear when it becomes inconvenient. It does not quietly withdraw when someone is no longer in the same season or no longer easy to be around. In a real family, distance does not erase love, and disagreement does not cancel care. And this is true not only within the church walls but inside our own homes. There are families with prodigals, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, spouses, who are alive but far, breathing but distant, once close but now gone in ways that have nothing to do with miles. Some of them walked away from faith altogether. Some never had it. And the temptation, after enough silence or enough rejection, is to quietly let go, to protect yourself, to stop reaching. But our side of it does not change based on their r...
Do the Next Thing As I wrapped up Easter promos for a couple of churches last week, this part of an old Saxon poem came to mind - the one Elisabeth Elliot made famous: "Do the next thing." She didn't mean being busy for the sake of busy. She meant faithfulness. Trust Christ and do the good work in front of you. Active faith, not passive waiting. Just like Psalm 37 teaches. Scripture reminds us: "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10 Elisabeth Elliot learned those words from an old Saxon poem found scratched on a wall. Do the next thing. Not the grand thing. Not the perfect thing. Just the next one. She lived that out in some of the hardest circumstances a person can face and came out the other side not bitter but faithful. Because faithfulness isn't a feeling. It's a decision you make before the feeling ever shows up. Nobody feels faithful every day. That's actua...
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More Room for What Matters Spring cleaning. Decluttering. Minimalism. Call it what you want, but what if God is using all of it to teach us something far deeper than a tidy closet? My friends, This morning I stepped outside with my iced coffee (yes, iced!), because it is already warm and glorious here in Mississippi and I am not sorry. The sun was doing that beautiful thing it does in (almost) spring, the kind of warmth that feels like a exhale after winter. My cat Moe was right there with me, completely unbothered with life... until a squirrel strutted across the fence like he owned the property, and Moe absolutely lost his mind. I laughed out loud, just me, my coffee, and this silly cat. And then, the birds. They were back. I had my app open, identifying them one by one. A Carolina Wren. A mockingbird. A flash of a goldfinch. And something in my chest just settled. That quiet, full-hearted joy that only comes when you notice that life is returning. That new things a...
The Grief No One Prepares You For My Friends, There is a kind of grief that has no funeral. No casserole dropped at your door. No cards in the mail. No one dressed in black, sitting beside you in silence. It is the grief of watching someone you love become someone you no longer recognize. Maybe it's the friend who chose bitterness over healing and now lives in a permanent state of offense. Maybe it's the family member whose heart has grown so hard that kindness bounces off like rain on concrete. Maybe it's the person you prayed with, laughed with, dreamed with, who is still breathing, still posting online, still living their life, but is no longer here in any way that matters. They didn't die. But you lost them anyway. And the world expects you to act like nothing happened. This week, I sat with a dear friend who is walking through this kind of grief. As she shared her story, my heart ached for her. Not because of obvious tragedy, but because of the slow, quiet ...