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Showing posts with the label prayer
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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 ...
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  Solace: Words of Consolation On November 5, 2023, something very simple and very precious to my heart came into the world: Solace: Words of Consolation . It is not a big book. It is not fancy. It is a small booklet, a quiet gathering of black and white photographs I captured during one of the hardest seasons of my life, paired with the Scriptures that held me together. For several months, I was a full-time caregiver for my mom. Those were sacred, exhausting, tender days where love and grief lived side by side. And when she passed suddenly, the ground beneath me shifted in ways I still struggle to put into words. The verses in this booklet are Scriptures friends shared with me, prayed over me, and passages the Lord pressed gently into my heart. Solace began there, on the floor of my heart. Every page in this little booklet was prayed over. I put it together slowly, sometimes with tears, sometimes with deep breaths, and always with the reminder that the living Word of God was w...
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  Dear Sisters,    I pray this note finds you resting in God’s presence, even in the middle of your busy days. I’ve been reflecting on something I would like to share with you, especially for those of you walking through difficult seasons. As we face trials, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, but we’re reminded in James 1:2-5 that these moments aren’t wasted by God. The apostle James says: “Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Now if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:2-5) At first glance, it can feel impossible to consider joy in the middle of a trial. But James is reminding us that God uses those very trials to shape us. When life feels heavy, we can trus...