Pressing In

       ODE to the Bleeding Hearts Here’s to all the mothers, lovers, brothers, friends.  To all the fathers, sisters and children. This is to each of you,  who after whatever sleep you were able to find last night, slowly opened your eyes this morning.  And then remembered. For that moment when you realized it wasn’t just a terrible dream and you close your eyes again, hoping to forget. For that sharp, stabbing pain of loss right in the middle of your gut that goes so deep that even your soul literally hurts, literally feels pain.  For you as you curl up in a vain attempt to hold it together as hot tears fall from your face and sounds escape you that you don’t recognize. This is for however many mornings that you face in this exact same way and wish you could just go back to sleep and not ever remember the reality again.   This is for you Dear One, as you try to process through a fog what this means for today....

                                                                               Sometimes in the funky seasons, when things seem quiet and lonely, we have to go back to rest on what has already been spoken; what has already been proven. When the quiet aches of our hearts ring so loudly in our ears and it's hard to hear beyond the noise.  When we find ourselves empty and unsure of which way to move or if we want to move at all.  When we can come to the end of ourselves and vain searches to fill the voids and can open our hands that are scarred and bleeding from gripping tightly to memories of yesterday for fear of losing them all together. When we can look up to see the ones that we love that are here, rather than withholding love because we are busy looking down at these hand...

                                                                                                 Fully Surrendered                                     I stood in front of the beautiful, snow laced scenery.  I admired ...

      Up until now, I have never opened this blog to the public. To anyone actually. It just started out as some sort of a journal for myself, but since I am not tech savvy and have a hard time sitting in front of a screen for long, I tend to write directly into my real life journal.=)       If anyone ever reads this, you will note that I started this a few years ago, and haven't posted much. However, I just wanted to note that though those entries are not the most current in my life, they are still just as heartfelt now as they were then. In fact, as I went back to read them, I did get a bit emotional at times because they brought me back to those very special, very real places in my life.  We have 5 kids.   They are all wonderful and I am proud of them all and WOW , what an adventure!! Our family is by no means perfect and I hope to never paint that picture here or anywhere else. We are all a little wild, it seems. As much as I can't...

                                                       Sushi    I don't even care for Sushi, but that is the first thing that comes to my mind when I try to describe my life right now. Not at all because I don't care for my life, but because my everything seems so simply complex.  When someone asks me how I am doing, I wish I could just say, "Sushi" and that they would get it without looking at me weird.  Last week marked the one year anniversary of my sister Ashley passing away and the one month mark of my mama passing away.  What the heck?! I'm not even sure if that is computing in  my brain fully. Jesse was kind enough to protect this night for me to be home alone, to do whatever I want or even "curl up in a ball and cry", he suggested. Not because he  gets joy when I curl up in a ball and cry, but because i...

          Recently, I went out to my usual spot for my usual run. It was the kind of morning when I was especially feeling like running. I find I like to run the best when I am wrestling with something. Whether its an effort to run away from something or a physical expression of running to Jesus, I'm not completely sure, but it usually seems to be both. I particularly love those days when I just need a good cry and I get to run in the rain and just let my tears mix with the rain on my face. Such a sweet release.   On this particular day though, I was wanting to release some pent up energy. Some frustration and confusion about my new place in life that I haven't quite figured out what to do with yet. As I was just starting on my third mile however, my knee threw in the towel. Annoyed, I limped around on it for a bit hoping to just walk it out so I could finish my run. It was clear after a few attempts at this that I wasn't going to be able to finish t...

                                   For over a year now, something has been stirring up in Jesse and I. The cool part is there is no human logic to why we both are experiencing this same stirring without any obvious cause.  We are though, and the best way I can think to describe it is that we are "expecting."  Like when one is pregnant, it is obvious that they are expecting a baby, but they don't know much about this baby yet.  The characteristics, hair color, sound of their cry, what they look like and in some cases even the gender is unknown, until the delivery. That's the closest thing I can use to describe this stirring within us.  We are expecting a change and although we don't know what it is, we are anticipating it.  Most the time there is an overwhelming feeling of excitement for me of the unknown, but there have also been times within the last year that ...