There’s been a covered casserole dish with a measured cup of uncooked rice sitting on the stove since Sunday night when Tony started feeling feverish; it’s been chicken soup ever since. Cali would be home late after seeing a movie with a friend and we’re dog-sitting, so we gathered three pups in bed with us early around eight o’clock last night—Tiny Tito, cuddly Wrecks, and massive Hershey.

I woke at two to use the bathroom, like clockwork, but I wasn’t alone. Tony was hunched over the trashcan in our room, retching violently. Fever sweats, chills, and nausea had progressed to diarrhea and vomiting, and now with nothing left, persistent dry heaving. Wrecks was making hacking sounds like he was about to vomit. Uh oh, had he helped himself to Hershey’s food?

Against all internal warnings to watch my back, I picked Wrecks up off the bed and carried him outside to get it out of his system. When he came back in, I put him in his cage for the rest of the night, a comforting spot for him that would avoid future cleanups.

The Mess in the Dark

I went upstairs to survey the damage, flipping on the light closest to the door. As my eyes registered the splattering of peach from the bed to the door, Tony lifted his head slightly and whispered, “There’s poop over here.” I turned on all the lights then. Two perfect little piles of poop. Twelve or so dollops of vomit. Typically, it’s Calista’s job, but not in the middle of the night. Then, it’s Tony’s job. For a reason. It’s not usually mine for a reason.

That’s why, at two-thirty this morning, Tony and I were synchronized retching, him dry heaving into a trash can and me choking down the bits sneaking their way in as I cleaned the beige carpet on my hands and knees. Neither of us really slept. He was too uncomfortable. We tried sips of water, chips of ice, even an anti-nausea pill that dissolves on your tongue the doctor had prescribed him when the last flu landed him in the hospital.

I saw the writing on the wall. I took my shower and got ready, checking on him every ten minutes or so.

The Escape to Sunrise

Patient First opened at eight. Was I selfish to still want to go to the sunrise? We still had an hour before I could drive him there. I could just be gone twenty minutes or so, and I’d just be five minutes up the road. Cali was home, and I’d leave her door open so he could call for her if he needed something. I’d consoled him all night, rubbing his back, holding his hair back, feeling his groans in my soul. It was, in fact, his rare vulnerability that packed me up and drove me to the water’s edge. I’d not slept well, and I was going to need to be strong today. I needed the warmth of the winter sun on my face.

It was thirty degrees with a light breeze when I started praying for healing, but the birds didn’t mind. As I watched the world wake up over the river, I surrendered the blog I’d planned to write today, the blog about our trip to Savannah and the colorful moments, good and bad, captured against beautiful landscapes. The magic of the mid-seventies haven seemed so far away already.

I flipped through my journal, right past the gap in dates, and smiled at affirmations of last week’s blog post about believing.

The Lost Companion

Each journal becomes my companion, almost an intermediary between me and God, a place where I’m able to talk with Him. I fill its pages with my most intimate thoughts, especially the mean ones, holding them captive before Him. For decades, I’ve transcribed every sermon note into their lined pages. It’s bittersweet when I retire a spiral to my collection, like I’m losing a confidant from that season.

When I noticed my blue journal missing at the start of break, I knew I must have lost it at dawn the day prior. I’d retraced my steps, could even vaguely remember it being warm enough to sit outside to journal on a cement block on the beach, but when it started to rain and I was worried about getting my camera to the car, I must have set it aside to pack up and left her behind. I was angry at myself. I even told Tony that I wondered if it meant I was losing God’s favor.

Then, after four days of missing entries and a new purple journal already broken in, I got a call from an unfamiliar number.

“Laura Joy?” He’d called me by my double-name, so he was not a telemarketer. I confirmed.

“This is Hector.” He paused, and I wondered which Hector it might be. I have a lot of Hispanic friends. Finally, he said, “I found your book.”

The Return

I breathed a sigh of relief and recognition. I’d written my name and number in the cover, so when he passed by that cement block on a sunrise stroll interrupted by the rain, he grabbed my journal and tossed it in his car to return, then simply forgot about it.

It was no matter. I was reunited with my writing companion. There wouldn’t be a huge gaping hole of months in my journal archives, just a couple of days, maybe a few out of order when I’m ready for that purple spiral in a few more weeks of pages sorting through prayers, fears, and dreams.

I actually cried when Hector told me he’d found my “book.”

The Witness

My husband’s been by my side for a few hundred sunrises. There’s been a journal by my side since I was ten, helping me navigate season after season, a record of my growth and God’s glory, words marking losses and celebrations and all the waiting rooms in between. I’m most grateful God gave me the gift of writing, the ability to express myself to Him and others in a way I can’t in person.

I prayed for Tony at the sunrise, watched the great ball crest, savored the warmth as its light sought my body across the river.

The rest of the morning was lost in discomfort at urgent care. They discharged Tony after an IV with two liters of fluids, but the nausea and stomach cramping continue even now, well after a caregiver wheeled him out to the car. We’ve got several bottles of pills he could take if he could hold anything down. For now, he’s with the heating pad under the covers, a comforting spot to abide the course of his flu.

The Safe Place

I’m typing in my study, but it’s not my typical blog. I’m listening for sounds of Tony stirring in our room down the hall. I’m thinking about the blog I thought I would write about our trip to Savannah and its moments. I know there’s meaning in what we’re experiencing now.

I’ve loved a lot of people throughout the years, and when they’ve been in trouble, I’ve always turned to God. Journal pages record answered prayers… because even if God did not give me the answer I wanted, He answered with the response that was best for my soul.

I think God knew I would be an oft-wandering soul. That friends and loves and family members would come and go, and I would need something to anchor me, something I could rely on even when those I loved couldn’t be there for me. The empty page was always waiting to take my pain or rage or joy.

My blog has since become an extension of that outpouring, only it’s slices of my meanderings made public, a more exposed place to try and heal on purpose, out loud, so others know they can, too. My journal is messier; every day, I look at myself before God in the reflection of her open pages.

Finding Your Witness

This wasn’t the blog that I planned to write tonight, but because nothing in life rarely goes as planned, I’m grateful for a safe place to simply get my thoughts out without judgment. It’s that time of year when everyone’s making resolutions, and you might not be a writer, but I challenge you to find a place to get your thoughts out before we say goodbye to 2025.

Don’t feel like bearing your soul to a pad of paper? Talk to God while you walk. Speak your prayers into voice memos on your phone. Take photos that capture what words can’t. Build something with your hands while you sort through your thoughts. The medium doesn’t matter—what matters is having somewhere to pour out what’s too heavy to carry alone.

Find your cement block by the water. Find your sunrise. Find the place where you can be honest about the vomit on the carpet and the fear in your chest and the grace that shows up anyway.

Witness

A poem from my journal’s perspective

Once a day. Twice on Sundays. I get to breathe. I get to see.
It’s like clockwork, almost exactly twenty-four hours. I’m dark, empty, unseen.
Then, I stir with the seagulls. They caw. Sand in her toes. Chair down. Phone out, snapping photos. I hear before I see.

River mist sets on me, sea salt and morning dew. I smell before I’m known.
And, all at once, I come alive. The sun crests after I do, while she does. Pages sprung open, a new morn, a new day, a new entry. In the fullness of morning, all of her words come to light. Admissions made waiting for the dawn.

In those cotton candy pre-sunrises, she teaches me what it means to have breath instead of binding. I see the colors brighten, deepen, cloud over through her words.

Once a day, twice on Sundays I get to breathe, I get to see.

The other Son rises at church, and there she teaches me what it means to find sanctuary in the storm. There, songs about anchors and cornerstones make her cry, and tears smear her anecdotes. Sprawled sermon notes ever attempting to connect with the Creator.

I wait for the sun to rise and for the Son to comfort, because then I am light, full, seen.
Like clockwork, opening me makes all things new.