Mama Marci mailed me a letter last week. It was in Joshua's fireproof lockbox—one of the things he chose to protect from everything that could destroy it. I didn't know it existed. He never told me he kept it.
Author: Laura Joy Palma
Behind the Clouds
This morning, there was supposed to be a blood moon. It was raining. I stayed at the pier anyway. I always stay. There's a particular kind of faith required when you show up for something you were promised and the sky gives you nothing.
Standing in Uncertainty
I've been a planner my whole life. I carried an essay about my future from elementary school into my thirties, and every time God didn't deliver it on my timeline, I blamed the Strategist. This time, the storm is worse—and for the first time, I'm not angry at Him. Something is shifting. I'm learning to stand in the fog.
How Thin the Line Is
Tomorrow, Joshua would have turned 47. He died on St. Patrick's Day, 2023 — suddenly, unexpectedly, the way death sometimes comes. I'm catching up with him now, and I've been thinking about how thin the line is. How suddenly a photo becomes a memorial. How the living keep aging while the dead stay still.
Resilience, Revisited
Last spring, I wrote about chasing sunrises and what they taught me about resilience. I thought I understood it then. I've since learned that sometimes you don't bounce at all—and maybe that's the point.
Laura Joy, He’s Here
Kevin called across the beach to tell me my heron was back after a week and a half's absence. It made me think about John the Baptist — and the women who've spent forty-three years pointing me toward Christ.
The Book I Didn’t Know I Was Writing
In October 2024, an acquisition editor told me I didn't have the platform publishers need. Fifteen months later, a VP publisher said the same thing. They weren't wrong—I hadn't earned the trade publishing route. But in those fifteen months of waiting, I discovered something: I would have published the wrong book.
These Bones Will Say
I've never been able to make typical affirmations work for me. It's easy to lie about myself, but it's difficult to lie about who God is—especially when I'm surrounded by His grandeur at the sunrise every morning.
The Heron and I: Sunrise Companions
The truth is, I hadn't even known it was the same bird until those hospital days. Missing "the birds" at sunrise, I'd Googled Great Blue Herons from Tony's bedside and discovered they're incredibly territorial, returning to the same fishing spots day after day. The revelation stunned me—all those weeks, maybe months, I thought I'd been seeing different herons. But no. It had been him. The same one. My faithful friend I hadn't even recognized as singular until I lost him.
Making the Most of It (Hospital Edition)
I walked the floor of the ER once, and that's when I saw them—half a dozen sunrise landscapes decorating the hallways. I stood before each one, these windows to elsewhere when I couldn't get to my own pier. God had provided witness even there. Sometimes making the most of a moment means recognizing that the moment itself—even if it's spent on an ER floor looking at someone else's sunrise photos—is the gift.
Writer's Growth 