This was a week of firsts — the kind I've come to know by heart this season. Working through every first after what I hadn't known would be lasts. The knife I reached for was packed. So I reached for my own, the one I had before him. What you put in the ground is never what comes back up.
healing
Memories, Anchors, and Prisons
The sunrise is supposed to be the opposite of the prison. Then Sunday morning, he was there. Tonight, I begin the part of trauma therapy that's supposed to help me leave the room I'm still trapped in.
He Knows My Name
I brought Mama Marci to the sunrise. She couldn't see the heron. She trusted me. Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made releases next Tuesday, April 14.
The First Right Choice
I took a year off to write a book, then went back to work. Finally, the story underneath the stories. Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made: From Shame to Sanctuary releases April 14.
Going Through the Motions
I don't feel alive, but I was grateful for breath in my lungs. For quiet. For stillness. I keep showing up. Sunrise. Gym. School. Sea glass. Repeat. The daffodils came back, so will I.
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.
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.
The Journal Returns: A Story of Lost and Found
I actually cried when Hector told me he'd found my "book." 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.
When the Power Goes Out
My car wouldn't start at the pier, the school had no power, and I faced twenty-five sixth graders in a dark classroom with no lesson plan. But sometimes restoration comes in unexpected ways – through jumper cables from someone who loves us, through teaching children to find peace in uncertainty, through learning that even in the dark, we can still find our own light.
Writer's Growth 