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.
sunrise
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.
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.
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.
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.
Believe in the Sunrise: A Christmas Road Trip
When I read the scrolling text on my red coin and thermos, I see an invitation to savor the true message the material world hides this season. Santa Billy knows what that red coin really means: we don't have to be good enough. We just have to believe—in showing up, in choosing the third door, in God showing up in unexpected places like Savannah hotels and beach tractors and a manger because every room was full.
When the Light Returns: Finding Hope for SAD
The same God who designed the sun's predictable arc across the seasons also designed me—a creature who needs light to thrive. He built the solution into creation itself: the promise that darkness never gets the final word. Even at its peak on the Winter Solstice, the night immediately begins to lose ground. The light always returns.
When the Sun Returns (Inside and Out)
Four mornings in a row, I showed up at the pier to see nothing. But I wasn't really seeing nothing, was I? I was witnessing God's faithfulness in the fog. This morning, after four days of grey, pink threaded through purple across the water. The sun rose today, outside and inside. God is faithful like that despite the fog, or perhaps because of it.
Writer's Growth 