Devotional / faith / Grief / Grief Support / Post-Traumatic Growth / Surrender / Widowhood

Drop Your Nets and Follow Me

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Change is hard—especially when it’s not my idea. Especially when it leads to the unknown. Especially when it means letting go. “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” With […]

Child Loss / faith / Grief / Grief Support / New Year / Widowhood

Prayer for a New Year

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A Valley-Walker’s Prayer for a New Year Dear God, as we step into a brand new year, we lift up this honest and heartfelt prayer. Our hearts are full of […]

Christmas / Devotional / devotional / faith / Grief / Grief Support / Holidays / Love / Widowhood

So Loved

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I know about love. I have loved, and been beautifully loved by, a good man. But, as much as he loved me, I’m absolutely certain Jeremy wouldn’t come back to […]

faith / Grief / Grief Support / Thanksgiving / Widowhood

What Does it Mean to be Blessed?

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Are we really blessed? In our culture, we tend to think of blessings as: But Jesus said, blessed are: Those last 5 are not exactly blessings I would choose. But […]

Devotional / faith / Grief Support / Waiting / Widowhood / Womanhood

Scattered Seeds

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I sometimes struggle with the feeling that my current ministry is just throwing seed to the wind and never seeing any of the fruit it might bear. That can be […]

devotional / Grief / Post-Traumatic Growth / Prolonged Grief Disorder / Widowhood

Four Years Faithful

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This blog is four years old today—born out of one of the darkest valleys of my life. If these birth-pangs were measurable, they’d certainly be a 10 on the Richter […]

Devotional / Grief / Grief Support / Widowhood

Mercy Met Me There

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Four years ago, today, I stood in a hospital corridor, begging God for the life of this man. There are no words sufficient to describe what my whole being was […]

cancer / Child Loss / devotional / faith / Grief / Grief Support / Widowhood / Womanhood

Irreparably Broken

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Do you feel irreparably broken? A few minutes of watching the news or scrolling social media reminds me that I don’t hold a monopoly on brokenness. There is pain, devastation […]

devotional / faith / Grief / Grief Support / Surrender / Waiting / Widowhood

When Will You Surrender?

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Two years ago, I’m sitting on the third row, just before worship on a Sunday morning—pretty discouraged and praying for clarity—when God hits me between the eyes with this question: […]

cancer / Child Loss / devotional / faith / Grief / Grief Support / Trauma / Widowhood

When Grief Rocks Your Faith

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Profound grief has a way of bringing us face to face with what we actually believe about God. Often, we are surprised by our own doubt. We wrestle with the […]

devotional / Grief Support / Post-Traumatic Growth / Widowhood

Contentment, Even Now?

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I often preach to myself that I need to be fully present in each season. It’s so tempting to always be looking forward to the next things: Before we know […]

Child Loss / Grief / Grief Support / Post-Traumatic Growth / Trauma / Widowhood

Post-Traumatic Resilience

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This is resilience. I remember a huge holly tree that took up residence next to our house when I was young. She was actually quite beautiful, but when she started […]