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 / faith / Grief / Grief Support / Holidays / hope / Waiting

Hope Has Come: Advent

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I can think of nothing that threatens my hope more than the silence of God—endless waiting with not so much as a whisper from the One on whom my expectation […]

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 […]

faith / Grief / Grief Support / Thanksgiving

Thankful for Grief

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I am thankful for grief. Truly.Here’s why: 🥀 Grief is love. Not, “I once loved,” but rather, “I love still.” I am privileged to have had a love that was […]

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

Healing from the Inside Out

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Years ago, following our baby girl’s open heart surgery, doctors were unable to close her sternum, so they sewed a patch over her incision, and sent her to the PICU. […]

Child Loss / devotional / faith / Grief / Grief Support / Resurrection / seasons / Trauma / Widowhood

Death Gives Way to Life

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It was a sunny October afternoon when death came to visit. Once my favorite season—filled with family birthdays at apple orchards, hot pumpkin spice lattes on crisp, frosty mornings and […]

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 […]

Grief Support / Widowhood

Early Retirement: Why Does God Allow Good Men to Die Young?

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Just a few weeks after my husband’s funeral, a young friend stopped by the church to see me. She wondered why God would allow a godly man’s life to be […]

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 […]

Grief / Widowhood

The Gift of Suffering

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Sometimes, it’s good to remind myself that I don’t corner the market on suffering. I was watching my new favorite podcast today, and one of the guys (Josh) was walking […]