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 […]

Devotional / faith / Grief / Grief Support

You Can Do Hard Things

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Sometimes, God requires us to do hard things. Really. hard. things. I don’t know about you, but I have to admit that when He called me to some of these […]

Bible Study / Devotional / Grief Support

But God Saw…

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For many years, she was confined to widow garb, waiting for her father-in-law to do the right thing. Yet, in all those years, God did not forget about her. For […]

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. […]

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 / 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: […]