I don’t need to look at pictures because I hold snapshots in my heart. I close my eyes and picture my son running down the hill with a star-spangled top hat perched on his toddler head. The next year he holds hands with his sister, with red, white and blue goggles flopping behind his ears as they jump into the pool.
I replay memories on this Fourth of July. I stare at my nineteen year-old son’s face. He seems so mature and contemplative as we banter about this year’s menu. I laugh at his request for sparklers again this year.
I add them to my grocery list. I suppose we’re never too old to want to light up the sky with the loopy cursive of our names. I secretly hope he’ll always want to see the fireflies awaken.
If I close my eyes I can see the scene from years earlier, when the kids were nine and seven. Dusk is just settling and we begin to see the flickering lights along the path. My son pokes holes in the lids of mason jars at the picnic table. Wooden flags are pressed into the Georgia clay around the campsite and his sister bursts from the camper, ecstatic this July 4th.
“Is it dark enough yet?” she hollers.
“Not yet, sweetie… not yet,” I answer. It’s a question of great importance to her and her brother on this day.
“Soon,” I encourage them. “Darkness will come soon enough. Go play some more in the sand.”
Although the summer solstice was a week earlier, it seems like the longest day of the year.
The arrival of the night sky drags in slow motion. Children know that its pitch black coming is the only way to see the brilliance of the shimmering lights. The two of them load the jars into a backpack along with a flashlight and glow sticks, armed for the summer darkness.
I gather the sparklers, soft drinks and snacks into a basket for later.
The lightening bugs begin to slowly appear. The two of them chase each one they spot madly around squealing: “There’s another one!” The discovery and wonder is beautiful and I watch them from my lawn chair. Each is careful not to smash the tiny fireflies and they work together to place them gently into the glass jars. When they need to catch their breath they line them up along the picnic table to show me. The glowing jars signify that the long wait is almost over. They are the first sign of hope: fireworks are coming.
As dusk settles and all lights but the campfire dim, their hands grab sparklers as fast as the adults can light them, They write their names in shooting silver over and over in the air. My son holds his sparkler up to his face and grins wide at me. His dimples glow pure and his blue eyes full of wonder shine back at me. His sun-kissed cheeks are smiling. His face reminds me how beautiful and brilliant we shine in the darkness when we are silhouetted in light.
When the sky has settled to a summer chalkboard black the sparklers have all burned out. Our eyes are tired and everyone’s bedtime has passed. My son leans back on his father’s lap and my daughter lies with her hands behind her head on the blanket, her face to the sky in expectation.
This year I will buy sparklers and check the cabinet for mason jars. Because sometimes we need the darkness to come. We need to know that our small flicker is seen in the looming wilderness and that what burns inside us cannot be jarred and taken. We need to lay on our backs in the coolness of the grass and look up long and hard, waiting for the first burst of showering light.
Maybe on Independence Day we long to remember that our mark here may seem fleeting and small, but that in truth we are bright and courageous and worthy up against the dark.
We need to know that the light of the world is inside us. Like a firefly.
I’ll light a sparkler soon and hand it to my son, and send him out.
Out into the darkness of the summer night like a shining star.
I’m not sure how old Shelby was when I noticed that her emotions were deeper and more sensitive than most. But I do recall arranging and rearranging her stuffed animals A LOT to get them in just the right spot so she could sleep. Perfectionism is a trait she inherited from me, but there was something more going on.
My daughter will turn 21 on Christmas Day and she has grown up to be an articulate, sensitive, self-aware, and deeply faith-filled woman. She doesn’t miss a Sunday at church or an opportunity to meet with her small group. She is a leader on campus and a mentor to children. She is studying psychology with and aspires to continue in graduate school with a degree in occupational therapy. She has always wanted to help others.
She also has generalized anxiety disorder.
It’s something we named in high school. And giving something a name is the first step in dealing with it. I am so proud of Shelby’s transparency and vulnerability in sharing and advocating for others who struggle with any form of mental or physical illness or disability.
We talked a bit about our journey here: the things that have worked, what clearly doesn’t (ways I messed way up in dealing with this) and how faith and tangible tools can make a difference. We pray that someone can see the hope and tools available in this journey.
The scriptures we mention are Phil 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:7
The greeting card aisle is going to be packed this week at the grocery store- dozen of folks swarmed around to find just the right words to stick in an envelope. It’s coming Sunday: Mother’s Day. This is the day we set aside to celebrate moms and all they mean to us. Seventy-five percent of all the flower sales in the U.S. each year happen THIS weekend. That’s a lot of roses, ya’ll. For many moms and their children this is a beautiful day filled with family and flowers, good food and gifts. We will smile and thank our families and share a meal, and it will be restful. I anticipate it will be that way for me. But this is far from reality for many.
Because sometimes there are no words and no bouquets.
For some Mother’s Day can be a brutal-reminder kind of day. The day that points out to a woman all the holes, the tattered places, the loss. There is a vacant seat at the table, an empty mailbox, or a painful place in our hearts.
Because this broken world can mean wayward children and less-than-perfect relationships. Often there is no card that can be purchased that says just the right thing from a daughter who carries too much pain and distance between herself and her mom. Or Sunday might be a day that a daughter just sits with memories of her mother, lost from this world because of cancer, a lifetime cut way too short.
Or maybe a mother sits surrounded by photographs hung on the walls of her children, her table empty, no visitors to welcome. Maybe she’s lost a child to death or to a prodigal path. Maybe there’s just silence these days. Maybe she has given up that she will ever hug them again.
These are not Hallmark moments.
So to all the moms or daughters who feel a little broken this Mother’s Day… I see you. This Sunday might be a time of mending for you, or it might just be a day to sit with the feelings. I don’t know. I only know that I have a little gift for you, to remind you that regardless of your circumstances, you are beloved.
I created these reminders for myself: 18 scriptures printed on a page that speak truth to me. I framed them, right there here where I can see them daily.
They contain words like:
You are loved. You are beautiful. You are special. You are cared for.
Words from a Father who knew that we would need them. Words just maybe for such a time as this- a day that comes with mixed feelings and lonely places.
So to moms or daughters that find this weekend hard, these are for you. I’d send you roses and daisies from my yard too if I could. You are not alone. You can download this printable HERE.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” – Hebrews 12:1
If you know me at all you have probably seen pictures of me and my posse. My girlfriends. My GF’s. We have 27 years between us. I have been part of this group for nearly 20. I don’t remember life without them. We will show up in your feed on retreats or arranging flowers for a girlfriend’s second wedding. You’ll know that 7 of the 9 of us have the same ankle tattoo. (Two of us will make this sisterhood symbol with permanent marker when we are in the retirement home…we’ll need to find each other.)
You might think that this whole “finding your tribe thing” is easy. You might think that it’s all brunch and road trips and birthdays.
You would be right. And you would be very wrong.
You might call me lucky But luck has nothing to do with keeping relationships for that amount of time with eight women.
That’s like saying “you’re so lucky you’ve been married for 25 years.”
This gig takes a whole mess of work and humility. If you ever find yourself envious, this is the truth behind our story. This is my version of the disclaimer that should be provided on every long-term relationship of any kind.
Because community is going to cost you.
The truth is that when friendship with a group of women is fresh and new it won’t cost you much. Over coffee you can share fashion finds and recipes, your latest thrift store purchases, family stories, and parenting tips. It’s easy, breezy, beautiful.
But stick around awhile and the casual conversations will wear thin. Facades will fail.
It’ll start small. One of you will have a bad day, a series of bad days, a bump in your marriage, or a full-blown nervous breakdown. Scars will come into focus if you spend enough time together. If you dare to examine each of your sisters and keep showing up for a front row seat to life with another human being, humanness will be exposed. It won’t be pretty. You might consider leaving.
When years spin on the calendar, nearly 20 to be exact, you’ll still realize it’s the most beautiful, hardest thing you will ever be part of.
Over the years you’ll be a witness your sisters at their best. You’ll cry happy tears because one’s daughter is saying her vows surrounded by sprays of flowers. Your mother-of-the-bride girlfriend will walk down the aisle with a knowing glance into the gaggle of you, her body at the perfect weight. She is floating like an angel and you practically gloat at the opportunity to witnesses the glory. You proudly beam at the reception.
The group of you will gather, crowding around a small cafe table and lean in close to hear the latest accomplishment of one of your sisters. You’ll toast your coffee cups and drive home smiling because gosh darn it, one of you did the thing she’s been talking about for a solid four years and it’s the proudest moment deep in your heart to know she is thriving.
You’ll cheer in the audience, one of your sisters at the podium giving her acceptance speech for one award or another, her finally finding her voice.
You’ll rock each other’s babies and then watch each of them grow like a beanstalk until they grow almost out of sight and you don’t see them often enough anymore. Each holds a piece of your heart, frozen in time with one single memory of all of you tending to ALL THOSE KIDS while trying to hold a conversation at a bible study in a messy kitchen.
You’ll buy one of the girlfriends a gift at some random store, giggling, just because it reminds you of her on a Tuesday.
You’ll group text like a teenager and send all the emojis on a heartbreaking day just to make her smile.
You’ll begin to hear all the words, even the ones she never speaks because your hearts begin to know each other.
You’ll see the beauty in her when she squints to see it in herself and you’ll sing the song in her heart back to her when she has forgotten the words.
You’ll laugh at very inappropriate times together. VERY. INAPPROPRIATE. TIMES.
And these times will become your memories and a part of you forever.
Those are the good moments, but a real tribe will cost you.
A circle of real girlfriends will beg you to lay down your pride. They will demand time, patience, and more understanding than your two year old who is yet to be potty-trained. The relationships will beckon you to listen deep and to soften judgement. Your shared love will call you to be vulnerable and transparent. You’ll have to get real up in here if you want to stay.
The truth is that you’ll have to eventually decide if your are a runner or if you are a fighter.
You’ll have to know in the guts of your very self if you can grow in deep commitment. You’ll have to know if you have the strength to to come out of hiding. From yourself and to them.
You will disappoint each other, a lot. You will hurt each other, often unintentionally.
And that’s not any kind of fun.
This past weekend I sat in a circle with my tribe. The ones who have held my hand in scary times, jumped for joy in summer seasons, and slapped me right upside the head when I was way off kilter. I talked about how hiding is the true root of any sin and satan wants nothing more than for us to be divided, alone, and without community. That’s the cold hard truth so I reminded them and myself that we are gonna have to fight.
How easy it would be to overlook each other’s bad habits, the lies we tell ourselves, and to glance away from the gaping holes in each other’s hearts.
Because we have an enemy that knows every sin that hinders us from being all that God created us to be and every tender place.
We’re going to have to be intimate here if we are going to be the body of Christ. And intimacy means “into me see.” We’re going to have to look into each other with eyes and hearts wide open.
We going to have to live with eyes wide open and a great big focus on Jesus.
Satan prowls like a lion in the night searching for an “In” to destroy sisterhood, for a way between us. He knows that we are better together. Isolation and quiet despair are the recipe he concocts to tell us we are unlovable, left out, forgotten.
So if you are in it for the long, ugly, beautiful haul of being in the body of Christ… all in for birthdays and gift-exchanges and toasting sunsets at the beach, you’re going to have to also be willing to surrender to the hard. You’re going to have to show up that one day when you find yourself with your hands on your sister’s feet, sitting cross-legged below her praying bold prayers to heal the broken places in her marriage and/ or whisper “Dear Lord to please tend to the scars she carries from the past.” You will pray for her harder than you pray for your own needs.
Because over time she has become a part of you, a mirror of you.
And you better be able to face a mirror because each woman in that circle of community you joined will hold one up and ask you to look close if they really love you.
And so, yes, I do have eight very close girlfriends. And I signed up for all of that. We each did.
Right in the middle of the retreat, when we had started talking about the broken places, we scrolled our names right across the top of a blank sheet of paper. We taped them towards the light and each of us wrote the words of truth right there under each other’s names in permanent marker.
A reminder.
Because just like Michelangelo, we see beauty in every block of marble. A masterpiece that is waiting to emerge.
And our words to each other begin to bring each other out of hiding.
Yes. Community will cost you.
And it will fill you.
A sisterhood will challenge you.
It will also rock the lies, expose the truth, and make you do the hard work.
Community will ultimately make you come alive, looking to the cross as your only hope.
We’re just here to sing the backup verses to the song He has planted in side of of our sisters, to carry each other’s voices when we have no words. I played this song at the end of my talk Saturday, surrounded by the girls who have helped me find my voice.
If you want to be in a girlfriend tribe you better be willing to sing a strong backup.
I’m so grateful for my dear friend Jennifer Hand of Coming Alive Ministries who led our retreat this weekend and one of the GF’s Renee who spoke and gave us deep questions to ponder with each other. I’m also grateful for the GF’s who took most of the pictures in this post because I took not a one the whole weekend. It takes a village, ya’ll.
Twenty years ago TODAY we heard the words “Malignant.”
It was December 10, 1997.
I had survived a four hour surgery. I was eight months pregnant and our daughter was still alive there inside me. The large tumor had been removed that was lodged right beside her. Twenty-nine staples lined my body which matched my age.
At twenty nine I had ovarian cancer. I was still pregnant.
A long road was ahead.
I don’t remember much about that day. I do recall begging my mom from that bed in the ICU to tell me the truth about what they had found. I slipped in and out of consciousness, struggling with what I would later understand to be pulmonary edema, fighting contractions, and complications from the surgery from the many medications that were pumping through my body. My life and my daughter’s life were precarious.
This man carried the weight of my cancer diagnosis and the worry. He spent much of his time in the hallway. My mom and his parents did too.
We all walked hallways. The in-between places.
He paced the hallways between the NICU and the cancer floor. He fought for me and for our family and he hasn’t stopped fighting.
I survived ovarian cancer. Barely. Our daughter Shelby was born 15 days after cancer was removed from my body, at 6:14 Christmas morning. Don’t ask her if she dislikes having her birthday on Christmas. She’ll tell you she shares a birthday with Jesus. We all understand the miraculous nature of it all.
Each year on D Day I have a range of emotions. I feel deeply blessed, incredibly awed that I even get another year on this planet, and I also relive the sadness, the despair, the “unfairness” of it all.
This morning I looped my arm around my son in church, him standing much taller than me. I can hardly believe he was born 2 ½ years after my diagnosis. The biggest miracle of all. I nearly doubled over with gratitude.
Today I remembered this specific memory:
A year after my diagnosis, when my hair was just beginning to grow back and our daughter was learning to take her first wobbly steps I asked my husband a weighty question.
“I never saw you, your parents or my mom cry in my room during that really scary time. I mean, samples were being sent to Johns Hopkins and twenty-three people were in the room when Shelby was born and I just kept thinking everything was fine because you were all so strong.”
I have never forgotten his response.
“You weren’t in the hallway. There were a lot of tears and hugs in the hallway.”
THE HALLWAY.
We all know hallways, yes?
The places between the now and and the not yet. The shuffling about in confusion. The questioning of everything, including God. I was in the room, battling in my own way but so many others were in the hallway.
I almost didn’t post about my “D Day” today. I figured maybe it was time to just keep all my melancholy emotions to myself. But then I thought of you- ALL of you in hallways this holiday season.
Those of you pacing, struggling, hurting, and questioning in hallways. Hospital hallways, yes, but also maybe just in caverns of pain and loss. Maybe with empty chairs around your table.
If you are in a hallway this year I just want you to know that today, on my personal D Day, I see you. I don’t know what the thing is that brought you here. But I do know that God is tender enough to have come to this world in the most vulnerable of moments, in the most unexpected, broken, forgotten place that He could have showed up.
My co-authored book with Tammy H. Meyer launches in just about a month! I wanted to share just a little of my heart behind this work with you, my friends who have followed this blog for several years.
So here’s my heart behind this book:
In my backyard in Augusta, Georgia, you will often find me crouching with a camera, taking photos of our pink Knockout Roses just outside my kitchen window. Or you might catch me rushing out the front door to capture the sun filtering through the southern pines. In the spring, I may be entranced, trimming fresh herbs from the planter box on my back deck, just like my grandmother used to do at her place all those years ago
I have always noticed the small beautiful things, and the way seasons ebb and flow and transition: the way the light changes, and how leaves sprout, grow, and eventually fall and are swept away in the winter wind.
As a little girl I was introverted and quiet, a deep feeler who noticed all the little things that others often overlooked. The seasons spoke to me: the blanketing white of the first snowfall, the burning reds and oranges of the Maples, and the way the sun paused at the Midwest horizon just before summer darkness came and the fireflies glittered.
I’m still that little girl at heart.
Now, when I travel to the Midwest, the places of my youth and heart land, Iowa fields beckon me with their endless acres of corn standing like golden flags fluttering in a summer breeze, clouds stretching as far as I can see. I attempt to take a mental photo, a snapshot filed inside my thoughts. I want to remember.
I have learned that there is much that nature and the seasons teach me about surrenders, new life, bleak winters, and the fresh hope found on our sunniest of days. I have learned that the literal seasons reflect the deeper seasons of the SOUL.
From one such period, a dark winter-of-the-soul season, I bear the mark, a reminder found from a long surgical scar. Its waxy-red trail streaks a vertical line down my stomach. Cancer, they had said. Ovarian cancer. I was twenty-nine years old and eight months pregnant when they removed it. And when the pain and scars were ten days fresh, I gave birth to my daughter on Christmas Day. I started chemotherapy the next day.
My daughter entered the world like a miracle that she was. But even though the cancer was removed, I was not yet out of the woods.
I lived through that winter and spring in the same year, becoming a new mom, decorating the nursery, and wondering if I also needed to plan the music for my funeral. I researched survival rates. I watched my daughter start to smile as my hair fell out from chemo. During the night I lifted bottles to feed her. During the day nurses lifted iv bags of cisplatin to kill the cancer that lurked inside me.
The scars down my middle and my expectations of how I would become a mom defined me for a while. The physical places have healed, mostly. But I still carry “winter” with me to every doctor appointment, all these twenty years later.
I have also experienced fresh hope: like the spring after my cancer diagnosis with my first clear CT scan, or the day I learned that I would be a mom again, after all those drugs had left my body. Our son Mitchell proved that there would be more miracles, coming into our lives even after all the surgeries and therapies. Carrying fresh life inside of me again renewed my spirit and two and a half years after my winter season our son was born. Watching him smile for the first time to his big sister’s delight was like a ray of sunshine in my heart.
I’ve stood next to my husband many summers as a witness, watching our two children grow up. I’ve stared at them eating watermelon on our back deck on hot summer days or casting out their fishing line at the nearby lake. We’ve caught snowflakes on our tongues together and laughed ourselves silly on long hikes up mountain trails, the leaves changing to brilliant yellows. We’ve traveled through many seasons together, each with its gifts.
Of all the seasons, autumn is my favorite. There is something freeing and beautiful, though painful about letting things go, and facing the chill of change, waiting for the blanketing snow to make all things new. It reminds me most of what Jesus did for me in embracing that cross and allowing it to let go of all my sins.
When I met my dear friend and Co-Author Tammy four years ago, it was an instant kind of sisterhood. We walked the property of the most beautiful lodge retreat outside San Antonio, Texas one late fall several years ago. Her camera captured the breathtaking scene around us better than my iPhone ever could.
We realized quickly that we had the same heart for noticing the small details of the season- the floating leaf, the burnt orange bush, the vacant branches. We laughed hard by the fire those first few nights. We told stories that could only be understood by someone who had marched right through difficult spiritual seasons of estrangement, loss, and ultimately hope in an everlasting love of an eternal Father.
This book is a collection of stories reflecting our hearts, but most importantly, reflecting the heart of a God who is present in ALL of our seasons.
“A God of All Seasons” will launch in August with preorders available soon. It’s a collection of stories that speak to lifting our eyes to God’s unchanging love in every joy and every trial. I pray this book will challenge you to look at every spiritual season through the lens of mercy and grace. It has made all the difference for us.
To stay in the loop subscribe to our book newsletter here.
We can’t wait to swap stories with you and we have some fun, encouraging freebies and surprises planned for the next few weeks.
P.S. Tammy and I have a wicked sense of humor as well. I just LOVE this pic from three years ago in Texas..it pretty much expresses our excitement for this book.
The sun is still hanging above the cornfields and the stalks are not tall enough yet to silhouette the sky
The earth and sky touch with no interference.
I stand on land that I knew as a child, my grandparent’s farm which is now my uncle’s and a thousand acres of family land stretches out around us. I stare at the feed bunks that line the landscape and I remember the time I fell hard here. How I struggled to heal from those scars.
My heart is tugged in many directions but my eyes return to the sunset and the silos.
My mom, uncle and cousin Nancy are with me. Mom and I have traveled a thousand miles to get back to this land. My mother and uncle grew up here. I spent much of my childhood on these acres. It’s home.
I am lost in my own memories. I breathe deeply the country air. I close my eyes and remember a dozen trips to this farm as a child.
I am startled back to the present moment when my cousin starts to cry. Nancy is nine years younger than me and has lived under these Iowa skies her whole life. Down’s Syndrome makes her acutely aware of nuances. She cries loud and often. No emotion is left stifled in her.
I admire Nancy and her unbridled emotion. But I have no time to ask or process what she is feeling. I’m too caught up in my own nostalgia.
We drive my uncle’s truck fast the ½ mile back to his house, a dog jetting the same mph beside us. Open windows and a soft bed feel perfect. I sleep better than I have in years.
I rise to a sunrise that takes my breath away. I pick a few flowers.
I pour coffee early and turn my rental car onto dirt roads to make the four hour round-trip to visit my grandmother. I’m still thinking about the previous night’s sunset and Nancy’s crying but my eyes look forward.
Folks can carry a thousand unknowns down dirt roads and end up at a place where it all makes sense.
Rain clouds surround the road that I travel and speckled gray skies are threatening. I have already traveled more than 1200 miles and just 60 remain. Up ahead a turquoise blue band glows over my destination and I stop to take a photo.
After hugs I get a glimpse at my grandma’s creativity. New paints are lined up there on her kitchen table.
I smile wide that she hasn’t forgotten the most important things.
She holds the words I’ve written (my first book) in her 94 year old hands and it’s more beautiful than the Iowa sunset I stood in awe of last night by the barn.
I have seven hours on her couch and if that couch could talk it would tell you stories that would frighten fish. It’s a sacred space, a confessional. Something between us knows that this might be the last goodbye. The final confessional. We hold nothing back. We don’t have time for small talk or editing of our sentences.
The truth is that we never did.
I stand up to leave and the hugs are too many to count. I keep saying goodbye and she does too but we come back to me kneeling and her brushing my hair and smiling at me. I get Kleenex.
She whispers “I’m so proud of you” and I whisper the same words back.
I add: “You’ve always been my favorite person, you know?”
I glance at all the pictures, 27 great-grandchildren in a line on her fridge. I point at all the pictures and say “I made you a grandmother, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.” She smiles.
A good gig, huh? I reply. She laughs and her eyes twinkle blue just as they always have. Her dimples show and mine mirror hers as I get up to leave.
“The best.” She says, dimples showing.
As I leave her last words are “be a good girl”
Which is the exact phrase she’s said to me every time I’ve left that couch for all of my 49 years.
My reply is always the same: “I’ll do my best, grandma.”
I sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes because I don’t know how to leave. I don’t want the sun to set on this. But there is no staying. We have said all the words.
There is only Iowa sky and dirt roads in between me and the 100 miles I have to journey.
I drive the 106 miles of pavement and dirt roads back to the farm and arrive just in time for another dinner and sunset.
I ask my cousin Nancy when I return to the farm what I didn’t know how to ask her the night before.
“Nancy- when you were crying last night was it because the sun was going away?”
“Yeah” she said, looking up shyly above her glasses.
“Do you always cry when the sun goes down, or just sometimes”?
“Just sometimes” she says, our eyes meeting.
“Ah, me too,” I respond, holding back tears.
“Because when something is that beautiful you never want to say goodbye.”
photo credit: 
