Can you choose joy even in the midst of loss? A story of losing their house and possessions, but rejoicing still.
Hope Suffering

Choosing Joy Despite Loss

We recently decided to sell our house. It was not an easy decision but a necessary one. When I got so sick a couple of months ago, one of the first things we considered was mold exposure. While I have had long-term symptoms from Lyme Disease, they were manageable until two years ago when I …

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Books

How Reading Together Bonds Families

“Don’t read another chapter, mom!” My seven-year-old anxiously said as she looked at the few pages left in the book we were reading together as a family. “I don’t want to finish it too fast!” As we chatted about our book that we were enjoying reading together, it became clear how much she loved this …

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Hope Suffering

Hope Flickers

I was sitting at ballet with my girls, ill health and pain overwhelming me, making me unable to even concentrate on the conversation happening between mothers waiting for their girls. I had been experiencing a major, debilitating health decline and had not yet been diagnosed. I huddled in the corner and considered both the gifts …

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Art Suffering

Art in a Painful World and How it Humanizes Us

Hospitals can be busy places. When I found myself hospitalized for premature labor over ten years ago, I was thankful for the doctors’ and nurses’ efficient care for me. However, sometimes there were certain staff members that treated me more like a medical object than a person, likely because they were hurried and overworked. Somewhere …

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Suffering

What Suffering is Teaching Me

They say suffering changes you, and that’s true. But it amuses me that we think it only brings good change. Suffering is so hard, we automatically like to assume the changes it brings are worth it, humanly speaking. But like everything in life, it brings a mixed bag. This isn’t to deny that we serve …

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Suffering

My Lyme Disease Story and How It Changed Me

When I was approximately nine or ten-years-old, I found myself having intense headaches and was so lethargic I didn’t want to get out of bed. My mother, being the good mother she was, took me to the doctor. My headaches were not centralized on my sinuses, but on the top of my forehead.. But it …

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