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“I don’t think he ever really loved me.” Aunt Carla often exaggerated, but that day I believed every word. She propped her tan legs on the railing and swallowed the salty air. The screen door slapped as my mother popped in and out to serve snacks and jars of sweet tea. Uncle Simon taught me…
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I used to think the innkeeper in the Christmas story was the villain. No one ever told me that, but through the years I think I secretly just thought “What a rotten dude! He couldn’t give a pregnant woman a bed?” At some points I pictured him as this indifferent guy who shrugged and was…
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I didn’t know how to be His, how to belong to this God who seemed to be breaking my heart. But if there was the option to be His, even in the loss of everything else, I had to grab a handful of truths that I’d always believed: God doesn’t leave us and there is…
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We buried my grandmother in December. It’s hard and blunt way to begin a post, but in a world where people are moving fast and always speeding to the next thing, I wanted to start with why any of this matters. In the months leading up to her death, I noticed that I was desperate…
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I was a challenging child at times. Mostly, my parents nurtured my strong will, until at my mother’s dismay it confronted her like a bull in a china shop during one of our church’s Christmas pageants. Ironically dressed like an angel, I stood ready to take my place and demanded to carry my noticeably-sized toy…
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I’ll never really know what people expected of me, I think that’s where I have to start. Some probably thought I’d be the calculated type to spend years evaluating the ins and outs of a relationship, examining the nooks and crannies of every part. Sometimes I think that’s what I expected of myself—to logically pick…
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Across oceans and continents, we still write and leave one other voice memos. When crisis comes or we find something funny, we send it to the other. We reminisce about the years we spent under the same roof, how we miss the Sunday mornings we spent making breakfast or listening to Josh Garrels in the…
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It is entirely possible to have both one of the worst and best days of your life on exactly the same day. This is because grief is one of those things that frees you from all of your pride and ego while simultaneously ripping your heart out. In the midst of my grief, I’ve done…
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It happened again the other day. One of the last times I remember it happening was when I was sitting in the hospital. I was on a different continent entirely and I kept going back and wondering if I would always feel this way. That sinking feeling and those same thoughts always come in waves.…
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This restaurant, this table, knows all our worst heartbreaks. If the walls around it could speak, they would repeat back to me some of the hardest words I’ve ever said, attached to some of the strongest love I’ve ever felt. One day when we’re older and have maybe learned what it means to let go…
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