For The Love Of Tuesdays: 2016

9/13/16

An Open Letter About Our Journey To Parenthood, Pt. 2

This evening I jumped on my blog dashboard to do some maintenance and before long I found myself scrolling through the journal entries I’ve published for the world, reflecting on the time that’s passed and the healing that each one provided. As I did this I stumbled upon my blog post ‘An Open Letter About Our Journey to Parenthood' and was taken aback when I saw that the date I originally posted it was one year ago from today. That entry was one of the scariest things I’ve ever written, but as I look back over the year I’m so overwhelmed by not only the response from friends near and strangers afar – but also the healing that its allowed me as it was the first step in opening my world and allowing God to break down my fears and insecurities and embrace the community He had waiting for me in this season.

I also realized that so much has changed in a year, not just emotionally and spiritually, but physically and logistically as well. So for those of you who have followed Justin and my journey to parenthood, this is what we’ve been up to :)

9/11/16

Capture Your Grief [October 2015 Collection]

In the last year I've had multiple people mention that following my grief series after-the-fact has proven difficult because the filter archives it in reverse chronological order, making the most recent filter through first, rather than starting with the first actual post.

So here's the entire collection in reading order. Praying for those of you who are facing grief and loss in whichever way that has looked like for you personally, and am praying also that these posts may give you comfort in some small way.

4/19/16

No awkward silence necessary: How to talk to friends battling loss and infertility.

Over the last year and a half I've read a lot of posts that are titled somewhere in the realm of "Things not to say to someone after a miscarriage" "...someone with infertility", etc. I've often wanted to find one to repost or to share in the hopes that friends and family would read it and be able to experience a different perspective; but the one thing that struck me was how so often the first hand accounts that I'd find were so unbelievably bitter and discouraging to read. I found myself constantly wondering "what do people think they could possibly say after reading this?"

4/3/16

When Windows Talk

Writers block is the understatement of the year for me. For those of you who followed my grief series in October you’ll remember I noted over and over how much of a blessing the ‘guided vulnerability’ was for me – it held my hand and pointed out specific areas I could elaborate on and made this massive typhoon of feelings manageable – bucket by bucket.

I’ve continually been overwhelmed by a need to write…a need to throw the curtains open and let light into the dim rooms of my world. But there are so many rooms and there are so many windows, and some days they feel too far from where I sit to journey to on my own. Some moments I'm overwhelmed with ore than I know how to deal with, while other times I do everything I can to pretend like the rooms and windows don't even exist at all.

1/12/16

For the Love of Tuesdays

Towards the end of last year I read a book called Simply Tuesday by Emily Freeman that’s all about finding meaning in our day to day - not just the events that are accompanied by fireworks and chapter headings. She uses the example of a Tuesday and how in a world where we ‘work for the weekend’ in so many senses, we forget about the Tuesdays in our lives; only dreading the Mondays and yearning for the Saturdays of this world. This truly hit home for me after I’d just finished a Bible study called Chase by Jennie Allen that had me wrestling over what it is that I was running after and why…