Inside: Do you struggle for words when praying for grieving friends? Try asking God to help them in areas that were difficult for you during your own seasons of sorrow.
I don’t have specific stats to back this up, but it seems as if the first few months of 2023 have been marked by an onslaught of grief and loss.
Off the top of my head, I can think of five people I know who lost close loved ones, three of them unexpectedly. And that was just over a few weeks in January and February.
Inside: When there’s so much that divides us, a catchy message on a T-shirt can highlight what we have in common if we simply take the time to notice.
I was getting ready to check out at Kohl’s when I noticed a woman near the front of the store peering at me as if she knew me. I didn’t recognize her, but that didn’t stop her from coming over to where I stood.
“I love your T-shirt,” she said.
“Oh … thank you!” I said, glancing down to see what my shirt said. (Yep, I should have known.)
“Easily distracted by plants.”
Inside: A week that went sideways, a growing list of loves, a favorite Psalm and learning to trust on the cusp of a new season.
I’ve spent the last several days on the couch, resting my way through the various phases of a sickness I’ve not had previously and certainly didn’t expect to get last week.
The coming days likely will bring an uptick in articles about how the world has changed in three years and where we are now and what it all means. I have a few thoughts and feelings about that myself. Right now, though, I’m just grateful that my inevitable turn with Covid has been mostly unremarkable.
Inside: How an old snapshot of me and my dad helped me appreciate my mom more. And how growing older or losing parents can alter our perspectives and enable us to reframe memories in a healing way.
When I visited my aunt in Wisconsin last September, I was drawn to a thick album of family history on a shelf near her favorite reading chair.
My parents had a similar binder full of photocopied pictures and family memories in their home. But I had always skipped over the photos and gone straight to the written material when I looked at it.
Inside: The spiritual anchor that helps us loosen our grip on our plans and release the details of our lives back into the hands of the only One who knows exactly what we need.
Certain seasons of life bring a greater urgency to our prayers.
When life hangs in the balance, chaos swirls, and we face more questions than answers.
When we’re watching on the sidelines, quietly—perhaps desperately—hoping for God to intervene in a loved one’s life, praying that they will respond when He does.
Inside: There’s an important difference between grief and disappointment, and here’s why it matters.
On Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. The last time the Chiefs played in the NFL championship, the match didn’t go so well for our boys in red. That loss prompted the following thoughts about disappointment, and how it relates to grief.
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I’m not the most rabid football fan in the world, but I still remember how glum I was the day after the Super Bowl in 2021—possibly the worst game the Kansas City Chiefs had played in several years. Recalling the joy and ecstasy that swept over Kansas City when the team won the Super Bowl in 2020 made the disappointment even more poignant.