Goodbye from The Mudroom

The Mudroom opened its doors almost nine years ago when there weren’t many places Christian women could share their writing. The Christian blogosphere resonated with its readers and became a trusted source for spiritual resources, as well as a confessional place where people were sharing their deepest struggles, hurts, longings, and challenges.  I couldn’t find […]

Healing for a Broken Heart

…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. (C.S. Lewis)   I experienced the impossible in the twilight of a morning. […]

How Sweet the Sound

A box sits in the corner of the fellowship hall at church – a milk crate labeled with a laminated page that reads “Lost and Found”. The box overflows with forgotten things gathering dust. Every once in a while someone will empty the contents onto a table with the vain hope that the sippy cups, […]

Have a Great Vacation

I. There’s a joke mothers make: mental stability is overrated! A month at a psych ward sounds like a vacation!   It’s not that mental illness is a laughing matter, but a joke in bad taste sometimes feels like the only way to say motherhood makes a psych ward sound fun.   II. The gaslighting […]

The Growing Uncomfortable Edge

I am untethered, unmoored, unrecognizable to myself. My husband passed away in a hiking accident, and life is altered on every level.  I feel disoriented, trying to make sense of my disassembled life—like lying on the couch and watching TV sideways.  Everything has changed, and my brain has yet to catch up to it all. […]

Faith Over Fear?

The church my husband and I were attending closed its doors at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 and had done an admirable job of reaching out to congregants through a quick pivot to online technology for services and prayer meetings, phone calls from staff and leaders to check on members, and packets of […]

People Made of Light

I am the easiest one in the room to take for granted.  This gives me peace. I can explain. Like every human, mongoose, and senator, I was born with a box of tangled bulbs. Some light up every time: preference for the underdog, devotion to the elderly, proficiency at remembering the names of Tolkien’s elves.  […]

A Lost Heart Finds Home

I’m a very sensitive person, indeed, I’ve often been told I am too sensitive, over sensitive. That I feel things too deeply. I don’t believe that’s true or even makes sense. I am empathic and I see this as a good thing, even though it can be very painful. I can imagine how another person […]

Welcome to the Invisible Church

Listen to Nichole read her piece by clicking below: “The best church conversations,” she messaged, “happen in the halls—while the sermon’s going on.” I smiled as this surfaced in a text thread with Sarah Guerrero (watch for her piece later this month). She’s not wrong. This isn’t to discount the “goings on” inside. Worship leaders, […]

Hidden Beauty Revealed

Listen to Prasanta read her piece by clicking here:   Senescent (adjective) growing old; aging. Cell Biology. (of a cell) no longer capable of dividing but still alive and metabolically active.   As in: trees laughing leaves, dropping down on me, floating in the wind. I catch a handful of laughter, toss it back in the air.   […]

Wrestling with God

You’re limping, people say as I approach with my irregular gait.  Oh yes, I answer. I have been wrestling with God.   Wrestling with lost relationships. Wrestling with grief that keeps arising. Wrestling with change in my dwelling places. Wrestling with shifting family dynamics. Wrestling with changes in my body as I age. Wrestling with […]

Companions in the Darkness

Editor’s Note: Holding a conversation with Diana Gruver is like sitting in the sun: She radiates kindness and compassion in a way that makes you want to lean in and steal as many moments in her presence as possible. It may seem surprising, then, to hear her story—of how she, herself, “clawed toward the light” […]

A Creed

Click below to hear Rebecca read her piece.   We Believe in God the Father, Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth –  We jumped in feet first – followed quickly by heart and head  – 15 years ago now – and said yes to a church plant. We said yes to building community around a […]

Whispers from the Side Door

Listen to Nichole Woo read this anonymous piece by clicking below.   She scuffs over sidewalks toward heavy high school doors, (always locked) with dauntless steps that prick my heart. One thing I know: Her feet will forever fall on roads in want of wear.1 Frost – he got to choose. But not my girl. […]