Like a newborn baby, skin so soft, eyes so wide open or in precious slumber, hair silky from a fresh bath, swaddled in cotton–I awoke to life, to a New Day. It was just after three days unable to breathe, unable to do for myself. I was in a cocoon of unknown. Hope is a […]
Mental Health
Dear Portia: How Do You Stay Sane with a Mentally Ill Person?
Dear Portia, How do you deal with toxic or mentally ill people who have harmful behaviors and stay sane? You have no choice but to deal with them—they’re your family or your boss. How do you get them to seek the help they need? Or, to understand they have an issue? JP Dear JP, I […]
Hurdles to Healing
I have never been a very good runner. In the short time that I tried to run, I was pathetically slow, did not have very good form, and managed to injure my ankle. That is mainly the reason why I find the Bible’s beautiful running metaphors to be about as effective as the ones about […]
The Waging and the Waiting
This essay is an excerpt from the anthology Soul Bare: Stories of Redemption published by Inter Varsity Press in August 2016. In 1977, my mother left my brothers and me with sitters to go looking for an apartment and didn’t return for days. When she finally did, after what most people considered a “lost weekend,” my […]
Is Masturbation Okay? . . . and Other Thorny Questions
The Mudroom is excited to be joining the likes of The Rumpus, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post. We’re starting our very own advice column, “Dear Portia.” Every month, we’ll cover questions related to our monthly theme. First up is sex, sexuality, and singleness. Do you have questions about your sex life, about singleness, […]
When Empathy Led Me Astray
In my premarital class, our pastor had everyone take a Myers-Briggs assessment. When my husband and I both got our results, we smiled at each other: we were just one letter apart. He was an INTP (introvert, intuition, thinking, perceiving), and I was an INFP (feeling). It made sense. Similar as our temperaments are, there’s a […]
Outrage Fatigue and Leaping the Divide
I picked the wrong week to return to Facebook. It’s no secret, I have a small capacity for the constant churning machine that social media often is. Most days, it’s loud enough in my own head without adding voices of dissent and dissatisfaction muddying up my synapses. I suppose this is one right of the […]
Learning to Love the Unity of My Body and Mind
I got migraines regularly as a kid. The pain would start as a pinch above my left eyebrow, travel to the back of my neck, and soon send out sparks of light into my vision, nausea into my belly, and, if I didn’t retreat to a dark room soon enough, puke onto our white carpet. […]
Rescued and Redeemed
I saw his grizzled face, breadcrumbs around his dry mouth, as he offered a smile that looked genuinely happy to see me. I returned the smile that probably showed more concern than joy. He didn’t look well, not like the last time I saw him. He was much thinner, unkempt, but his eyes eager to […]
Whatever Darkness You Are in Right Now
“A speck of light can reignite the sun And swallow darkness whole.” Ryan O’Neal Our theme this month is an important one. It brings the year to a close with essays about what rescue looks like, how deliverance can transform life, where redemption can be found. It’s especially close to my heart. I’ve been rescued […]
Forty Three Steps
I didn’t want to see it again. I was quite happy letting my husband be the one who would let in the occasional handyman, plumber, or real estate agent. But this time, there were no other options, so it was me walking the 43 steps to the third floor of the vintage building where we […]
Your Marriage Doesn’t Have to Look Like Anyone Else’s
I think my picture of what marriage would look like was some combination of my parents’ marriage and every 1990’s rom-com I’d ever seen. We’d have clear his-and-hers roles based on how my parents did everything, because hey, it’s still working for them, and we’d cuddle every night and fall asleep with our arms and […]
Cleaning Up the Mess
“Now, what?” I asked myself a few months ago. After years, consisting of very long days, of family struggles with mental and medical conditions, the season began to change. At first, I dared not believe it. So many times, there had been brief glimpses of light as we forged through the darkness. But those moments […]
For When I Am Yearning
There is a bridal portrait, 8 ½x11 in a crackled frame that sits atop my husband’s dresser in our bedroom. In it, I am twenty years old, blonde hair, shock white smile, blue eyes glistening at the hope of the future. My veil spills out all around me and though I am covered in a […]
Palms Up
I just put my daughter into an ambulance. Strapped in like a caged animal who cannot escape the war roaming inside her head. The battle that wages for her control of her life. Inhale. Blood stained sheets on the bottom bunk, clinging to the safety that slips between my fingers like sand. Hair matted down […]
“Go and Sin No More” Isn’t Working for Me
I’m a reformed cutter. But last night was a close one. I read an article that triggered me. My heart raced. My head dizzied. My insides huddled up and chanted. And I crawled into bed early, wanting only to curl up and cope. Thoughts of cutting came to mind. Since the rest of the house […]
The Second Journey: A Call at Midlife
“I have been seized by the power of a great affection.” ~Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-up, and Burnt Out Midlife crisis. It’s like a version of adolescence, only older. As my 50th birthday quickly approaches, I can attest to the unpredictable hormone changes, body shifts and mooood […]
Writing for Rescue
It’s interesting to me that The Mudroom’s first anniversary would fall on a month where the theme is Vocation, Career, Mission. When I was younger I adored Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, and the legendary Harriet the Spy. I took out books from the library on the history of the FBI. I pretended I was […]