All day and night I’ve had a hard time breathing—barely able to catch my breath. My best non-expert, but been-down-this-road-before guess is that it has to do with anemia. I’ve had bouts of anemia with these same symptoms throughout my life. My body doesn’t absorb iron well (and we don’t eat a lot of meat […]
In the book The Music Shop, by Rachel Joyce, the mother has many conversations with her son about music. In one case, she explains that music is about silence. “Music comes out of silence and at the end it goes back to it. It’s a journey, You see?” But the young boy does not see, […]
The stillness of winter settles into the land. Snow covers the fields. Birds begin to migrate south. Some days, the hush of the prairie wind is silenced completely. While other days, the wind blows continually and one can barely hear oneself think. Yet there is a solitude that comes with the dawning of these winter […]
Gravel crunches under my tires as my car crawls along the narrow lane. I scan the names on each of the cabins, searching for the one assigned to me. I finally spot it, with its grey weathered wood, nestled in the shadows of dense trees. A flutter of excitement knocks on my chest and a […]
“You’re miserable”, he said, choking back tears. I looked at him with a confused expression as I processed the words that he spoke. “No, I’m not! The only person who’s miserable is you!” and then I stomped off reluctantly into my grandmother’s house for a family birthday gathering, the last place I wanted to […]
I saw my chance. Could I do it? Could I get away with two minutes by myself? My two toddlers were glued to the TV screen watching Sesame Street. Maybe I could actually go to the bathroom alone. Perhaps I could have a moment of solitude. But thirty seconds after I closed the bathroom door […]
I am alone And its ok. For 30 years I had four breathing beings tugging at me, (*five if you count my husband **six if you count my mother who lived with us for ten years) at my sleeve, at my knee, at times at my throat). ((at my throat because three of the beings […]
I am grateful, even at my most distracted. Petulant, distant, or disagreeable, God is faithful. In these times (when I am a mess), I am reminded of God’s goodness, and the ways God works. In silence. As a way of centering me, as a way of recapturing my attention, God has recently been answering prayers […]