three purple hearts

It felt like we lived a whole life this last weekend. From highest highs to lowest lows, we survived but I'm honestly not totally sure how. Well... I do know how. It is one of the greatest gifts of my life to have people around to throw out a life preserver when drowning seems inevitable. Saturday, Sunday, Monday... Life was on full display. In all it's horrible beauty. By yesterday afternoon, the sun was shining, a breeze blowing, I could breathe again, and I looked up from a conversation with a friend to realize that the storm had passed. “We stop, whether by choice or through circumstance . . . We wait for our souls to catch up with our bodies.” -Eugene Peterson That was me last night. This day has been a Tuesday. Meetings and phone calls and the mundane things of life. But in the middle of the afternoon I got an email that let me know that my application for ordination had been approved. And just like that, nearly eight years of work came to a conclusion. Maybe not the one ...

  It’s late. Cold. Dark. But I knew something was coming. Something hopeful. Something fresh. Snow. And now it’s here. I can breathe deeply in the frigid air. I can cool my whole body down. I can stand in the calm and quiet of the beauty falling all around me. Tomorrow morning, we’ll wake to a wonderfully white world outside. Tonight, I can rest. I cannot tell you how much I love winter. Something inside me comes alive when the snow falls. I joke that there’s ice in my veins because I was born in South Dakota… that winter is when I’m most me. I waited up to see the snow begin tonight. In this time of uncertainty, when so much is changing… there is hope in the snow falling quietly. There is peace in moments standing in the cold, letting my whole body know this season is here. Even if winter isn’t your cup of tea, take a moment to appreciate that the world keeps turning. The sun will rise. The season will change. Hold on, friends. Lower your shoulders. Drop your tongue from the roof ...