Survival Thrills

“Does anything inspire you?” I swirled my fork around the broccoli on my plate. “Not right now.” Michaela is one of those friends I feel like I can be completely raw with. Like one of the select few who could ask, “How are you doing? ” and get an honest, yucky response out of me. […]

A Beer with God

Dear God, Today I went to church for the first time in months. My old church – where people know me and my story – and it felt like home. Thanks for that. And that song. That was something. I shouldn’t be surprised that every time I go (despite pain or every other reason trying […]

In a Name

Somewhere around the end of high school, the Devil jumped onto my sister’s back and started to whisper lies. You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re nowhere near beautiful. The more he fed her, the less she ate, and before long he was helping her hold her hair back. Day after day. She was well into her […]

On the Walls

It’s been a sick rollercoaster ever since we got married. And it’s my fault. I need to get pregnant. I need to get pregnant. I need to get pregnant. Every month I felt like junk “for no good reason,” every time the test read negative, it was a colossal discouragement. A six foot overhead wave […]

1:40 am

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I rolled on to my back and held my thumb and index finger to my eyebrows. (Why is that comforting?) It was 12:30am and Trev was calling me from the road. From the side of the road, specifically. “Yeah, it hasn’t been such a good night. I walked miles […]

Monopoly

I’m related to one of the greatest storytellers currently in existence. It’s my uncle. Biased? Maybe. Anyway, he was in town last Wednesday so we took him to one of our favorite taprooms and started the evening with a round of beers. Libations and stories go together like butter and toast—and Adam had a bunch. […]

Roosevelt

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” I thought it was a Proverb when the phrase first jumped into my mind a few months ago. I had spent the previous night knee-deep in discouragement after finding out through Instagram that another somebody was pregnant. Younger than me, healthier than me, with two working ovaries. One of […]

Fools

A note to self: “No” or “not yet” doesn’t mean God is deaf to your heart or done fighting for you. If it feels like He’s not showing up in one area, He’s probably setting off fireworks in another. So kill your tunnel vision. If it’s not healing, it’s companionship. If it’s not a child, […]

Mute

6:00pm on Tuesday. She was loading plates into her dishwasher, watching four kids, and dropping truth as casually as someone might talk about tomorrow’s weather forecast. Scrub a dish, speak life, repeat. And I was losing my composure on a barstool. It was nearly ten months since I had left my last church–fallen off the […]

Red Sea

The familiar crackle of thin paper sounded beneath me as I shifted my weight on the padded medical table in a third-floor room at Sutter Memorial Hospital. Trev stood at the window pointing at the apartment building across the way. “It would be cool to get up on the roof over there,” he was trying […]