Whole Heart Devotion

About a week ago, I shared with my husband that I didn't feel spiritually prepared for Easter. Though I do not religiously practice Lent with the same fervency that some communities of faith do, I typically use those forty days as a time of mental preparation to fix my focus on the incalculable brutality of the cross, the stillness of Saturday, and the magnitude of the resurrection. I try my best to feel and experience the realities of Easter before this sacred holiday becomes just another day gone-by on the calendar.  But I have felt mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ill-prepared this year.  I began to wonder what stole my attention from the one occasion that sets my faith apart from every other religion in the world. I could easily blame my failure to focus on a litany of things:  The ongoing journey of post-transplant life,  The never-ending COVID-19 pandemic that continues to affect us all,  Or the normal ups and downs of life, like shifting relationshi...

If I’ve learned anything over the last few weeks of wearing masks when going out in public, it’s that wearing a mask makes it hard to breathe.   The trapped air recirculating in and out gets thick and burdensome. The same is true for the invisible mask I wear on the days that I’m trying to hide the reality of what’s going on below the surface.   There comes a point when the air that has gotten trapped between my invisible mask and my unfortunate reality gets so heavy that ripping it off and gasping for a dose of fresh, life-giving oxygen is the only remedy.   ( Cue the proverbial mask selfie that everyone has had to take during quarantine. ) I think many of us frequently wear a mask, intentionally or unintentionally, to hide the reality of what’s underneath. We mask up to present a façade. A watered-down version of the true us. A suffocating misrepresentation of our current existence.  We’re all guilty.  One of my favorite person...

This day.  This glorious day.  It seemed like an eternity away when we heard that the protocol for treating leukemia in boys required almost three and a half years of chemotherapy.  It felt like we were facing a mountain of days and the only way to get to the top of it was to take one baby step at a time.  Thankfully, we are about to take our last, and most beautiful, step. Today is Camron's final day of chemotherapy at the hospital.  While he will have about ten more days of oral chemo to take at home, the days of getting his port accessed, getting needles crammed into his spinal column, and having chemo ( life-saving poison ) run through his veins are soon to be over.  I wish I could adequately put into words the sheer joy that this day brings our family, but I don't think it's possible. I would love to tell you all about the boy who has been the focus of all of your prayers and support over the past three and a half years, but I'm not going to....

"Better yet, on the Day God heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land."  Isaiah 30:26 (MSG) I've seen an unbelievable amount of people lately whose cell phone screens were cracked all to pieces.  I'll pass by them and they are reading or responding to text messages, scrolling through Facebook, or sending an email, without even skipping a beat.  It's as if they don't even realize that there is a shattered screen right beneath their fingertips! It astounded me that their broken screens didn't seem to slow them down or inhibit them from their tasks one bit.  Their phones continued to function, so what's an obliterated screen to them? It was "life as usual" in this day in time where cell phones seem to be added appendages to our fingertips. It made me stop and think of all of the people that I come in co...

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11 As we drive through the winding, rural mountain road, I find myself admiring the beautiful scenery out of my passenger side window.  I gaze at the old barns, the small white-sided country churches, and yes, I even see a fully functioning alpaca farm!  The scenery might be quite enjoyable, but there is another part of mountain cruising that I don't think I could ever grow accustomed to.  I have learned to handle the winding roads quite well, but it's when those same roads seem as if they are going to disappear right before your very eyes that tends to make me quite hysterical! I think I could drive the mountain roads everyday and I think that I would always thoroughly despise coming to the crest of a hill and not being able to see what is waiting on the other side.  It's as if y...