Months ago, my sister-in-law commented on how she thought my children’s book could be a wonderful resource to victims of trafficking. In light of the Epstein files being released and my growing awareness of how rampant and atrocious this industry is, I really hope she’s right. Here’s a free link to read the story. Please feel free to share with anyone that might benefit from it.
Hace meses, mi cuñada comentó que creía que mi libro de niños podría ser un buen recurso para las victimas de la trata de personas. Los archivos de Epstein ya han sido publicados y al darme cuenta más y más de lo desenfrenado y lo atroz que es esta industria espero que ella tenga razón.
Aquí hay un vínculo gratis para mi cuento. Siéntanse libres de compartirlo con cualquier persona que pueda beneficiar de el por favor.
My family and I recently came home after an extended stay out of town, and although the time away was pleasant in general, I felt homesick towards the end and looked forward to getting back home. Now that we’re here, however, I’m acutely reminded of the stresses and struggles that come with living in this space.
We’ve been in this apartment complex for over two years now, and as the boys grow, this place gets smaller. The items in one of the kitchen cupboards are a haphazard heap, threatening to cascade to the counter below, and an avalanche of plastic cups, plates, and other containers is often unleashed by my toddler in yet another cupboard within his reach. This apartment is virtually impossible to childproof, and I find myself longing for a house of our own all the more as a result.
There’s so much I want for my family that could potentially be fulfilled in a home. I want my boys to have a backyard in which to play and a neighborhood where they could freely ride bikes. Furthermore, I want to be able to throw Christmas parties and baby showers and to comfortably host out-of-town guests. But those dreams feel a long way off with no viable options in town, and I’m left longing for something better and wondering when things will change.
JJ often reminds me to be grateful for what we have, which is a response I’m generally not too fond of. He’s right, though, and we have had special moments here that will make leaving this place bittersweet when that time comes. Nonetheless, I live under the constant stress of containers strewn across the floor and lack of storage space, and all I can do is bring my complaints before the Lord. And as I do, King David comes to mind as of late.
The prophet Samuel anointed David as the next king of Israel fourteen to fifteen years before he would ever assume that position, and as David would wait for his role as king to become reality, he would face many hardships, often dwelling in caves and on the run for his life from the present-king Saul who sought to kill him. How must David have felt about his own waiting? Did he ever question his future or the timing of what God had shown him?
While we aren’t necessarily given any answers to those questions, we certainly can read about all that he experienced in the book of 1 Samuel, and we are given access to his thoughts and feelings throughout that time in many of the Psalms that he penned.
What most stands out to me in his Psalms is that, although his own feelings of sadness and discouragement are present, he never lost sight of God. He reminded himself of how God was his refuge and stronghold and deliverer. He saw God’s goodness in the midst of his trials.
I originally thought to write this blogpost sharing about how David’s season of waiting (and all the hardships therein) prepared him to be king. I also planned to write about how, in that season of waiting, God would use him to bless and strengthen future generations in the faith through the Psalms that he would write. His wait was certainly not a waste of time, and neither is ours.
As I write today, however, I feel most impressed by David’s hope in the Lord and not in any other thing. The words he penned in Psalm 16:11 are words I want to live by.
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
-Psalm 16:11 ESV
My mindset begins to shift when I think of David’s attitude throughout his lifetime. God’s presence was with David, and he found fullness of joy in it. Similarly, God’s presence is with me in this place. His Spirit abides in me, so in essence, He has chosen to dwell with me here.
All the sudden, this apartment becomes a place of worship. It is a place I can offer to the Lord, with all its imperfections and irritations, because everything belongs to Him in the end. I can pick up the plastic containers a second, third, and fourth time of the day knowing that I do it as unto my King. I can clean and organize as best as I can to worship Him and show gratitude for His providence and His continual presence with me here. And I can ask God again and again to help me let go of the trivial hardships of this place and to help me to focus on what He wants to do in and through me here. There is a purpose for me in this place, and God is not withholding good from me in setting me here for this season. May I learn to seek and to see Him all the more in this dwelling place and to understand the good work that He is doing in and through me specifically because I live here.
Photo from two summers ago of a butterfly on my fingers
The butterflies are back this summer, fluttering about in seemingly directionless circles, although that must not be entirely true since they somehow move southward come fall. Two years ago, they showed up right after the Robb elementary tragedy, filling the sky and fluttering around town all summer long and even after the new school year started. At the time, a store-front displayed a banner of twenty-one butterflies with the names of each victim underneath them, so seeing the real-life butterflies everywhere brought a sense of comfort to my heart as our town grieved. It was a reminder to me that God was ever present in our community. He had not turned a blind eye on us.
I grew to appreciate butterflies much more that summer and all that they represented to me, but my admiration of them stemmed long before that. I came to love them as a woman in my late twenties when I started going to counseling for the first time.
I had spiraled into a state of severe loneliness and a fear of rejection within a matter of months, and I knew that the lies I had been believing were affecting me. Ironically, however, I was afraid to let them go. Up until then, I had been choosing the comfort of their familiarity, but God was calling me to faith. As He drew me back to counseling every week and invited me to lay down the lies through reading His Word and in prayer, He gave me hope of what life could eventually be. I was left with the image of a cocoon in my mind’s eye, and just as the caterpillar-turned-butterfly has to wrestle against the cocoon to strengthen its wings and finally break free, I felt God encouraging me to continue to wrestle against the lies I believed until I, too, could break free. It was the only way that I could live the life God intended for me, soaring on wings of faith as I more clearly viewed myself as God saw me.
Today, as I look at butterflies, I feel this sense of hope rising within me. They represent new life to me. They represent the resilience to overcome struggles from within. But, most importantly, they represent a rising out of the darkness to what God has ultimately called them to be.
As they fill the skies this season, I pray that we, as believers, would choose to live life outside of the cocoon. May we strengthen our own wings as we fight against the lies that are so intensely penetrating our world today. And as we wrestle, may we catch a vision of the wondrous transformation that God is creating within us. He is making us new. He is making us into the image of His Son. And He is giving us wings of hope so that we can soar to new heights with Him.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Picture of the back side of the anchor off of Main Street
Hello again. If you read my last blogpost, you’ll remember that I decided to take a break from blogging for a while. At the time, I had no idea how long it might last, but I knew I wanted to seek healing after a series of hardships followed by loss.
Although I have more healing and reflecting to do, I recently began to feel a strong desire to blog again, and I started praying that God would show me when and what my next blogpost should be.
Ironically, the topic leading me to blog today is not the one I would have chosen to write about. I wouldn’t have chosen it because I would have written a different ending for the events that took place on Tuesday when an armed eighteen-year-old entered Robb Elementary and claimed the lives of nineteen students and two teachers, additionally injuring many others that day.
I know that I also stated at one point that I don’t necessarily want to be writing about every tragedy that wrenches at my heart, because I don’t think multiple opinions are always beneficial. Sometimes more words merely turn into background noise, and that noise does not help those who mourn. Our words are often better formed as prayers to God for those who suffer.
This event is a little different for me however, because it hit close to home. Literally. About two and half miles from my front door.
Because we live in town and have a next-door neighbor that is very connected to the community, we were aware of very general details in the moment as events unfolded. We also became more aware of the seriousness of it all as we continually heard sirens around lunch time and then watched one ambulance head to the scene from outside our back window, then another, and then another and another and another in a row. But we had no idea of the complete devastation until we turned on the news later that afternoon and learned of how utterly destructive and heinous this crime had been.
That evening, as JJ and I tried to process all that had happened that day, we stepped out onto our patio with our young son, and I felt comforted in sensing God’s own sadness painted over the sky—a canvas of stormy clouds streaked in shades of gray. He grieved with us. He grieved over how such precious lives were taken that day through a horrific, demonic crime. And He mourned with each hurting individual in our small-town Uvalde.
It rained several hours later, and the flashing lightning and distant rumbling of thunder kept me up for some of the night. The following morning, I woke up wondering how a small community like this could survive such a tragedy.
That evening, however, as I attended a prayer event at the Uvalde County Fairplex with what seemed to be everyone in town, the speakers shared a Christ-centered message and prayed for hope and healing within our community, and God confirmed the answer to my question that I knew in my heart all along. We would survive this through the help of God.
Lately, as JJ and I hear of more tragedies happening around us and throughout the world, we are reminded of the simple fact that Satan knows his time on earth is short. His time is short, and he seeks to kill, steal, and destroy anything while he can. But God knows this too, and His purposes shall prevail.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
John 10:10 ESV
Would you pray with me that this community would find abundant life in Jesus in the weeks and months to come? Let’s also pray that we, as a community, would be able to see God more clearly and to recognize that He is victorious.
There is an anchor that stands in the middle of town—a large, cement structure that feels so out of place in this land-locked town. But when we first moved here not long ago, I instantly fell in love with it and found comfort by it because of our own loss as a family earlier this year. That anchor reminded me of what we know to be true as believers—that we have hope because of Jesus.
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
Hebrews 6:19-20
As this community mourns, I pray that the anchor in town will ultimately become a symbol of hope to many others also through new, renewed, or strengthened faith in Jesus, and I’m asking God to make me and the many other believers who live here to be a light and a source of comfort to our community. Please join me in praying for that too.
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
James 5:16b NIV
The message on a coffee truck outside of the Civic Center today.
Photo of the book, some cookies, and a cup of coffee
This is the type of book that I hope you’ll never have a need to read. If you do, however, I hope a copy makes its way into your hands.
Written by my mother’s cousin’s daughter, Heidi L. Paulec shares the personal account of losing her cousin Jamie to death by suicide, including fond memories of him when he was alive, what it was like to receive the news of his death, and how this event has affected her life since then.
The book is very much a family keepsake in that it not only shares Heidi’s thoughts and feelings regarding this loss, but she also shares her family’s memories of Jamie (up to four generations), their thoughts and feelings upon receiving the news of his death, and how they have found hope in God since this tragedy through their firm foundation of faith.
The book is compelling, easy to read, and deeply vulnerable as each family member shares about their own struggles in the face of loss. Nonetheless, hope is the underlying theme of this book. Even in the darkest moments after Jamie’s passing, Heidi and her family have been able to see how God was and has always been their abiding light, sustaining them in their profound grief.
One of the greatest gifts this book has to offer (in my personal opinion) is the knowledge of knowing that no one is alone in such a journey of loss. Others have walked down this road and are ready and willing to lend a listening ear and a lot of empathy and compassion to those who suddenly find themselves in a similar story. Heidi offers resources at the end of her book so that individuals can connect with others in their journey of grief. She can also be contacted at her own website, found here: https://heidipaulec.com/abiding-light/.
Heidi furthermore offers the gift of hope to her readers, as already mentioned. Although she felt steeped in the murky waters of confusion in the early days of her loss, she has been able to see how God was right beside her, sustaining her and providing healing every step of the way.
Not only is this a good resource for those who have experienced loss of a loved one to death by suicide, but it is also an excellent resource for friends or family who are walking alongside a loved one who has lost someone by this means. Heidi provides her own thoughts about how she was best comforted throughout this time, providing the reader ideas on how to show compassion to others.
If you or someone you know is experiencing such a loss, please consider purchasing this book. It may very well be instrumental in your own healing journey (or the journey of someone you may know). It can be found in Barnes and Noble and online at Amazon.
I pray that none of us will ever have to experience this sort of loss, but may we be ready to be part of the healing journey of anyone who may journey this painful path. May we point others in their darkest moments of life to the Light of the World, the one and only Abiding Light.
God prepares us for grief with gifts from his hand, his mind, his heart. He strengthens. He comforts. And he connects us with a resilience and love like no other.”
I meant to take Liam on a walk with me a few days ago, but instead I found myself sweeping up the patio and then picking up twigs in our yard as he played nearby. A windstorm had blown a bunch of tumbleweeds into our neighborhood a few days before Christmas, and although I had broken down the ones in our yard and filled several garbage bags with them on Christmas Eve, there were still a lot of remaining pieces scattered between the rocks.
The activity seemed fitting for my current mindset and mood. I’m generally excited to usher in a new year and dream about the possibilities that the next twelve months might bring, but this year has been different for me. I’ve been muddling through my normal New Year activities with little enthusiasm this time. The year that the world anxiously awaited is one that has met me with sorrow as my heart continues to ache for friends who suffered incredible losses last year.
Picking up twigs that day was a vivid reminder that, although we’ve entered a new year with hope of better days to come, we must still deal with the physical and emotional debris created by the damage of last year’s storms. We must pick up the broken pieces of our lives if we are to begin the healing process and start to move forward. In light of the aftermath of last year’s storms, perhaps we need to set aside some of our expectations over what we thought this year should be.
Recently I’ve come to realize that a year doesn’t need a whole lot of pizzazz or big celebrations to make it a good one. This year does not need to make up for “lost” time to make it worthwhile either. If the brokenhearted are able to find comfort and move toward healing this year, then it will be a good one. And if those who suffered physical, financial, or personal loss last year are able to move toward recovery in this one, then it will be a good year. But most of all, if we are able to experience God’s perfect peace in the midst of another potentially turbulent year, then I believe that we will be able to say by December that, at least personally, it was a good one.
If anything, last year clearly showed us that we cannot control our circumstances, but I hope it also clearly reminded us that God is still in control, and He can still fill our days with hope, joy, and peace in the middle of any storm. We must remember these things as we journey through these next twelve months. We must choose to remember that Jesus came to give us abundant life, and that life is dependent solely on Him and not on what any given year may bring.
As I mourn the losses from last year (and events that have already taken place this year), I find comfort in knowing that spring will come to our hearts again someday. This long season of winter won’t last forever. We may not enter into it feeling as young or as carefree as we once were, and it may not come as soon as we want or even look like what we were expecting. Nonetheless, just as the birds will sing and the flowers will bloom again, our hearts will find spring anew and delight afresh in the simple pleasures of life and God’s faithfulness throughout every season.
In the meantime, I will continue to pick up the twigs between the rocks in our yards as I delight in the sweetness of hope.
