Author: Hannah

Child Loss Grief

The Weight of the Wait

Hannah

It has been more than a decade since I watched a crowded room of doctors and nurses perform CPR on my baby girl.

180 months since I held her close as her soul danced across the veil of eternity.

5479 days since I set her down for the last time and my heart cracked wide open.

It’s somewhat curious to me then, that every year as this date ticks near, my heart seems to know it whether I’ve consciously realized it or not. Like an unseen blanket, laden with weight has been wrapped around my shoulders, pressing in a deep sadness that can take me some time to recognize.

Every year as this day returns, I feel that blanket settle again—heavy, quiet, and utterly familiar. In the moment grief arrives, I don’t always have the words to explain it. I just know the ache. I know how it moves through me like weather that won’t ask permission. Some mornings it wakes me before the sun. Some nights it lingers like a candle burning down to its last wick.

And yet, even here—especially here—I have found that God is not afraid of my tears.

I used to think faith meant I would somehow get stronger on schedule, like a muscle building itself because I “should.” But love doesn’t work like that, and neither does sorrow. Faith didn’t keep me from breaking; it brought me to my knees. And in that place, I learned something I can’t unlearn: the Lord does not only meet us in the moments we feel composed. He meets us in the moments we can’t breathe properly. He meets us when our chest is too full and our hands don’t know what to do with the tenderness that’s left behind.

There are days I want to question everything. Why did it happen? Why her? Why not later, or sooner, or not at all? But even my questions feel like prayers. They are honest. They are the kind of conversation you only have when you truly believe someone is listening.

So I bring my whole self to Him—the anger I try to hide, the longing that won’t be quiet, the memories that sometimes comfort me and sometimes wound me again. I bring the moments I replay and the things I wish I could undo. I bring the silence too. And when I can’t find the right sentence, I bring my heart anyway.

Because the truth is, my faith doesn’t deny the weight. It carries it.

God has not promised that this side of heaven will always feel gentle. He doesn’t pretend that loss is small. Scripture never insults grief by calling it “not that bad.” It names sorrow, it teaches lament, it acknowledges that the heart mourns. And still, it speaks—steadfastly—of hope that doesn’t collapse when the world shakes.

I have learned that hope is not the absence of pain. Hope is what remains when pain has already done its work.

Somewhere in the deep places where my prayers echo back to me, I hear His invitation: “Come as you are.” Not as someone who has healed enough. Not as someone whose story ends neatly. Come as you are—with the ache, with the questions, with the pieces you can’t glue back together. Come, and let Me be God in your weakness.

I wish I could tell you that my heart fully understands eternity. I wish I could say I never wrestle. But I have come to believe that love is not wasted, even when it hurts. There is a kind of devotion that survives tragedy—not because it forgets, but because it refuses to stop trusting.

When I think of little Ellie, I don’t only remember the ending. I remember the beginning too: the way she made joy tangible. The way her life made room for wonder. I remember her presence like a sweet fragrance that still clings to memory. And I believe the God who called her name can also hold her now—safe, unseen, and adored beyond anything my earthly mind can reach.

So yes, this day still presses its blanket over my shoulders.

But it also reminds me that I am not walking through it alone.

Every year, as the sadness returns, so does His faithfulness. Sometimes I feel it in a quiet scripture that arrives at the exact right time. Sometimes I feel it in the strength of a friend who shows up without asking for explanations. Sometimes I feel it in the smallest mercies—breath in my lungs, warmth on my skin, a sunrise that doesn’t ask me to be ready.

And sometimes I feel it in the strange, holy truth that even when grief is heavy, God is heavier in the best way—stronger than the grave, steadier than my fear, nearer than my deepest questions.

So I lift my eyes, even when they’re wet. I whisper a prayer I have prayed before: Lord, hold her. Hold me. Keep my heart soft toward You. And then I wait—because waiting, I’ve learned, is also worship.

One day, I believe, this veil will be torn open not by my strength, but by His. One day, the tears will find their purpose. One day, the years between “then” and “now” will be healed with a joy that can’t be measured.

Until that day, I will come to the Father with my whole heart.

I will not pretend. I will not perform. I will simply love, grieve, and trust—again and again—under the weight of a love that refuses to let go.

Because the God who carried me through the darkest seconds is still carrying me through the long, tender years.

And my baby girl—my precious, forever-loved Ellianna Grace—is not lost.

She is held.

suffering

Life Raft

Hannah

For an easy $80-$250 you can acquire the materials to make a pretty decent DIY life raft, a cost I suspect many of us would easily triple or quadruple if it came down to preserving the life of someone we love. It may be surprising then to hear that there are even simpler and more affordable ways to snatch a life back from the brink. Don’t feel bad, I was acting quite ignorant to this myself until the life-affirming experience I had earlier this week.

A weighty world and a few unexpected shoe drops this week had me feeling rather dismal and uninspired as I rode out the sweltering days of a Midwest summer. The isolating circumstances of my illness had been contributing to a build up of unshared anxieties, paired with a lengthy succession of sleepless nights as I wrestled with symptoms I’ve felt too small to tolerate. After a “hair that breaks the camel’s back” experience, my fear and desperation caused all of this to bubble high enough that my struggles were leaking out into unassuming conversations. Conversations that should have first happened between myself and my Heavenly Father to begin with, but as his attributes have proven to me historically, he again lavished grace upon grace for my shortcomings and gifted me what I had been too troubled and preoccupied to ask him for in the first place.

As I visited with a friend this week her thoughtful questions and tender attentiveness probed out some of the wrestling matches I was engaging in, and unassuming as I was for her to be the answer to any of my concerns, her loving character held the power to change the trajectory of my week, my heart, and I hope, my very life.

We are all fighting battles big and small, and though comparison is an ill-fitting tool with which to measure, the difficulties my friend is faithfully navigating make most of my discomforts look like small potatoes. That didn’t stop her however, from following her heart and lavishing love upon me despite the meager bucket she had been given to pour from. And the results created a chain reaction of love and care that I forever want to be a link of.

What stops the rest of us then, from using our gifts in whatever quantity we contain them to reach out and be the life raft to the hurting around us? We are brushing shoulders with people whose crushing depression or debilitating circumstance may just be one small act of kindness away from the difference between life today or death tomorrow, so I propose we follow my friend’s example and expand our focus from our own hard stories to give us the clarity to see into the lives of the people around us who just need one kind word, one thoughtful gesture, one glint of truth to create the bridge that gets them from their hard today’s and into the lavish hope that tomorrow brings.

Suffering is simply not restricted to the occasional hard story that a friend of a friend of a friend shared with us; it is rampant and violent and bullying the hearts and minds of people we rub elbows and hearts with on a daily basis, so won’t you join me in being a line in the master story of someone whose life went from over to exuberantly fulfilling because of the one simple kindness that someone offered up with their own battered hands? Running on empty won’t ever be a valid excuse for those walking a servant-hearted life, because we serve a God who gives generously to those he loves, and he is capable of feeding thousands with your small loaf of bread.

Look around for the places you can be a life raft to someone who is feeling one breath from giving in to the raging waters, and then do that on repeat in your good weeks and your hard ones, because these hard-fought days are so much richer when graced with the possibility of hope gifted by a friend… or even a stranger. Then come share your story with me— I want to hear how you made a stand to be the domino in one person’s spiral that then turned out to be the victory shout of unrestrained joy!

Friendship

Chasing Fireflies: The Anatomy of a Late-Night Rescue

Hannah

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. And then there is a friend who will drive 20 minutes at 10:00pm to press into your hand a jar with two potentially slightly smooshed fireflies that she probably caught while barefoot in the yard her pajamas, but she listened to you bare your soul that day, and she knew that’s all you needed to keep going right now— two, tiny, flickering lanterns to remind you that the dark doesn’t win. Not today.

They weren’t spectacular. They weren’t a grand, sweeping gesture that would make waves on social media. They were just two bugs in a repurposed canning jar, their rhythm a little frantic, casting a faint, irregular glow against the dashboard of her car.

But as she handed them over, her hair still tangled from the evening wind, it hit me: This is what real love looks like.

We live in a world that thrives on “let me know if you need anything” text messages—well-meaning, but safely tucked behind a screen. We have become experts at offering passive support. But a firefly friend? A firefly friend doesn’t wait for an invitation to the tragedy. They don’t need a clean house, a put-together version of you, or even a logical explanation for why your world is tilting on its axis.

They just show up. Even if it’s late. Even if they’re in their pajamas. Even if all they have to offer is a fragile, fleeting piece of light they chased down in the dark just for you.

When you bare your soul to someone, you hand them your vulnerability. It’s terrifying. You wonder if you’ve said too much, if you’ve become a burden, or if they’re secretly judging the mess. But the right people don’t look at your broken pieces and see a chore. They see an opportunity to hold the flashlight while you figure out how to put things back together.

Last night, those two slightly smooshed fireflies told me three things I desperately needed to hear:

 1. “I listened.” My friend didn’t just hear my words; she felt the weight behind them.

 2. “You are worth the effort.” Worth the drive, worth the mosquito bites, worth the interruption to her night, a night that if we are being honest, SHE should have been the one in bed early having gifts dropped by!

 3. “You are not alone in the dark.”

If you are lucky enough to have a friend like this, pull them close. Thank them. Let them know that their messy, barefoot magic saved you. And if you’re sitting there wondering where your firefly friend is, maybe this is your invitation to be one. Look around your circle today. Who is sitting in the dark? Who just bared their soul?

You don’t need a grand plan, a perfect speech, or a pristine gift wrapped in a bow. Sometimes, all it takes is a willingness to run out into your own yard, catch whatever little bit of light you can find, and bring it straight to their door.

Because at the end of the day, we aren’t the source of the light anyway—we are just the ones called to carry it.

When God asks us to love our neighbors, He doesn’t ask for a flawless production. He asks for a willing heart. He takes our smallest, messy, “yard-caught” efforts and multiplies them by His grace.

So if you’ve been waiting until you have it all figured out, or until your offering feels “good enough,” take a deep breath and let that pressure go. Step out into the dark, trust the One who commands the stars, and go share the flicker you have. You might be surprised by just how brightly God can shine through the cracks of your ordinary, beautiful obedience.

Gratitude

Why the Wait?

Hannah

A few days ago I opened a particular cabinet in my kitchen, something I do on a frequent basis, but this time my eyes locked on a row of binders and folders, and I took pause. The worn black and white binders each bore their own label; “adoption,” and “foster care.” Though these haven’t been pulled out and used for years now, I have never been able to swallow the lump that forms in my throat when I think about throwing them away.

Each binder, filled to capacity with neatly organized forms and checklists, represents hours of work, celebrations and tears, and countless prayers. And yet with the flood of memories attached to each binder hangs a thick question mark in my mind. “Why Lord, did you put in my heart the desire to foster and adopt for it to only be a short punctuation mark in my story?” “Why did you prepare my heart to care for the multitude of children needing homes, to only have one child take up residence in our home, and so temporarily at that?”

For years I haven’t understood why so many doors opened before us, just for the story to keep having unexpected plot twists.

But standing there in the quiet of my kitchen, staring at those faded labels, a gentle realization began to settle over my heart. Maybe the reason I couldn’t throw those binders away wasn’t because they represented a broken promise, but because they represented a sacred altar. They were proof of a time I said yes, even when it was terrifying.

I’m starting to see that some things God asks of us are simply to refine our obedience and trust in Him. He doesn’t always call us to a specific outcome; sometimes, He calls us to a posture of surrender. The lesson is in the footsteps, not the arrival.

It is so easy to get caught up in the destination. We think that if God gives us a burden for the orphan, the only successful conclusion is a full house and a finalized adoption decree. But God operates on a different economy. He is far more interested in who we are becoming on the path than where the path physically leads.

Isaiah 55:9– “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Maybe I never was meant to be the mom to a house full of adopted or foster children. And as painful as that is to type out, I can finally say it with a peaceful heart. The lesson was never about the destination; it was entirely about the journey to get there.

Looking back, those years of preparing, praying, and waiting stretched me in ways comfort never could have. Through the twists and turns, God refined my faith. He tested my willingness—like Abraham on the mountain, God wanted to know if I trusted Him enough to lay my plans down at His feet. He broke my heart for what breaks His; even if those children never slept under my roof, I learned to love the vulnerable with a depth I didn’t know I possessed. Most of all, He became my anchor. When the doors shut and the plot twists came, I had to learn to trust His character when I couldn’t trace His hand.

I closed the cabinet door, but the heavy question mark that had hung over me for years felt a little lighter—maybe it was even starting to look a bit more like an exclamation point. Those binders aren’t a monument to a failed dream. They are a monument to a beautiful, messy, obedient yes.

If you are in a season where God seems to have changed the coordinates on a map He gave you, take heart. He hasn’t wasted a single step, a single tear, or a single prayer. The destination might look different than you imagined, but the refining of your trust along the way? That is exactly what He was after all along.

daily graces

Holding Both

Hannah

My dresser drawers are an awkward level of stuffed right now. You see, the calendar says we are between Spring and Summer— the time of year when the temps warm up to a delightful cozy warm, but still cool enough to enjoy being outside without your face melting. This year however, we seem locked into some eternal cold front of a winter that is reluctant to release its grip. So I have all my cozy cool weather clothes, but there have also been handfuls of days warm enough to unpack some short sleeves and other summer clothes, so slowly my dresser has become a mish mash of three different seasons. My shoe basket is piled high with a mashup of boots, flip flops, baseball caps, and beanies, lending no real clarity to which season we are actually in.

And honestly, I think my heart has looked a lot like my dresser lately—a strange mixture of seasons all occupying the same space at the same time.

There are things in my life right now that feel deeply good. Prayers being answered. Unexpected joy. Moments that make me laugh so hard I forget, for a second, how heavy life can be. There are relationships growing, little victories worth celebrating, reminders of God’s kindness showing up in ordinary places.

And yet, folded right beside those things are grief, uncertainty, exhaustion, disappointment, and questions I still don’t have answers to.

I keep wanting to organize it all neatly. To separate the winter from the summer. To decide whether this season is hard or beautiful. Joyful or painful. Hopeful or heartbreaking. But life rarely fits into tidy drawers.

Scripture is full of people holding both. The Israelites carried promised land hope while still wandering in wilderness dust. David wrote songs of praise with tears still wet on his face. Martha confessed deep belief in Jesus while standing beside her brother’s grave. Even Jesus, on the night before the cross, broke bread with His friends while fully aware of the suffering ahead.

Faith was never pretending one season didn’t exist. Faith is trusting God enough to hold all of it honestly.

Maybe maturity in Christ looks less like “finally getting to the good part” and more like learning that God is present in every part. In the celebrations and the sorrow. In the healing and the waiting. In the warmth of summer days and the lingering chill that refuses to leave.

Maybe the goal is not to force our lives into one season at a time, but to recognize that sometimes God grows things in the tension of both.

So for now, my drawers remain overstuffed and confused. My shoe basket still looks ridiculous. And my heart still carries both gratitude and grief at the exact same time.But I’m learning this; the coexistence of joy and pain does not mean God is absent. Sometimes it is the clearest evidence that He is gently teaching us how to become people who can hold both hope and heartbreak without letting either one define us completely.

And maybe that messy middle place — where winter and summer overlap — is holy ground after all.

Uncategorized

Who Remains

Hannah

As my illness has not so quietly crept into new areas, the clear, trustworthiness of my world that was semi-predictable has faded as well. Despite what my energetic heart and mind have had planned, my body is simply not getting the message, often doing the opposite of what I’m asking it to. This was especially evident this past week.

Sunday I slept through most of the sermon and parts of worship. Again. It had been a tiring week—being in the middle of a 2 week stretch where my husband was traveling, but I honestly felt like I got a decent night’s sleep on Saturday. My fatigue continued though, and I found myself either missing things, or having to cancel plans because my body was determined to sleep more whether or not I was at an event or behind the wheel.

Tuesday a dear friend came over to visit. After just a few minutes chatting I dozed right off mid conversation . I jostled awake shortly, and profusely apologized for my rudeness. My friend was as gracious as could be. The next thing I knew I awoke a significant time later to my friend still sitting at my bedside. She had brought her Bible, and as she read she took notes that she compiled into a beautiful and encouraging 3 page letter that she gifted to me on her way out. I was sad and upset that I had missed out on visiting with her, but her words were a gift to my heart.

“Please don’t be embarrassed. It was an honor you let me in today and I enjoyed the time by your side even if it was a quieter visit. Love you!”

I had another friend visit recently with her kids in tow. The littles sat at the dining table and kept busy while their mama and I visited. I didn’t even realize I was sleepy until I startled awake to see her hustling her littles quietly out the front door.

That moment sat heavy with me long after the door shut. Not because she was unkind—she wasn’t. She was trying to be considerate. Trying not to embarrass me. Trying not to wake me. But what I woke with was the reality of it all. The quietness of it. The careful escape. The unspoken understanding that the visit had suddenly become awkward and there was no graceful way to recover it.

Illness has a way of turning normal interactions into strange little social negotiations nobody knows how to navigate. That may be one of the loneliest parts of this illness for me lately—not just the symptoms themselves, but the way they alter the atmosphere in a room. The way people start adjusting around me. Whispering around me. Watching me carefully. Exiting cautiously.

I know the people who love me are doing their best. I know they aren’t judging me cruelly. But it is still difficult to repeatedly become the unexpected thing everyone has to accommodate. I miss being easy to be around.

My friend who stayed while I slept gave me a gift I didn’t even know I needed; the gift of presence.

Not fixing.
Not rescuing.
Not trying to force the moment to be less uncomfortable than it was. Just staying.

There is something profoundly Christlike about that kind of love. The kind that does not flee weakness or rush past suffering, but settles beside it without demanding it hurry up and become easier.

I think so often I have imagined God’s love primarily through the lens of intervention—that if He loved me, surely He would fix this. Relieve this. Wake me up from this exhausting fog my body keeps pulling me into. But lately I am beginning to wonder if sometimes His love looks less like removal and more like companionship. A God who remains.

A God who is not embarrassed by my limitations. Not irritated by my weakness.
Not awkwardly slipping out the front door because He doesn’t know what to do with me.A God who stays at the bedside.

Maybe that is why the presence of faithful friends has ministered to me so deeply in this season. Because every quiet act of patience, every unhurried moment, every person willing to sit in the strangeness of this illness without recoiling from it—they are reflecting Him back to me in ways I desperately need.

Not every act of love looks dramatic.
Sometimes holiness looks like simply staying when it would be easier to leave.

Terminal

Drifting

Hannah

There was a time when they were the new couple. The friendly girl, not afraid to take on a bleak prognosis, and her wingman, always at her side helping her along.

Then things started to change. The wingman was often tied up elsewhere, and eventually wasn’t available to pursue the same life she did, so she continued showing up on her own, often with a kid or two in tow. And then that dwindled too, the kids stopped wanting to get up on Sunday mornings, pushing back against beliefs they once embraced.

The girl continued to push herself to be there, sometimes through difficult obstacles. A wheelchair ramp that often did not work. A car door that jammed half the time. But instead of resolution, she had to soldier on in the best way she could, piecing things together to work so she could still show up.

Being in that place made her come alive, surrounded by likeminded friends journeying together. Eventually though, even that got too hard in a body that was fighting against her in every way.

When she tried to use her gifts in the ways she still could, she was nothing more than an inconvenience. Where her phone used to light up if she left a vacancy in the front row, it now sat gray and silent, as if the empty space had simply backfilled in her absence.

She hoped that the community she worked hard to build around her would continue to surround her in this new season and new capacity, but things grew quiet.

The walls of her room that used to echo with presence and laughter now felt more like walls of a prison, as visits became fewer and further between. Still she clung to the hope that her heart and her home would be full as she journeyed toward Home. Then came the realization that this road was going to end just as lonely as it had begun.

But that wasn’t the whole truth—just the part she could see.

Because somewhere along the way, she had quietly started measuring love by footsteps and phone calls… by who showed up and who didn’t. And while those absences were real and painful, they were never the full accounting of her life.

What she couldn’t always feel—but had not lost—was presence.

Not the loud, bustling kind that fills a room on a Sunday morning. Not the kind that depends on functioning ramps or willing friends. But the steady, unrelenting presence of a God who does not require her to “get there” in order to be near.

In the stillness of that room, where the walls sometimes felt too close and the silence too loud, there was Another who had never once failed to enter in.

The One who saw every effort it took just to show up.The One who noticed when no one else did. The One who did not measure her faith by attendance, but by endurance.

And maybe—though it took time to admit—her life was not a story of abandonment, but of being held in ways she didn’t expect.

Because the truth is, community can falter. People can disappoint. Even the most well-meaning hearts can drift when life gets busy or uncomfortable or unfamiliar.

But God does not drift.

He sits beside hospital beds and wheelchairs.
He remains when invitations stop coming.
He speaks in quiet when the noise of life fades.

And He does not wait at the finish line—He walks every inch of the road. So while it may have looked like her story was ending the way it began, heaven would tell it differently. It would say she was never unseen.
Never unsupported. Never alone.

It would say that every hard step she took toward Him that felt unseen mattered more than a hundred easy ones taken in comfort.

And it would remind her—gently, faithfully—that “home” was never something she had to gather people to reach. It was always where He was. And He had been there all along.

Uncategorized

Leading my Limits

Hannah

When I opened my arms wide to welcome in a community that would keep us afloat on the days we need it, and hold us up on the days we are too frail, I also opened my arms to a whole range of perspectives, experiences, and opinions. It stands to reason that with so many different brush strokes making up my tribe, there will sometimes be tension when considering my situation.

I am a terminally ill young(ish) mom, wife, medical professional, friend, and relative with an awful lot of people who care deeply about me and want the best for me. And each of those “best wishes” is shaped by that person’s own knowledge, fears, and life experiences. I’m genuinely grateful for that—it means no stone is left unturned, no possibility ignored, no concern left unspoken. That kind of care is a gift.

But if I’m honest, it can also be a lot to carry.

I have been offered the full spectrum of doctors’ names and specialties, an impressive number of healing stories shared from personal experience, and a wide array of remedies that are “sure to help”—from expensive teas and elaborate oils to unconventional rituals and everything in between. Each suggestion is given with love. I know that. I feel that.

And still… it can be overwhelming.

Because underneath all of it is an unspoken assumption: that I might not be doing enough, considering enough, or protecting myself well enough.

The truth is, I am living inside this body every single day. I am the one weighing the risks, measuring the energy costs, and deciding what is worth it and what is not. I am constantly calculating—what will give me more life, and what will simply take more from me.

I need the space to do that.

I need the freedom to say, “Thank you, but no,” without feeling like I am letting someone down or missing something critical. I need permission—not from others, but from myself—to trust my own judgment.

Because I am not passive in this. I am not unaware. I am not neglecting my care.

I am choosing, very intentionally, how I spend what I have.

Sometimes that will look like pursuing treatment. Sometimes it will look like resting. Sometimes it will look like saying yes to something that feels worth the risk, and other times it will look like protecting my peace at all costs.

All of those choices are valid.

So if you are someone who loves me—and I know you are—please hear this gently: your care means everything to me. Your suggestions come from a place of compassion, and I don’t take that lightly.

But the most supportive thing you can offer me is trust.

Trust that I am listening.

Trust that I am thinking.

Trust that I am choosing with both wisdom and intention.

And trust that I know, better than anyone else, what my body and my life require in this season.

Walk with me. Sit with me. Pray for me. Laugh with me.

But please, let me lead when it comes to my own limits.

suffering

Life in the Margins

Hannah

Someone recently asked me what my favorite tangible thing is. It gave me pause, because I don’t think I’ve stopped to wonder over that question, but the answer was clear. My pink journaling Bible.

It’s hard to explain, but my pink art journaling Bible isn’t just a book to me—it’s the place where my life with God has actually taken shape in a visible, tangible way.

Every page holds more than printed words. It holds prayers I’ve prayed when I didn’t have the strength to say them out loud. It holds questions I’ve wrestled through, verses that steadied me, and moments where something finally “clicked” and I knew God was speaking to me personally. The notes, the colors, the artwork—they’re not decoration. They’re a record of relationship.

Over time, it’s become a kind of memorial. I can flip back and see where I was struggling, where I was growing, and how God met me in those exact places. It reminds me that He’s been faithful, not just in general, but to me—specifically, consistently, and patiently.

It’s also one of the few places where I’ve been completely honest. No performance, no editing—just me showing up as I am. That makes it deeply personal in a way that’s hard to replicate anywhere else.

So when I say it’s my favorite tangible object, it’s not about the Bible itself being pink or artistic—it’s because it carries the history of my walk with God. It’s worn in all the right ways. It’s lived in. And it reminds me who He is, and who I am in Him.