Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized, Friendship

Curiosity & Caring

Hannah

There’s a sacredness to suffering that not everyone understands.

When someone is walking through the deep waters—when every breath feels borrowed and every day is held together by grace—questions can become sharp without ever meaning to be. Have they given you a timeline? What treatments are they trying next? How bad has it gotten? Have they told you when they expect you to die?

Some of those seem atrocious, but they are questions we have actually answered had to field at one time or another. Sometimes these questions slip out clothed as concern, but they land like cold hands on tender skin.

Curiosity is not the same as caring. Curiosity wants information. Caring wants presence. Curiosity circles around pain to peer inside. Caring steps into the shadows and sits down beside you. Curiosity tries to relieve its own unease. Caring is willing to feel uncomfortable just so you don’t feel alone.

I’ve learned there is a holy difference.

I don’t mind sharing pieces of my journey—there is beauty, even here, and God’s fingerprints are everywhere. But when the conversation turns to timelines for my dying or details of treatments that stretch my limits just to endure… that crosses into a territory my soul guards carefully. It’s not because I’m ashamed or afraid. It’s because this is holy ground for me and my family. We are living it, breathing it, praying through it. I am learning to trust God in the dark, and trust is fragile when handled carelessly.

What I welcome—what I desperately treasure—are those who choose presence over answers.

The ones who say, “I’m here.”

The ones who quietly hold space when the tears come.

The ones who don’t need to know the forecast of my future to love me faithfully in my present. The ones who walk with us without needing to understand every detail of the valley. This is the love that looks like Christ.

He never demanded explanations from the suffering. He didn’t ask the bleeding woman for her medical history or the blind man for an exact timeline of his decline. He simply came close. He touched. He healed. He stayed.

He showed us that compassion doesn’t interrogate—it accompanies.

And so we lean into the nearness of God and into the arms of those who reflect Him, the ones who simply show up. The ones who see us instead of studying us. The ones who offer presence instead of probing questions.

If you want to walk beside me, you don’t need to understand every piece of what’s happening. You don’t need updates or timelines. You don’t need the painful details.

You just need a willing heart and a steady step.

Sit with me. Pray with me. Laugh with me. Hold hope with me when I’m tired. Remind me that God is still good, still here, still leading us home.

Curiosity might reach for facts, but caring reaches for hands.

And in this season, hands—and hearts—are what hold me up.

favorites, Uncategorized

Five (+1) Favorites

Hannah

As the gift-giving season kicks into high gear, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite things—who knows, you might find just the right surprise for someone you love.

Not to cheat on Ben & Jerry, but this flavor has really carved out a place in my heart, and my meal plan!

Don’t laugh. My family eats a LOT of pineapple. These days I’m all for things that make tasks easier and safer for my weakening arms and hands. This pineapple cutter skins and slices the whole fruit in just a couple of twists, and without all the sticky mess of trying to do it on your cutting board.

https://a.co/d/bpffqeZ

I’ve never been a fan of fake nails, but when I spotted Olive & June’s gorgeous colors—and a 50% off sale at Walgreens—I decided to give them a try. What I like most is that they offer short and extra-short lengths, which are perfect for me and still let you do all the everyday tasks that require actual fingertips!

I hate the feel of most compression socks that are made of nylon. I noticed these ones at Walmart were a thicker, softer, cotton feel, and tried them out. Glad I did, because now they’re in my weekly sock rotation and help a lot on days I have sore and achey legs and feet.

If you have kids, teens or tweens (or, ahem, a husband) these flip calendars by Brooke Romney are gold. She has them for kids and for teens- we are using the teen one with our kids ages 12-23 and it’s perfectly appropriate for all. Brooke takes common sense manners for all sorts of situations and writes them in a way that’s easy for the littles to make sense of, and are still excellent reminders for the adults in the room. We keep ours on the dinner table and read one each night; it’s been a fun way to connect and a good source of conversation around the table. They’re also on sale right now with code THANKS at checkout.

https://brookeromney.com/modern-manners/

Charlie Mackesy’s second book is equally wonderful to his first. Such a tender, thought-provoking, gentle, and life-giving story, for children and adults alike. And I could just soak in the sweet illustrations all day long!

Uncategorized, Friendship

The Seasons of Staying

Hannah

Being a friend of someone with terminal illness must be quite the roller coaster. I’ve had the privilege a few times, but never for so long a stretch of time as my illness has asked of my tribe. That in itself is a beautiful gift, but the cost of it is also not lost on me.

Being a friend of someone with terminal illness must be quite the roller coaster. I’ve had the privilege a few times, but never so long a stretch of time as my illness has asked of my tribe. That in itself is a beautiful gift, but the cost of it is also not lost on me.

There’s something both sacred and sorrowful about watching friendships move through the seasons when you are the one who is dying. In the beginning, the circle is wide — full of love and meals, visits and prayers, the kind of tender urgency that comes when people don’t yet know what to do but feel compelled to do something. It’s a holy flood of kindness, and it humbles you to your core.

But time, as it does, stretches. Months turn into years, and the edges of the circle shift. Some friends drift quietly into the background, not because they stopped caring, but because life resumes its relentless rhythm. Kids grow, careers change, and the crisis that once felt immediate now lives in the quieter corners of their awareness.

And honestly? I get it. I’ve been that friend before too — before this diagnosis rewrote my sense of time. I’ve meant to reach out and didn’t. I’ve avoided pain I didn’t know how to face. I’ve loved someone deeply and still failed to show up in the way I wish I had. So I hold that understanding now with open hands and no resentment, just a bittersweet ache that love sometimes outlasts proximity.

What’s left are the ones who stay through the long middle — not just the early crisis or the final goodbye, but the drawn-out, unpredictable middle where the reality of terminal illness stops being dramatic and just becomes life. They sit with me in the mundane. They ask the unglamorous questions. They know when to come close and when to give space. They’ve learned that faithfulness doesn’t always look like constant presence, but steady presence.

And then, there are those who come back — friends who circle in again after time away, sometimes awkwardly, often tenderly. Their return feels like mercy. It reminds me that love isn’t linear; it’s tidal. People ebb and flow in and out of each other’s lives, and that movement, too, can be grace.

I used to think loyalty meant never leaving. Now I think it means being willing to return.

So to my friends — those who have stayed, drifted, returned, or simply remembered me from afar — please know this: your love has carried me. Every text, every silence, every prayer whispered when you didn’t know what to say has mattered.

Illness has taught me that friendship isn’t measured in constant nearness but in the threads of care that remain, even when time and distance stretch them thin.

If I could sum it up, I’d say this: the seasons of friendship are not a sign of failure, but of humanity. And what a fragile, beautiful, sacred thing it is to be human together — even in the shadow of goodbye.

One of my all time favorite reads!

Uncategorized

The Dusty Stethescope

Hannah

Sleep evaded me again last night.

I reached for distraction—scrolling through ideas for Christmas gifts for my people. When I searched for something for my young STNA/up-and-coming physician, I stumbled upon a site selling the most beautiful stethoscopes I’d ever seen.

Colors like jewels.

Patterns like joy.

One in particular caught my eye—a swirl of pink animal print and sharp, gleaming purple— shining with all things girlish and lovely. And for a brief flicker, right before unconscious thought becomes awareness, I mused, “this is the one I’ll ask for next time.”

But then—

my heart caught up to my body.

And I remembered where I was sitting: in my hospital bed at home, a ventilator mask pressed against my face, small plastic cups of pills lined neatly beside me, guarding against the next wave of breathless panic.

In the thick, holy silence of 2 a.m., I swear I heard the sound of my own heart dropping back into the deep, heavy truth of reality.

I will not be needing a new stethoscope.

Not now, not ever.

No more pressing the cool bell to a grandmother’s arm, listening for the soft rhythm of life beneath her paper-thin skin.

No more playing peekaboo with wide-eyed children, pretending it’s a game while I listen carefully to the music of their lungs.

Those days—those glory days—hang preserved behind glass, my green stethoscope draped like a memory across the frame. The strength that once carried me into the chaos of sirens and smoke has long since ebbed away, leaving behind a body most people only know in its fragility, not its former fire.

Suffering has a way of testing what our hearts truly believe.

It presses heat against the places where we’ve built our sense of strength.

And when suffering comes for the strong, it is often met with anger—

not at the pain itself, but at the theft of power.

On my hardest days, I don’t find myself begging for suffering to stop.

I find myself begging for strength to return.

That’s the honest prayer.

Not fewer storms—just stronger arms to stand in them.

And yet, even that desire reveals how frail my own strength really is.

Paul puts it even more vividly;

“We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” (2 Corinthians 4:10)

We love strength.

We polish it, parade it, protect it.

And when it’s gone, we question the goodness of God.

But I am learning—slowly, painfully—that the taking of strength is grace.

Grace that empties my hands of what I thought I needed,

so that I might cling more tightly to Jesus.

Now, as I face this new season of weakness,

with tiny bursts of ability to go and do,

I ask myself: how will I use this small strength?

I’ve been praying—for hunger on my well days.

For Scripture to taste sweeter.

For my heart to grow restless for the things of God.

For apathy to break, for grace to deepen.

And when suffering returns—as it will—

may my heart be ready to receive it.

To whisper, thank you, Jesus, for entrusting me with this new hard.

Help me be faithful in it.

Help me reflect your goodness in the ache.

Let me be a mirror of grace—

a witness to the beauty that lives

in the losing of strength,

and the finding of You.

Infant loss, Uncategorized

Cradled By Heaven

Hannah

October is awareness month for several things, some I can relate to, and some that are not part of my story. Every year I ponder whether there is anything new to say as the calendar declares it is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and as I’ve pondered that over this past week, it was impressed on me that there are scores of men and women walking afresh in the pain of this sorrow— mourning empty arms and vacant cradles and the fresh waves of pain that are going to come as we move into the season of celebrating family and togetherness. And that makes me want to share my story again and again, because each hurting heart needs to know their pain is seen, their empty space is held, and their future can contain lasting hope.

There are parts of my story I never imagined I’d be the one to write. I never thought I’d be the mother of children I couldn’t raise— that my arms would know both the fullness of love and the emptiness of loss so profoundly.

I’ve walked through the pain of losing two pregnancies, and I’ve held my precious daughter in my arms only to let her go before I was ready— just four and a half months after she was born.

There are no words for what it feels like to love that deeply and to lose that completely. Even now, years later, I can still feel her weight against my chest, and the flutter of my babies being woven together in my womb. But the pages of my story that I expected would be about them remain achingly blank. My heart still catches at that reality from time to time, like a bruise that never fully fades.

Grief changes everything. It changed how I see the world, how I talk to God, how I measure time—not by days and months, but by memories and milestones that never came. There were nights when I couldn’t pray, when I could only weep into my pillow and hope God heard the sound of it. And faithfully, He did.

He met me right there, not with explanations, but with His presence. I used to think faith meant feeling strong, but now I know it’s just trusting God enough to crumble in His hands. It’s believing He is still good when nothing feels good. It’s holding on to the promise that this life isn’t the end of the story.

I believe that my children are whole and alive in the arms of Jesus— and that one day, I’ll see them again. That hope doesn’t erase the ache, but it redeems it. It gives meaning to my tears and purpose to my pain.

I mother them differently now. In whispered prayers. In the way I try to love people more gently. In the way I cling to eternity a little tighter. Heaven holds what my arms cannot, but even here, in the space between what was and what will be, I still find traces of God’s goodness.

If you know this kind of loss too, I want you to hear this:

You are not alone.

Your story matters.

Your child’s life matters.

Even in this heartbreak, God is holding you and your little ones in the same hands. One day, every tear will be redeemed. Every broken hallelujah will turn into praise. And our arms—these aching, waiting arms—will finally be full again.

faith, Uncategorized

Even now

Hannah

How will we make it through this? The valleys we walk may bear different names, but at the beginning of the trailhead we all have a choice to make.

I once chose with clenched fists, fueled by grief, driven by fear… maybe you have been there too. But hear me now, not from the mountaintop, but from the shadowed lowlands, where echoes of pain still linger—choose the better way.

To those who call Jesus Lord: we proclaim a Kingdom not built by hands, not tied to decades past or decades to come. No power of earth can shake what is secure in Him. This is not a call to passivity— but perhaps an invitation: learn the stillness of the soul.

Not silence for silence’s sake, but a reorienting, a returning to the Way that is higher, slower, deeper. God has been faithful—not because all is mended, not because we have been spared, but because He never left.

Each day aches like fire, and still, Jesus is good.

Each prayer rises desperate, and still, Jesus is near.

His nearness is not held hostage to the outcomes I crave. Call me foolish, if you must. I am learning to care less for opinions, and more for people, because Jesus is shaping my heart for a Kingdom not made of noise.

God’s goodness is not measured by the speed of escape from sorrow. Whether I have months or years this I know:

Jesus is here. He is good. And gently He whispers: “Be still, and know that I am God.

So in your valley will you stop, just for a moment? Turn from the scroll, the post, the panic, and let your soul lean toward Him. Even here, where fear stirs, where anger brews, there is joy. Because love remains, and He is near.

Even now, I can say with trembling lips: It is well with my soul. He is God. And He is good.

Uncategorized

Even Here

Hannah

I decided today was shower day. With a broken wrist and low energy, some days are arranged to be less involved than a whole shower, but today it was time for the real thing.

Sitting on my chair in the shower I made a mental note to myself, “figure out how to get pumps for my shampoo and conditioner bottles; it’s getting hard for my hands to squeeze anything out of them.” I didn’t realize I had bigger problems than that.

As I finished up washing and reached up to scrunch the water out of my hair with my good hand, my arm banged back down onto my lap. I tried twice more, but couldn’t lift my arm high enough to squeeze the water from my hair. I decided to just dry off and deal with it outside the shower. Then came the realization that neither could I reach for my towel to dry off. I sat in the shower, dripping wet, unable to do anything for myself, and something broke inside.

Fortunately my husband was close enough by to hear my raspy call for help, and he came to my aid. As he did for me what I had done for myself for at least the past 37 years, tears mixed with the shower water that dripped down my face. “It’s not fair,” I croaked.

The words felt both childish and truer than anything I’d said all week.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I wasn’t supposed to need help with something as basic as drying off. I wasn’t supposed to be this tired, this fragile, this dependent. And maybe most of all, I wasn’t supposed to feel so small—so cracked open by something as simple as a shower.

But there in the tension between frustration and fatigue, my heart whispered what my mouth could not: “Even here, Lord?”

Even here, when my wrist is broken, my body is weak, and my heart is weary?

Even here, when I don’t recognize this version of myself?

Even here, when I feel like more of a burden than a blessing?

And somehow, though He didn’t speak aloud, I felt the answer settle in deeper than my bones: Yes. Even here.

Even here, He is present.

Even here, He is faithful.

Even here, He is not confused about my story.

It’s one thing to trust God when everything makes sense—when my strength is intact, when my routines are predictable, and my body does what I ask of it. It’s another thing entirely to trust Him when nothing is working and I’m wrapped in a towel I couldn’t even reach on my own. It is a hard-fought trust that doesn’t come naturally.

But I’m learning that this is a holy place too.

Not polished. Not powerful. Just painfully human—and held.

There is a strange kind of worship that happens when we let God meet us in our brokenness without pretending we’re fine. When we let the tears fall and still say, “I trust You anyway.” When we acknowledge the ache and still choose to believe He’s working all things for our good.

I don’t understand all He’s doing. I don’t love the limitations. But I know the One who has never wasted pain, never abandoned His people, and never made a mistake. And if He’s allowing this part of the story, then somehow—even this—is being woven into something eternal.

So today, in a soaked towel and salty tears, I’m offering Him what I have: my honesty, my surrender, my broken trust trying to be whole.

Because even here, He is worthy.

Even here, He is good.

And even here, I still believe He knows exactly what He’s doing.

Uncategorized

When Others Let You Down

Hannah

I bit back tears as I texted a friend this week. “I know I’m supposed to let Jesus be my everything, but sometimes I just want someone with skin on.” My unmet expectations had left me feeling hurt, alone, and disconnected.

Life has a way of revealing the fragility of human relationships. People disappoint us. Friends drift. Family wounds. Leaders fall short. And in those moments of heartbreak, betrayal, or silence, we’re faced with a choice: will we allow the cracks in human connection to crush us, or will we let Jesus become our everything?

I’m preaching this as much to myself as to anyone else.

If you’re reading this with a fresh wound or a quiet ache in your heart, know this — you’re not alone. The Bible is filled with people who were betrayed, misunderstood, and abandoned. Joseph was sold by his brothers. David was hunted by the king he served. Even Jesus was deserted by His closest friends in His darkest hour.

“Why can’t they see how they are hurting me,” I pleaded.

But here’s the deeper truth: Jesus never asks us to put our ultimate hope in people. He invites us to put our hope in Him.

When the people around you let you down — whether through neglect, harsh words, or simply their own brokenness — Jesus remains steadfast. He is the friend who never walks away, the Shepherd who knows your name, the Savior who bore rejection so you’d never have to bear it alone.

When the support you thought would hold you collapses, let Jesus be your support. When you’re craving love, let Him remind you of the cross, where He proved you’re worth everything. When you’re confused and directionless, let His Word be the voice that steadies you.

Jesus isn’t a backup plan — He is the plan. He doesn’t just fill in the gaps that others leave behind; He becomes the fullness your heart was always meant to hold.

Healing often begins not with fixing the relationship, but with coming back to the One who never broke your heart. Jesus welcomes your tears, your questions, your anger. He’s not threatened by your pain. He meets you in it. He transforms it.

So bring Him your everything — your wounds, your disappointment, your longing. Let Him into the places that others walked away from. Let Him speak where others went silent. Let Him restore what others couldn’t protect.

Human love is beautiful, but it was never meant to carry the weight of your soul. Only Jesus can do that. He is not just enough when others fail — He is more than enough.

So if today you feel alone, rejected, or forgotten, remember this: you are fully known and fiercely loved by Jesus. Let Him be your everything. Not just in the hard moments, but in every moment.

He will never leave. He will never change. And He will never let you down.

Uncategorized

The Letters

Hannah

I probably should have started with this before my last post, because I’ve gotten some concerned responses. I am still here for every single moment ordained for me!

That being said, God has also been working in my life to prepare me for my Heavenly home. If I could write a letter to each one of you I would. So many of you are my prayer warriors and faithfully encourage me through the highs and the lows of my story. Since I can’t reach out to each of you individually, I’m going to be using my blog to write some letters to my people, so that each person will have the chance to hear my heart, and easy access to it. So please don’t despair when you see me posting the things I’m carrying in my heart. Know they are meant to be treasured by you, where you can return to them again and again.