suffering

Standing, when everything shakes

Hannah

🎶 “Standing on the promises of Christ my King, through eternal ages let his praises ring; glory in the highest I will shout and sing, standing on the promises of God!”🎶

Affliction has a way of changing the way we sing. Once, I sang this hymn standing tall, lungs full, voice rising like a joyful Baptist at a Saturday night revival—sure, strong, unquestioning. Now, I sing it slower from the quiet of my hospital bed, tasting each word, weighing every promise against the heaviness pressing on my chest. The melody hasn’t changed, but I have.

18 days. Eighteen days of one hard thing after another maddeningly marching through the doors of my life—uninvited, unrelenting. Health unraveling into painful new territories, relationships trembling under pressure that threatens what once seemed unshakeable, the future scattering into pieces I can no longer hold together. It feels like too much.

In a weary whisper only God could hear, I said, You are asking too much of me. This feels impossible. I don’t think I can do this. And yet—You must think I can.

So where, Lord, is the help You promised?

Promise. That word flickered through my tired mind and opened a remembered door: “This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your promise gives me life” (Psalm 119:50). There it was—quiet as a breath, clear as a bell: Hannah, this is your help. My promises. Stand on them.

So the words came tumbling—like a river breaking through a dam—every scripture, every promise I could catch hold of, spoken aloud over the noise of despair crowding my soul:

If I stand firm to the end, You will save me. You give strength to the weary. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Your name is a strong tower—I run to You. With Your grace, all things are possible. So help me do what feels impossible. Help me make it through this.

And this morning, something was different. The circumstances hadn’t shifted—the questions still hovered—but my heart? It stood. Courage where fear had sat. Steadiness where trembling had lived. God had kept His word. He renewed me. He breathed life where hope was thinning. His promises held me upright, where I thought I would fall.

My family woke to the sound of me—quiet, raspy voice —singing again like that happy Baptist at a Saturday night revival: Standing on the promises of God.

And this time, I am not just singing it. I am living it.

Friendship, Uncategorized

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.

grief

Midnight Tears

Hannah

In the ink-black hush of night, I lie awake, my body heavy with fatigue and pain, my heart a storm of grief and longing. Tears fall in quiet rivers, tracing the contours of sorrow I cannot name. I weep for my husband, for the weight this life presses upon him. I weep for my adult children, for the precious hours I wish I could stretch into eternity, to know them more fully, love them more completely. And I weep for my twelve-year-old boy—for the tender, unspoken ache of a mother who knows she cannot protect him from everything, and who feels the relentless pull of her own mortality. There are no words to capture this deep, trembling sorrow.

Yet even in this darkness, there is something sacred. Pain and wonder sit side by side in the same trembling heart. In these midnight moments, when the world is hushed and the stars are silent witnesses, I feel the faint brush of God’s own breath upon me.

As the dark gives way to morning’s first light I walk with my boy through grief toward hope, whispering truths we both need to hear: that this life is but a blink, fleeting, whether our days end at thirty or a hundred and five. None of us are promised tomorrow. Today is the gift—and even suffering, piercing and raw, is not wasted. It is the means by which God presses treasure into our hearts, treasure that lasts beyond the fleeting pulse of this world.

So I hold my boy’s hand and I murmur lessons meant for both of us. That Jesus is enough. That our story does not end in a hospital room or a grave. That heaven is not an escape, but a home we were made for, and sorrow is merely the shadow that makes its light possible.

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

Brave Was Never the Plan

Hannah

I had a new nurse come visit me last week. He was honest, kind, and thorough — asking all the usual questions about my medical history; the twists and turns that brought me here. I’ve learned to tell that story in pieces now, almost like reading from a well-worn script. When I finished, he sat back in his chair and said softly, “You’re really brave.”

He said it again before he left. And I smiled, but inside I felt a strange ache. Because I don’t feel brave. Not even close.

Most days, I feel like I’m just hanging on for dear life — doing the next thing because there is no other choice. Take the medication. Show up for the appointment. Face the pain. Rest. Repeat. There’s nothing glamorous about it, and most of the time, it doesn’t feel like courage; it feels like survival. The kind of survival where you’re digging in your fingernails, white-knuckling hope like your life depends on it, because it does.

But maybe, just maybe, God sees it differently.

I think about how often Scripture tells us, “Do not be afraid.” It’s not because life is easy or because fear never knocks at our door — it’s because God promises to be with us in it. Maybe bravery isn’t the absence of fear or the strength to charge forward. Maybe it’s the quiet trust to take one trembling step at a time, believing that God’s hand is steadying us, even when our own knees are shaking.

There are days when my prayers are nothing more than whispered sighs — “Lord, help me through this hour.” There are nights when I’m too weary to pray at all, and all I can do is rest in the truth that the Spirit intercedes for me when I have no words left. And maybe that’s what real courage looks like: surrendering the illusion of strength and leaning instead into the grace that holds me together.

I don’t feel brave, but I am learning that bravery doesn’t always feel like bravery. Sometimes it looks like showing up. Sometimes it looks like tears. Sometimes it looks like still believing that God is good, even when life doesn’t feel good.

If someone calls me brave, maybe what they really see is the reflection of God’s faithfulness — the way He sustains a soul that should have fallen apart by now. I’m learning to take that as a quiet reminder: this story isn’t about how strong I am, but about how faithful He is.

So no, I don’t feel brave. But I keep going. And by God’s grace, that’s enough.

faith

When a Voice Falls Silent: A Call to Courage

Hannah

There are a lot of voices right now. A deafening amount of opinions and points of view. Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether speaking is warranted, or if it will just add to the noise. One thing I know though, is that in the face of devastation, hope is a needed voice to hear.

What happens when a prominent voice for truth is suddenly silenced? When someone who stood boldly, unashamed of the gospel, and unwilling to compromise, is snatched away from us? The temptation is fear. Fear that if they can be taken down, then what about us? Fear that darkness is stronger than light. Fear that speaking up will cost too much.

The missionary Paul reminds us otherwise:

“…I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭1‬:‭20-21

This is not the end. Death does not have the final word. Every voice that is silenced here will one day be awakened at the sound of His voice. Every injustice will be answered. Every act of courage will be remembered before the throne of God.

So what do we do if a voice for truth falls silent?

We do not shrink back. We do not hide in fear. We step forward. We take up the torch that has been handed to us. We keep talking, keep living, keep shining. Because the mission was never about one person’s voice alone — it is about God’s truth resounding through His people. (John 5:28-29)

The darker the world gets, the more every flicker of light matters. The more every word of courage echoes. The more every act of faith shines.

Let us not be silent. Let us not cower. Let us not let darkness have the last word. Instead, let us outshine it. Because one day, the tombs will open, the righteous will rise, and the Judge of all the earth will make everything right.

Until then, we keep speaking. We keep living with courage. We keep letting the light shine.

Gratitude

The Gift of Time

Hannah

About a week ago I discovered my first real, here-to-stay gray hair. At about an inch and a half long, the silvery strand sparkled in the light, and I squeaked with delight. I have been waiting for this day!

It felt almost holy, that moment of noticing what the world often calls a flaw but what Scripture calls a crown. The Bible says, “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life” (Proverbs 16:31). A strand of silver is not something to pluck away or hide in embarrassment—it’s a shimmer of honor, the whisper of years lived and stories carried, a reminder that time is a gift.

The world tells us that beauty belongs to the young, but God tells us that beauty deepens with age. Every laugh line is a history of joy. Every crease carries the memory of burdens borne and released. Every gray hair gleams with testimony: of lessons learned, of prayers prayed, of nights endured and mornings met with new mercies.

Aging is not the dimming of the light, but the soft glow of it spreading, warming, illuminating. It is not a loss—it is a gathering. We gather wisdom, we gather perspective, we gather gratitude for the fleetingness of days and the eternity that awaits beyond them.

To age is to live long enough to love more deeply, to forgive more freely, to see life with eyes unclouded by the urgency of youth. It is to carry within us the sacredness of experience, the sweetness of perspective, and the quiet strength of having endured.

So when I see that little silver thread sparkle in the mirror, I do not feel embarrassed. I feel crowned. Crowned with grace, crowned with wisdom, crowned with the reminder that my days are in His hands and that every year is a jewel added to the story He is writing through my life.

Fun with gray

Aging is not something to hide. It is something to honor. Something to embrace. Something to rejoice in.

Because every gray hair is not just a strand—it is a song of God’s faithfulness woven into us, shimmering with glory.

faith

Living In Tension

Hannah

I listened quietly, my dear friend’s eyes brimming with tears as she described the weight of living each day not knowing when her husband’s cancer is going to come back for the last time. Though he is currently in remission, it’s a cancer that cannot be cured, so it’s this waiting game of when and how it will rear its ugly head again. The questions my friend turns over in her mind are crushing—the kind that steal your breath and undo your strength. Questions about what she will do when God takes her husband home. We gaze over their beautifully massive yard and wonder how she will continue to cultivate its beauty on her own without her helpmate. Lots of hard questions surface daily when living in this kind of tension between the already and the not yet.

I too, feel the struggle that stretches taut around me— with my health and function teetering between being livable and folding into the reality that my body at some point will not be able to continue like this. How do you continue to move through your days while you are walking such a tedious line between what has already happened, and what we expect to happen soon? How is it not paralyzing?

In the throes of a cancer diagnosis, My dear friends have taught me the blessing of living in 24 hour blocks.

They learned—are still learning—to live in the span of a single day. To open their eyes in the morning and ask, What is in front of me today? What can I do, savor, and love in the next twenty-four hours? Not a week, not a year, not a lifetime… just today.

It’s not that the future doesn’t whisper its what-ifs. It does—sometimes with a roar. But they’ve found that courage grows best in small portions, like manna in the wilderness, enough for the day but never stored up in advance.

So we cook the dinner that’s in front of us. We laugh at the joke we didn’t see coming. We walk in the yard, even though someday it may be too big for us. We love fiercely, even if it costs us dearly to let go later.

Living this way doesn’t erase the pain or the questions. It doesn’t make the tension disappear. But it loosens its chokehold, replacing dread with something far more powerful: presence. And in that presence, God meets us—not in the far-off tomorrows, but in the fragile, sacred now.

Like sailors watching the horizon, we take our bearings from the sun—morning to evening, one day’s voyage at a time. Tomorrow’s waters will come soon enough. For now, we drop anchor in the grace of today.