Tag: daily graces

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.

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.

Multiple System Atrophy

The Sound of Survival

Hannah

As my muscles weaken and I spend more time on my ventilator, my voice is fading as well. After much frustration trying to gather enough breath to make myself heard, especially from another room, we came up with a new solution.

I was delighted that with my new amplifier I can easily be heard, even in my softest voice. It saves me a lot of breath, and makes it easier for the people around to understand me.

However, this didn’t necessarily go over well with everyone. When my young son saw the demonstration of my new device his eyes widened. “Please do not EVER use that in front of any of my friends.” Ahh, I’ve seen this hard embarrassment before. It happened when I initially needed a machine to support my breathing, and it happened when I first started using a wheelchair. Whenever we were headed somewhere, he would ask, “are you bringing your vent? Are you bringing your chair?” Earlier on I was able to provide some balance- leaving these behind to make it through short events with him so that he had one less thing to worry over. As my condition has progressed however, these helps are a more constant companion. But here we are with a new player on the scene, and my heart breaks for my boy who just longs for some normalcy.

And so I find myself holding two truths at once. I am deeply grateful for tools that allow me to remain present, to speak, to be heard, to stay connected to the people I love. And I am also grieving alongside my son, who did not ask for a mother whose body requires so much explaining.

His embarrassment is not cruelty. It is not rejection. It is the ache of a child who wants to blend in, who wants his world to look like everyone else’s, who is already carrying more than his fair share of difference. I recognize that look in his eyes—the same one I’ve seen when strangers stare too long, when friends ask questions he doesn’t know how to answer, when he realizes yet again that our family does not move through the world unnoticed.

So I try to meet him with gentleness. I remind him that it’s okay to feel this way. That loving me doesn’t mean loving every machine that keeps me going. That embarrassment and compassion can exist in the same heart. I tell him that these devices are not symbols of failure, but of persistence—that they are the reason I can cheer for him, listen to his stories, and whisper “I love you” at the end of the day.

And I also do the harder work of letting go of the bargain I once tried to make—of believing I could soften this for him by minimizing myself. I am learning that my job is not to disappear to make life easier for those I love, but to model what it looks like to live honestly within limitation, without shame.

One day, I hope he will remember not the sound of the amplifier or the sight of the tubes, but the way we kept showing up for each other anyway. I hope he will know that his mother did not give up her voice—even when it came out differently than before.

family

Letting Go, One Christmas at a Time

Hannah

My youngest turned 13 earlier this week. Somehow I managed to get through that day and several more before it really hit me. My youngest baby is a teenager! The exact time this news caught up with my heart and my tears was the night before Christmas as I finished up my gift wrapping.

I picked a book from my stack of gifts and slid the scissors along the wrapping paper to measure just the right size piece. I had been excited to come across a newly released book in the series my boy enjoyed. But as I creased the paper around the edges of the book I suddenly stopped. Why on earth am I gifting him this? Not only does he not enjoy reading, he hasn’t been into this book series for THREE YEARS!

Suddenly a flood of tears coursed uninhibited down my cheeks, as I realized this purchase had simply been a misguided attempt to ignore the fact that time was stealing away the years, and grasping at anything to freeze the moments in time.

I stood there for a long moment, hands resting on the paper, staring at a version of my son that no longer exists. The boy who once devoured those stories on the couch, legs tangled in blankets, asking me just one more chapter, please. That boy has been quietly, faithfully growing up while I wasn’t looking.

I finished wrapping the gift anyway, tears dropping onto the tape and ribbon, because motherhood doesn’t stop when our hearts ache. But something shifted in me. I wasn’t just mourning a book choice—I was grieving a season. The small hands. The loud laughter over silly plots. The years when his world was simple and I was still his safe place for everything.

Thirteen feels like a threshold. Not a door slammed shut, but one gently closing behind us while another creaks open ahead. He is becoming someone new—someone with opinions, independence, and a future that will carry him farther from my daily reach. And I’m proud of him. Deeply. Fiercely. But pride doesn’t cancel grief. They coexist, tangled together in the quiet moments, like Christmas Eve tears over wrapping paper.

I know this won’t be the last time I grieve the passing of who my children once were. Motherhood is a series of goodbyes disguised as growth. We celebrate the milestones, take the pictures, bake the cakes—while our hearts lag just a step behind, trying to catch up.

So this Christmas, I’m letting myself feel it. I’m releasing the little boy I tried to buy back with a book, and asking for grace to love the teenager standing in front of me now. To learn him again. To meet him where he is, not where I wish time had paused.

And maybe that’s the real gift of this season—not holding tighter to what was, but opening our hands to what is becoming.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Update

Hannah

I knew this Thanksgiving wouldn’t look quite like the ones we’ve tucked into memory. The calendar had to shift to fit kids’ work schedules and scattered availability. I had to recruit a backup cook because my strength simply couldn’t stretch far enough to carry a full Thanksgiving meal this year. And my husband had to bow out entirely when he scheduled a double knee replacement just days before the holiday.

Yet somehow, none of that made the week dull. I still managed to lock the keys in the car, faint while helping my husband and earn myself an ambulance ride—and a fresh set of stitches. And in true last-minute fashion, I found myself stepping in for friends and running the 8:30 a.m. Turkey Trot in thirty degree weather on Thanksgiving morning.

But today has been its own kind of glory—bundled in the cold, then thawing out in a warm, cozy house filled with the people I love. MarioKart championships, board games scattered across the table, quiet naps under soft blankets. It has been simple, chaotic, and beautiful.

I have more to be thankful for than words can hold. And as I count the blessings I can see—and the many I can’t—I’m lifting my gratitude upward. I pray you’re doing the same today, giving thanks to the One who fills our lives with mercies new every morning and goodness we could never deserve.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. May your hearts be full and your eyes open to every grace He has poured out.

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!

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.

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.