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I should be bubbling over with excitement right now because my daughter and I have tickets to a concert tonight. She’s been my Kpop concert buddy from the start, when we flew north to see BTS for the first time at MetLife Stadium in 2019. I’ve overcome a lot of anxiety (with a whole lot…
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My husband, Raymond, and I have not had the best track record in venturing out on romantic getaways. Our honeymoon set the stage for this unfortunate streak. The room we were assigned was across the pool, next to the ice machine, just around the corner from the lobby, and to make matters worse it shared…
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Chapter 5: God Was There I already mentioned that my relationship with God was weak at that point. I loved Him. I was saved as a little four-year-old, sitting on the sofa next to my Mom, who led me in prayer. I had been subscribed to Clubhouse magazine through seventh grade, but when I turned…
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Chapter 3: Pivot We did not end up moving to Guatemala. I was led to believe that it was pretty much a guarantee. We had our family portrait taken at the Wal-Mart photo studio, those smiling faces slapped on some prayer cards to distribute at the churches we needed to visit. My parents were tasked…
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I wrote this to work through some of the emotions that come with my chronic illness journey, and the struggle it is to get a diagnosis for my never-ending pain, to find a manageable solution, while reconciling it all with my faith. I’m a work-in-progress, but at the end of every painful day I find…
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I am the sort of person who has been known to write something down, decide it’s too messy, and toss the whole sheet so I can start over again. I have been trying to keep an optimistic outlook on life, reminding myself that a rough start to the new year does not mean it’s like…
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My brain forms incredibly strong associations to people, places and things; or as they say in English class: nouns. Oftentimes, when those associations are negative ones, it is incredibly difficult to confront situations that put me into the paths of whomever, wherever or whatever triggers the flood of dreadful emotions that goes with them. It…
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Feel-good, pay-it-forward stories are often shared on social media platforms, celebrating such examples of kindness. They often start somewhere like a coffee-chain’s drive-thru, when someone decides to pay for the person’s order behind them. The person pulls up to the pay window to discover their order has already been paid for. So, inspired by the…
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My body was riddled with excessive pain last week, some of it new, most of it depressingly familiar. I had spoken the words, “I am in a great deal of pain,” to my husband every day, to the point I felt the word pain had lost all meaning. It wears on me, not knowing what…
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I recall an assignment in middle school where each of us was required to build an animal home, such as a birdhouse, using wood. There was a woodworking area just off of our science room, and we were tasked with designing the home and then completing the project during the allotted time in class. My…