Tag: God

Love is Writing a New and Better Ending

I shared most of this on my personal Facebook page yesterday,

It was written before out sweet girl was gathered in the arms of Jesus.

But honestly, whether she lived or died, the words are still true.

Love has the last word ❤️

Saturday I got to see my little granddaughter,Holly, for the first time and hold her tiny hand.  It’s heartbreaking to walk through double doors and down a hallway where alcove after alcove is filled with hopeful parents keeping watch over their precious children.   

Many people point to such suffering and ask, “Where is God?”. Or they assert that if there is a God, He is neither good nor loving.  Often believers rush to His defense and make things worse by offering weak and illogical arguments that only add confusion and more doubt.  

A lot of my time is spent with broken hearts walking broken paths and I know that for many circumstances in this life there are simply no answers.  Definitely no answers that will satisfy the deep ache left by profound suffering or loss.

So I don’t offer answers.  I don’t toss platitudes like confetti from the sideline as weary ones plod on in the marathon of a fiery trial.  

I don’t know why babies are born so very sick or born straight into the arms of Jesus.   I don’t understand why on the hall opposite the NICU there is a pediatric cancer ward.  I don’t have any idea why one despicable person wreaks havoc on a school full of defenseless children and another kind soul suffers some terrible disease.

I do know that the world is not as God intended or first made it.  Sin has wrought calamity from the beginning.  Atrophy is the goal of this broken place.  

But God…

The Story isn’t over yet.   From Genesis to Revelation, Love is writing a new and better ending.  

Knowing and trusting in that Truth does not make suffering less painful, it only makes it bearable.  

I have no idea how Holly’s life will be woven into the eternal story God is writing but I know she matters. Her beating heart and fragile fingers were created for a purpose.   Jesus loves her.

Yesterday she joined her Uncle Dominic in Heaven.

It is unbelievably hard and sad to feel afresh that familiar ache of sorrow.

But our family is choosing to live in that mysterious and supremely uncomfortable space between what we can know in this life and what we will never understand until Eternity.  ❤️

Advent 2025: Extravagant Worship

I don’t know what the wise men expected to see.

It seems natural to us who know the story–who know the REST of the story–that they ended up finding Jesus-The King of the Jews-the One whose birth was announced by a star in a humble abode.

But I think it might have surprised those rich rulers traveling so far to worship Him.

Read the rest here: Advent: Extravagant Worship

Advent 2025: Behind The Scenes

I’m not privy to everything God is doing in the world. And, frankly, what I see sometimes looks like He’s not doing much. I want Him to step in and make things right according to my limited knowledge.

But He’s working behind the scenes in ways I can’t imagine or comprehend.

He has a purpose and plan that will not be thwarted.

I do not for one moment believe that God Took My Child. But I absolutely, positively believe that He is using what the enemy meant for evil to accomplish good.

Read the rest here: Advent: Behind The Scenes

Advent 2025: Highly Favored

I imagine Mary held those words close to her heart over the next many months when whispers and sideways glances followed her everywhere.

I know I hold close the words the Lord has given me.

When I read Scripture, the Holy Spirit often quickens my spirit to take note and take hold of a verse or two. He whispers, “This one is for YOU”, to my heart.

I underline it, write it down, meditate on it, come back to it and rest in the truth that if God says it, it’s true.

Read the rest here: Advent: Highly Favored

Embracing Sorrow: A Thanksgiving Reflection

If you woke this morning feeling more broken than blessed, I see you.

If you could care less about the bounty on the table and can only feel the barrenness in your heart, I know how you feel.

Today doesn’t have to be any special way, my friend. Give yourself grace. Give yourself permission to feel what you feel and do what you do and not do what you can’t do.

❤ Melanie

THANKSGIVING PRAYER FOR HURTING HEARTS

Father God,

We live in a world that isn’t always (or even often) what we hope for, pray for and long for.

But here we are.

Two hands open and waiting for the blessing You have promised in our brokenness.

I am oh, so thankful for the many ways You have blessed me, continue to bless me and uphold me with Your righteous right arm. I know, know, know that if You were not walking with me in this Valley, I would have given up and given in long ago.

I am not ungrateful. I am blessed.

But I am also broken.

My heart longs desperately for what it cannot have. I am forced to walk forward but I want to turn back time. I’m grateful for every face around my table but always thinking about the one that will never sit there again.

I miss those I love who have run ahead to joyous celebration in Heaven. I long for just a taste of divine joy as I wait my turn to join them.

Thanksgiving big and loud just isn’t in my playlist anymore. Quiet gratitude that makes space for sorrowful reflection is more my style.

Make me truly thankful for the promise that no matter how often circumstances change or how dreadful those changes may be, You are the same-yesterday, today and forever!

Your steadfast love holds us fast. I rest in that truth.

Help me hold onto hope. Help me hold onto every good and perfect gift You still give me as I wait. Grease the wheels of every relationship with grace.

Greet me this morning with new mercies and fresh strength.

Give me the strength to endure, the grace to participate, the breath to speak love and the confidence that you see every tear I shed when no one is looking.

Amen

I Can Rest Securely in God’s Provision

The world can make a heart panic, scrambling to pile up extra lest “the worst” befalls us and suddenly there’s not enough.

That’s what happened a couple years ago when, for some unknown reason, toilet paper became the currency of security.

But no matter how deep or full the pantry, stuff can’t keep us truly safe.

Ask me how I know.

Read the rest here: Thanks And Giving

Embracing Lament: Finding Strength In Our Pain

When I first began writing in this space, “lament” had only just come into vogue.

Now, it’s everywhere.

If the past few years have taught hearts a single thing, I hope it is there’s no use pretending life doesn’t hurt sometimes. We were not created to carry that kind of pain alone.

And thankfully, we don’t have to.

God, in Christ, invites me to speak it, to sing it, to release it as an exhale so His grace and strength can rush in to fill that empty space.

You’re invited too.

❤ Melanie

Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday.

I loved everything about it,

Read the rest here: The Power of Lament to Make Room for Thanksgiving

Stories of Loss and Hope: A Journey Through Grief

I was asked awhile back to be part of a project shepherded by fellow parents-in-loss, Laura and Gary House (https://ourheartsarehome.org/).

They wanted to gather and publish stories from other child loss survivors in hopes of encouraging hearts and strengthening the faith of parents facing the unimaginable.

I don’t mind saying that in spite of all I’ve written in this space for the past ten (!) years, it was challenging to distill my thoughts about that night, the days that followed and my own faith journey since into a single chapter.

But I, and a dozen other parents, did just that.

In our own words we tell our stories. We share our struggles and our triumphs.

Read the rest here: Until Then-Stories of Loss and Hope

When Thanksgiving is Born of Sacrifice

Rocking babies I never dreamed that one day my life would look like this. 

I never imagined that one of those tiny bodies I held close to my mama heart would not outlive me.

Now I sit in the same rocking chair in the dark, thinking about how so many things I wouldn’t have written into my story are now part of it.  

And if I’m honest,  it can easily overwhelm my heart.  It can carry me to a place of despair and desperation where there’s no room for thanksgiving-not the holiday OR the feeling.  

Here we are-the eleventh year of holidays without Dominic-and I’m no better at it than I was at first. 

Read the rest here: Thanksgiving As Sacrifice

It’s God’s Mercy That I Don’t Know the Future

The past several weeks (almost two months!) have taught me once again the grace and mercy in not knowing what the future holds.

My father’s stroke in September changed everything.

He isn’t able to make the connection between my own grief over the death of Dominic with his grief over the life he lost the morning the clot stopped blood flow to part of his brain.

I can, though.

And so much of what I have learned in this grief journey is applicable to his. He was able to fully enjoy every minute up to the very second the stroke occurred.

How awful to be robbed of today’s joy with tomorrow’s sorrows.

Many years ago my grandparents had a lovely Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration with family and friends.

My dad videotaped it and the tape was full of fun moments where my grandmother was smiling, laughing and having a wonderful day.

It was a short time afterward that she began to show signs of dementia and not very long after that she left us.

We watched the videotape a year or two after her leaving and I thought, “What a mercy she didn’t know what was coming!”

Those moments were full of unadulterated joy because a sorrowful future was hidden from her heart.

Read the rest here: I Don’t Want to Know The Future