Brave Heart, Brave Soul. She who is brave is free.

"You own the skies and still You want my heart." ~ Unknown I often find myself wondering why God has placed me where I am. I mean who am I to be a witness or give testimony of His grace? And yet it is He who has set my heart on fire and shown me mercy in spite of myself. I think sometimes if He hadn't chosen me before I was born, He might not have done so after wards. But I think that is the way many of us think, as if we're not ever good enough. But the truth is we're all sinners, not one of us is perfect and if that was a deal breaker than God wouldn't have provided forgiveness. He wouldn't have sent His Son, paving a  way for us to find redemption or for that matter shown us mercy and given us grace. I like how C. S. Lewis puts it, "I would rather be what God chose to make me then the most perfect person I can think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most preciou...

Life can get pretty complicated but so can people. We tend to get stuck in one chapter of our story and can’t turn the page. We simply get lost in this great big abyss of why and what if’s while the story of who we are is still being written. I think in our journey to find ourselves we tend to try and erase all our not so great moments as if they never happened. But is this really the way we want to have our story told? I like what Andrea Dykstra has to say about it. She puts it like this, “In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.” Our experiences are profound, and we need each one of them not only to understand who we are but to find ourselves. We can’t change where we’ve been, the pain, the hurt or the rejection we’ve faced. These things shape us, they make us  who we are.  We can't pretend our past hasn't happened but can use each experience to push us forward. We're all lost and insecure at times but that doesn’t mean we ca...

Growing up is scary. And by growing up I don’t mean getting older or putting mileage on. No, I mean growing into men and women who were born victorious.  None of us are born to live a life of defeat. Yes some are given more, while others have to fight to get to the top but we're not meant to live derailed, crushed or rejected. What I do know from my own difficulties, is I want to be the kind of woman who doesn’t settle but walks with purpose, allowing the fire inside me not to scorch my surroundings but to burn brighter inside of me. Growing up isn’t about who you are,where you're from or where you're going in life because we’re all still growing, learning every day whether we’re 10 years old or 80. The truth is up until we take our last breath our hearts and minds continue to illuminate and compose our story. Our tales are never fully told or revealed until the last word is penned on the very last page of the final chapter and the book is closed. Honestly, until...

Have you ever felt as if someone has effectively dismantled your life? I know many of us have been here, feeling left, worthless and useless and complete strangers to our own selves. After years of listening and being there for my friends, I’m sad to say I'm here right now, and no I’m not going to spill the beans, with all the nitty gritty details. What I am going to do is be real, be honest, admit I am broken and ask for your prayers, for your patience and understanding as I try and navigate through these uncharted waters with as much dignity as I can muster.  How did I get here? Honestly I was dragged kicking and screaming. I fought hard not to end up a casualty, broken and wounded. But despite our best attempts life doesn't always turn out quite the way we hoped, planned or even fought for. We can hold on forever but the rope is still going to eventually burn. We can give all we have but when all is said and done still find it's just not enough. Let’s be honest,...

It's hard to believe Johnny and I have been together for close to 20 years. We were absolute babies when we first met in a world that expected us to be both reasonable and serious adults just because our names were printed on a diploma. Goodness gracious, we were still developing and definitely still maturing but there we were ready to take on the man, thrown into a world of discovery with no clue who we were yet or really where we were going. What did it matter what skills we had, by God's sake we were going to make our own way hell or high water! Looking back now some almost 20 years later I wonder what in the Sam hill we were thinking, running around in a post-apocalyptic teenage world trying to pass ourselves off as grownups wielding nothing but our lack of know -how with a definite desire for independence. It honestly amazes me how Johnny and I ever made it out of our 20's, through our 30's and now well into our 40's. It's not that we were wild, c...

If I have learned one thing in my 41 years it’s this, life is full of uncertainty. From one day to the next life can and will take different turns. Life can bring good news one day and sorrow the next. Our joy is not linked to uncertainty or in the fear and worry of a sudden detour life maps into our route. Joy is a certainty despite the fears surrounding us. I sometimes think we tend to confuse happiness with joy. We are not guaranteed happiness. Why, well happiness is a feeling, joy on the other hand is something deeper, it’s something we chose in our circumstances, good or bad. We can run around like Chicken Little yelling the sky is falling, be a woe is me kind of person, blaming everyone else for our predicament and allow a curve ball to destroy us or we can take a deep breath, and let the pieces fall where they will. Everything sorts itself out eventually. The reality is we do have the ability to walk with confidence even when life has gone haywire. It all comes down to ...

We all have a God Story, whether we believe in His Grace and Mercy or not. If you hold God as your compass through this darkly lite world we live in or not.  If you have rejected the idea of His existence you have a God Story, your story is what you believe or do not believe in when it comes to faith. Some of us find God early in life, some of us find him late. Some of us reject His purpose in our lives from the moment we are aware there is more to this universe of ours than just you and me, some of us reject God as life begins to unravel around us. Some of us can't seem to find Him at all and still others seem to be able to believe in the unseen without much effort at all. For many grace seems so far out of reach, so untouchable, so unlikely, yet His grace is the Hand that holds us, that binds us to joy and provides peace of mind in the middle of so much turbulence,  the very rope keeping us from the depths of  total despair, longing to reach down and ease our sufferin...

Over this last weekend I was cooking dinner as the boys watched Disney Channel. My mind was not completely on the cooking nor was it completely on the TV. As I was stirring the pot in front of me on the stove I realized I was humming the Miley Cyrus song coming from the TV. Let’s see how did it go? “Life’s what you make it so let’s make it right”. Hum… let’s ponder this for a bit… Life is what you make it? Ok I can live with that but what happens when the tools you need are ripped right out of your hands? What happened when life takes your health? Life has sent me many obstacles, such as diabetes, stroke, bell’s palsy, cancer, lymphedema, R.A. auto immune disease, and list goes on. No, I am not listing these complications because I want sympathy; nope I am doing so because we have lost our health insurance. Yep, that’s right you heard me correctly, I have no health insurance and all these pre-existing conditions! So what do I do? What do my children do? We have applied for Medicaid an...

April is here. Spring has sprung and it's still cold! I love the cold, really I do but not in the spring. I am ready for the warmth and the beauty of a new season. But it's still cold outside and I am still hiding inside my warm home. My point is life is never certain. We never know what it will throw at us next. One minute you can be basking in the sun and the next you can be standing in a wind storm. My life has been filled with such events. I had lived through many crazy unpredictable storm changes in my life. As a child I dealt with type 1 diabetes. As a teenager I dealt with blood clots and into adulthood came a stroke, bells palsy and of course breast cancer and lymphedema. I have had times I just wanted to pull my hair out. I never fit the "norm". I didn't get out and do normal things like the other kids did. By the time I was 21 I finally began coming into a sense of who I was outside of my illnesses. For one , I met Johnny. At first he seemed to many as ...