BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN

CHRISTIAN WIDOW'S GUIDE PART 1 When I first became a widow, I kind of thought that I had an insider's guide to being one. After all, both my dad and one of my brothers lost their first spouses. They had given me a run down of things that I might experience; the first time you think you catch a glimpse of your deceased spouse in a crowd, when you think you hear his voice, when you dream about them. Don't get me wrong, all their advice was welcomed and appreciated. But I learned, like we all do, that grief and widowhood looks different to everyone. There is somewhat of a widow's survival guide in the Bible. If you don't know the Bible, there's an entire book dedicated to a couple of widows. Their names are Naomi and Ruth. In the book of Ruth, it tells their story. Naomi and her husband had to move from Israel to a foreign country because of the draught that was going on in Israel at the time. Naomi and her husband had two son who married two girls from this cou...

WHAT MY NEUROTIC DOG TAUGHT ME ABOUT LOVE Leading up to Easter this week has me thinking about all that God has done for me, His goodness, His faithfulness, but especially His love.  The fact that Jesus, knowing all my sins and failures, went and died on the cross for my sins and then "throat punched death", as my pastor always says, is so amazing and humbling. You can't find that unconditional love in any other relationship. This is not a great comparison to what Christ did for us at Calvary, but it's love none the less. I have two dogs. One is old and cranky, the other, Sebastian, is neurotic (he could really use some doggy counseling). Greg and I couldn't decide what to get our oldest son for Christmas that year so Greg came up with the great idea of a puppy. We already had two dogs, but Greg loved them and sold me on the fact that we could get Jake a Schnauzer, which is the type of dog I grew up with. Greg scoured the internet and found a local dealer. We m...

THE PRODIGAL SON Most of us know the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. There is a rich man with two sons. The younger son decided he'd had enough living by dad's rules and asked for his inheritance and promptly took off with it to make his fame and fortune. He ended up squandering it and living in horrible conditions only to realize he had it so much better at home. He didn't pretend to think he could waltz right back in and take his place as the rich heir, but thought about the fact that his fathers servants lived much better than what his current circumstances were offering him. So tail tucked between his legs, he went back home to beg his dad to just be a servant for the house. But his father, when he got close enough to see him off in the distances, rushed to make a great celebration for him. His father understood that his son had lost his way, but had finally found his way back home. Some of us have been this prodigal child, and some of us have this prodigal chi...

THE SCULPTURE OF GRIEF I was scrolling through some grief posts on Instagram when I first saw the sculpture, Mélancolie by artist, Albert György. I was instantly moved by it and sat there and studied it for a while. It's a statue of a solitary man sitting on a bench with his head bowed and shoulders slumped. Just in the way he is sitting, you know this man is in pain, feeling defeated. He has no face that I can see (the sculpture is Geneva) but that's not what draws me to the art. The thing that spoke to me was the fact that this sad, defeated man has no core. From the shoulders to the waist, its just a giant, gapping hole through which you can see the beautiful landscape behind him. I know this man. This man is me. Just looking at the image of the sculpture, I knew the artist had to have dealt with loss in his life and after learning about him, discovered he had lost his first wife. As I read comment after comment on places that had posted his sculpture, I realized I wasn...