Ask me about my children. Yes, even the one that died.

It's awkward. Trust me, I know. I realize you're uncomfortable. I realize you don't know what to say. I get it. I was there once myself. I, too, used to shake my head and whisper, "I can't imagine" as news of the unthinkable reached my ears, news of a child who had died. But now...

The Death Cry

Christian singer Toby Mac dropped a new song on Thursday. It is eerily comforting and all at once heartwrenching and sad. It is a song born of grief after the sudden loss of his 21 year old son Truett, the oldest of their five children, just two months ago, November 2019. I have had it...

My decade in review

God was faithful. God remains faithful. As we step into 2020 today, January 1st, the reality of the mundane tasks of life in a new year, like letting the dogs out to go potty, struck me. Just mere hours earlier, millions of inhabitants of planet earth looked with joyful anticipation, expectation, and hope toward a...

Christmas 2019

I posted a few thoughts on Christmas to my Grieving With Hope Facebook page. With joy and grief, Angie

Children Aren’t the Only Ones Who Cry Themselves to Sleep at Night

Why is it we who grieve seem to believe that crying oneself to sleep at night as an adult is strange or somehow abnormal? Why is it we think there's something wrong with us if we sob ourselves to sleep as grown-ups? I never pictured myself crying myself to sleep as an adult. I never...

Holding onto hope and light through tears

I’ve now lived the equivalent of half his lifetime without him. I no longer remember the intimate details of his life; the memory of his scent, his voice, his walk have faded over the eight years that have passed. Sometimes I even wonder, “Did he really exist?” because it’s been so long since I’ve seen...

75 things my mother left behind

As promised in my last post, I am following up with a list of 75 things I'm thankful for in memory of my mother who would have celebrated her 75th birthday on Thanksgiving this year. Many of these are things she left behind, things for which I am forever grateful. In no particular order, I...

Thanksgiving, a birthday, and grief

Dear Mom, I remember how the six of us kids came up with a list of 70 things and/or memories we loved about you for your 70th birthday five years ago. You were beyond ecstatic over it. It was, of course, my idea. LOL! (Yep, sibling rivalry still exists as adults!) We printed off the...

When you don’t feel thankful because grief is all you feel

I received a message from a friend the other morning that simply said, "Praying for you." I began to cry. I hadn't gotten out of bed yet, but already upon opening my eyes, grief rushed in like a tidal wave. Every day closer to Thanksgiving and my mother's birthday more dreaded than the last. Thoughts...