Detours
I imagine most of us have fairly straightforward pictures in our heads about what our lives will look like and who we will become. When something happens that is not inside the four corners of that picture, we view it as a detour and hope to get back on track as quickly as possible. So what happens when you take a detour and can't ever get back on that original path again?
Good/Hard Living
Whether it’s the sand of Lake Michigan, the joy of the first snow, a bout of sadness, or another broken down appliance, we’ll hold all the tension, grief, and sorrow of these rough years, and we’ll look for the good. We’ll look back and acknowledge: yes, that was hard, but it was good, too. We see it in the eyes of one another and the fact that the sorrow itself points to a good that was lost.
Eyes to See
I used to believe that on Earth, most of us received an equal distribution of pain; we all had a comparable storm to endure. But after two storms in my first quarter of a century—my dad’s suicide and a seventeen-hour brain surgery—I started to wonder if maybe this wasn’t true. Maybe pain didn’t play fair.
Survival Guide: Melissa Niednagel Wolmarans
While I have experienced a fair amount of loss in my 35 years of life, I am not someone who is a victim of unjust suffering. am the person who has caused it.
Survival Guide: Katherine & Jay Wolf
Hope Heals seeks to re-narrate the story of suffering by sharing the lives and lessons of real people—their honest answers, vulnerable struggles, and surprising transformations through enduring life's greatest storms.
Post-Traumatic Growth
Trauma can be more than a dark pit of despair or a spiral of depression. It has the potential to be our deepest source of empathy, strongest point of connection, and most forceful impetus for growth if we bravely choose to let others into both the brokenness and the mending.