From Riches to Rags, and the Glory I Found There

2023 has really been one heck of a year. Full of all the highs and lows that you can imagine come with the life of a widowed single mom in the midst of adopting her teenage kid. So, without further ado, here is my brief recap of 2023: 1. I still miss John. I don’t say that because I thought I wouldn’t anymore. But, just in case you were wondering, it still sucks that he died…and I still miss him.  2. You can, in fact, heal. You can face inconceivable trauma and you can heal. It's still sad and it still hurts...but healing happens if you put in the effort. (sidetone: I highly recommend EMDR therapy if you struggle with trauma triggers). 3. Adoption takes SO much more time, energy, and funds then it should. Zero regrets and it's worth every single bit of all of that...but still, can't it be more easily accessible? 2024 is gonna be the year we finally make it official...I hope. 4. Dating is half hope and half disappointment. The majority of men don't live up to the image t

     Tomorrow would have have been my 15th wedding anniversary with John, had he not passed away just shy of our 13th anniversary.  It still sometimes boggles my mind that "death do us part" happened so much sooner than we planned. And yet here I am...out in the dating world attempting to find "it" again. It certainly has me feeling some type of way, let me tell ya. And I think the past 1.5ish years I've spent in the dating world has also made lots of other people feel some type of way. "It is what it is" seems a bit of a cliched response...but it really  is  what it is. In the absence of a husband with whom to celebrate a covenant made many many moons ago...I feel like now is a good time to update the world (or my small corner of it) on how dating as a widowed Christian mother in her 30s is going. Here are some things I've learned: -"Christian" is a term used by so many men...yet personified by so very few of them. I am in a somewhat con

  John Died...2 years ago. 2 years...how has so much time passed? It feels like just yesterday I was writing about the 1 year anniversary of his death, congratulating all of us for surviving the brutality of that first year. Regardless, it feels like now is a good time to throw out some life updates, talk about how life as a 2nd year widow is going. It's great...definitely great...well, it's ok...sometimes it's ok...actually sometimes it's awful...it's always awful...no, no, it's usually fairly good...sometimes it's amazing. I guess it really just depends on the day... I no longer reach out in the middle of the night for him. I don't grab my phone to text him about something that just happened. I don't look for him in a crowd. I don't struggle to fall asleep alone. I don't even dream about him anymore... It would seem, that even my subconscious has truly accepted that he's gone. That's good...right? He is no longer a part of any of my

  The Israelites lost a brutal battle at Ebenezer... They had forsaken the God of their people and were embroiled in idol worship. False gods prevailed in their lives and they seemed to forget that God cannot dwell where an idol dwells. They lost a great battle and the Ark of the Covenant was ripped away from them. The very presence of God...lost. It took Israel 20 years to return to the God of her youth. This revival led them into a victorious battle and returned the Ark of the Covenant to them. A glorious reunion, a reawakening. In order to remember the victory at the hands of their great God, the prophet Samuel placed a stone at the very place of their victory and he called the stone Ebenezer (Stone of Help), saying "Thus far God has helped us." Though this story is not my own, I will say that I find myself so often identifying with the struggles and triumphs of the Israelites.  Come, walk with me through my Ebenezer battlefield... I would like to show you what I see of my

  I find myself often reminded by the Holy Spirit that I am not some paragon of living a life of grief well. I wouldn't say that I struggle a lot with the mentality that I am...but I know that I could ...if I just gave myself a little leeway. If I just gave myself a little too much grace...I could see the pharisee in me. The pharisees of the New Testament relied on all the traditions and all the laws and all the order that God set in place to bring about connection prior to the coming of the Messiah. They relied so heavily on "checking the boxes" that they rejected the man who was sent to save them. They puffed up their chests with pride and relied on the letter of the law...completely forgetting the heart of the law. The heart that beat inside the chest of the very man they chose to hate. I want to live a good life. I want to do the right things. I want to follow the perfect order of things that God laid out for us in the Bible. The pharisee in me wants to check off all

 Hey Babe, For the record, I still freaking hate this. I hate that you’re dead. I hate that some stupid ridiculously selfish choice ended your whole life…and changed mine forever.  I didn’t want this. I promised to love you forever, to choose you forever, to honor you forever…and forever freaking ended way too soon. And I still hate it. I wanted forever with you, John, I still want that forever with you.  I understand all the crazy things that widows do now. I understand why they get rid of all the things. I understand why they sell their house and move. I understand why they cut people off. I understand why they hide. I understand why they run away.  Because I’ve wanted to do all of those things, Babe, I have. I’ve wanted to take all the “easy” way outs. I’ve wanted to just hate the world you left me all alone in. I’ve wanted to force my heart to stop feeling all of the things…even the good things. Because having you missing from me was the deepest cut to my soul I’ve ever experienced

I sat with my daughter on the beaches of Virginia and I breathed in the salty air. Writing while I am at the beach is one of my most favorite things to do. There is something about the sand and the waves that brings clarity to my soul.  So, I sat with some hard things this week, while my kid splashed in the waves and our dog tried to eat seaweed any chance he got. I sat and I prayed and I wept and I wrote. She's lost so much in her short life, this wonderful, frustrating, kind, heartbroken kid of mine. She's been left and hurt and broken...and she deserves so much more. And, somehow, I think that I have this false sense of guilt that I need to be that "more". She should have had John as her dad, I should have had John as a partner in this journey. And somewhere along the way I think I bought into the lie that I  had to be both mother and   father...both Katharine and John to her.  And I have failed, guys. I've failed often. Because, as amazing and wonderful as w

  "I don't want to do this." I give myself permission to whisper those words into the painful world I find myself living in sometimes. I look at the hard things I have to tackle all by myself and I allow myself the moment to grieve. I didn't want this hard life...I didn't want these hard things...I didn't... But sometimes we simply have to. Life throws everything at us and even if we don't want to, we have to. So, I allow myself the moment to accept that this was never how life was supposed to be, a moment to accept that this is hard and this hurts. And then I do it...whatever the hard thing is...I do it. Because, usually, I don't have a choice. I have had a lot of people ask me why I push myself? Why not ask for help? There are so many people who would willingly step in to help a widow. "The Bible calls us to help the widows and the orphans" they remind me... There was once a time when I was incredibly cared for. There was once a man who h

Hey Kid... I was reading though the pages of our Mother/Daughter journal and I saw that you'd written something new...and my whole heart just felt like it could burst. I hurt for you and I hope for you all at once.  One day you're going to look back on these early years and you will finally understand everything that went on behind closed doors in order to bring about our "everlasting family". All those questions I dodged or only half-answered. All the time I spent on budgeting and paperwork. All the moments I felt overwhelmed and confused about all the work and legality it takes to make a stranger your child.  Babe, believe me when I say that I only wanted you to carry what I thought your 13 year old heart could bear. I didn't want to lay my heaviness and my hurts on you. I shared them with you when I could, when they wouldn't burden you. I wanted you to be included in these important steps but I still wanted that childlike freedom to fill your soul. The free

Do you know how hard it can be to live the life my late husband and I cultivated specifically for a future together? All the plans, all the dreams, and all the hopes... He left me behind with all these broken things that he was fully capable of fixing…things I have no idea what to do with. The old water pump he planned on replacing.   The Land Rover he laughed about even as it broke every month and he spent far more hours than he planned tuning it up.   The broken doorknobs that keep adding up.  The ridiculous internet that has only gotten worse the more we try to fix it   The dishwasher that decided to start dying this weekend   …me. I had to figure out how to survive without him. How to fix or replace all the broken things he enjoyed so much. He loved things because they were broken. He loved that they had a history…a story. He wanted to be a part of that legacy. To give something a new life, a new hope.  And then he died…leaving me with all the broken things he hadn’t fixed yet. I s