Dearest Neighbor, Thank you for your courage to heal your heartaches big and small and for sharing, for in reaching out, you are also giving strength and hope to others. “How do I move forward when the same bad stuff keeps happening over and over again?” Millions of us can relate to your question and in countless ways. I joked … Read More
Ask Annah: How Do I Move Forward When the Past Keeps Repeating Itself? Part II: Overcoming Fear of Failure
Dearest Neighbor, I hear you. I feel your fear. I think it is fairly safe to say that all of us have experienced times where we keep making the same mistakes over and over. Maybe you keep choosing relationships with people who tear you down rather than lift you up. Maybe you burn dinner more nights than not because you … Read More
Ask Annah: How Do You Know if You’ve Officially Let Go?
Dear Journeyer, “How do you know if you’ve officially let go?” asks one of our neighbors. What a beautiful question. There really is no one right or wrong answer. The simplest answer is that you just know. You feel a sense of peace or resolution from your belly to your bones. Sometimes the heavens open, the angels sing, the doves … Read More
Healing and the Two Sides of Fear
Well, Journeyer, it’s been one heck of a couple of days! Two days ago a cyber monster ate my five-hundred and some new and saved e-mails. Gone! Totally, absolutely, one-hundred percent gone… Though most of them were correspondences I’d saved for further research, there were a few critical ones I’d hoped to refer back to. If you are waiting for … Read More
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Fear, Glennon Melton’s Sacred Scared, and Choosing Healing
“I’ve been absolutely terrified every second of my life-and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” ~ Georgia O’Keeffe Journeyer, I came across this quote while reading Glennon Melton’s post Sacred Scared. Wow, just wow… Glennon has this beautiful and forceful, yet gentle at the same time, way of reminding us all … Read More
A Bouquet of Fear
Back in July, BlogHer Family editor, Jenna Hatfield posed this question, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” I’ve been working on Fear: Is It Friend or Foe for more than a week now, but it’s just not ready, Friends. I feel this Fear piece needs as much of my undivided attention as this courage composition had, but right … Read More
Back to School
Friends, Tuesday marked the end of my long summer vacation and my first day back to work. I was writing diligently on yesterday’s post, Fear: Friend or Foe, but I have to say, I just plum ran out of steam. That five-thirty alarm came too doggone early after spending the past few months going to bed at one or two… … Read More
The Scent of Rape, A Digging for the Light Excerpt
I recently wrote (Not) God’s Plan, God’s Will, or Divine Intervention in response to Richard Mourdock’s statement that pregnancy from rape was part of God’s plan. I talk about the rape in Digging for the Light. Below is an excerpt from that work, which is looking for an agent and a publishing home… Pass it along. J * * * … Read More
On Failure, Fat, and Hope
I recently saw a commercial for the upcoming Biggest Loser series. A quick blip of a girl with a weightlifting bar overheard flashed on the screen and I heard her say, “I used to be an Olympic Weightlifter.” I used to be a swimmer and a diver and an equestrian, I thought. And, as a teenager, some seventy-five pounds lighter … Read More