The Portal: Portal-ity Thoughts

You left us at 24, and today you'd be 32.  It's hard to wrap my head around that.  I guess you'll always be 24 - but down here, I'm watching your friends get older.  Get married.  Have children.  Get divorced, a nd in some cases, keep struggling.   I have some peace knowing your struggle is over.  If you were still fighting the same demons I don't know where that would have left either one of us or the family.  It was the hardest thing I've dealt with, other than your death, and I feel like we have dealt with a lot.  But, to watch your child be controlled by a substance, one that changes who they are, takes over their life, their thoughts, their minute-by-minute - it's the most helpless feeling I've ever had.  I couldn't fix it.  So, in one very small way, it helps . . .helps to know you are safe, in Heaven, with Jesus, and we will see you again.   Thank you for making that decision and for keeping your faith, even though you w...

I lift up my eyes to the mountains where  does my help come from?   My help comes from the  Lord ,  the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121 Yesterday, I wrote an article and submitted it to an online magazine.  In it, I made no reference to my faith – just grief.  I usually always end my writings with a positive faith-filled message.  But I didn’t.  Why?  Because someone commented on a piece I wrote, saying that it was "great up until the religious part."  Friends, without the religious part, the faith part, the actual reason for our hope part – it’s just words, in my opinion. So I wrote a sad piece on grief and what to expect, without sharing my hope. I'm about to correct that now. Because my hope, my faith, my Jesus? They are everything to me. I don’t understand a world where things just accidentally fell into place. Where there is no Creator, no author, no God of the Universe. ...

Mother's Day.  The day all of us moms look forward to with anticipation. Or at least used to. The day our kids call to say "Hey, thanks, Mom! Thanks for bringing me into the world, for loving me, taking care of me, for being that unconditional support system that every child needs." There is something special about your mom. Dads are awesome too, of course, but let's face it.  Your mom is your mom. My husband watches a lot of war documentaries and one thing they say over and over again is how common it would be to hear the men, in their pain or at the end of their lives, calling out for their mothers.  My mom was the bomb. She was hilarious and kind.  She didn't offer a bunch of unnecessary advice.  She never made us feel like we weren't enough or that we didn't measure up.  She just loved us for who we were and she enjoyed us. She raised us up and let us fly.  She always took our phone calls, and she listened.  She listened for as long a...