What happens when secrets are shared

I was walking with a close friend last fall, and the conversation steered from present struggles into the past. He began to recount a difficult event from his early childhood, and the next thing I knew he was choking back tears. I was at first surprised by his honesty and then honored that he would […]

The Joy Of Death: A Final Look

This weekend I spoke the benediction at the funeral of a dear friend. Two days later I ate lunch with another friend who recently lost his spouse to cancer. Both experiences still taste of death, the stripping finality, the grinding loss, the unappeasable loneliness. How could anyone associate death with joy? Isn’t this something approaching […]

The joy of death

I watched my mother die of terminal cancer a number of years ago. It was ugly and heart-wrenching. I know of others right now who are facing death’s door, and it’s grievous to consider. How could anything good come out of death, much less joy? When I was in college, I read a book called The […]

Parenting out of fear…or hope?

The question loomed up again this weekend. This time it happened at my daughter’s graduation from Lee University. Rachel’s experience at Lee has just been stellar. She has loved her professors and made deep connections with her peers. Both ceremonies (one a commissioning and the other a graduation) were very emotional moments for Heidi and […]