she writes on sundays

  • I’m ready to breathe again.

    I’m ready to breathe again.

    I’ve sat here for an hour and half and deleted words, closed documents, switched over to reading books and now I’m back again.

    The image that keeps coming into my brain tonight are all the people who moved through the night to see the baby Jesus. Now, I know historically, it wasn’t during December, who knows if it was cold; but all I can see is their breath on the air as the moved through the night to get to the manger.

    Their breath moving in front of them, as they walked to meet the baby that would change everything.

    And all I can think of our the words I wrote when my mom passed. That even though we were devastated she was gone, she was finally able to breathe again.

    I think for the last three years I haven’t been breathing.

    I mean I have obviously, been breathing. I’ve been living, moving forward, making choices, trudging through sickness, maneuvering through grief.

    But, I’ve realized, that this holiday season I just want to breathe.

    It sounds so simple, so cliche’. 

    People say they want to have breathing room, have space to breathe. That they just need to take a breath.

    To me breath is more than space and room.

    It’s being alive in a different way than I used to be.

    One of the collection of words I deleted simply stated that I feel like I’ve failed this year. 

    But, really, I think I’ve just been holding my breath in hopes that it would make a difference. That when I came up for air there would be clarity.

    And now, this span of time of holidays, I just want to breathe. I want to take deep breathes to my toes.

    I know these words don’t feel very holiday. They feel stilted and tired.

    These words need to breathe.

    So that’s where I am this Sunday before Christmas.

    That’s where I am in the last days of 2024.

    I’m going to breathe.

    I hope you’ll join me.

    With love,

    Meg 

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  • Again and again part 2

    I’m really done with my word of the year.

    Usually that isn’t the case. I might not like the word, but I see the good things that come from it and I can understand.

    Not this year.

    On Sunday, I was sitting in church and I was like “ok god, let’s be done. Let’s wrap this one up like a bow.”

    And he said “nah, I’m good.”

    Because, again, I have to keep going. 

    And no matter what that’s going to be the case. I’m always going to keep meeting places I’ve been before.

    Again and again.

    I thought this year would have more answers than it has. I thought maybe it would hold something.

    And really, it has held a lot. 

    It’s still held more than I can even comprehend I know.

    Usually, at this point in the year I feel like we’re starting to coast to the finish line. 

    Like I have a grasp and I start to understand what the baton in the relay race is going to look like.

    But, right now, I can’t even see the baton. I don’t know what it looks like, I don’t know if I’m even still moving towards the finish line.

    It kind of feels like I’m playing Mario kart with the Steiners and I’m just choosing to go off course because it’s easier.

     This year has honestly made me feel like I don’t know who I am at all.

    And has made me feel like I know exactly who I am at the same time.

    Because I knew this year, each thing I met, I had met before. I knew that each moment where I felt like I was walking through fire, I had walked through it before.

    I had done it before so I can do it again.

    And because of all of that; I stopped seeing that as a threat. 

    When I think about the labyrinth and how Sarah, the main character, is utilizing the book she has that is the story of the labyrinth to get through she must feel as if she’s been there before. She knew the book so well that it must have felt a bit like she had been there before.

    And there were places in the maze she went to again and again. 

    She was caught in the place of either moving forward and or allowing herself to “rest” in a place that at one point in the journey been safe.

    But the journey moved her forward.

    The journey has kept moving me forward.

    The things I’ve had to unearth even in just the last stretch of time that have been a reminder to me that my worth is not based on what I do.

    That I’m not the glue, even when it feels like if I allow myself to let go control it will all crumble.

    It causes me to sit on a street corner in Brasov, Romania across from Betsy Garmon as she leans in to tell me, remind me, implore me that I don’t have to be the glue.

    It’s almost as if, I’m still making my way toward the Goblin King.

    I haven’t had the chance to tell him he has no power over me.

    I haven’t saved the baby.

    I just dreamed I did.

    So here I am, again.

    Stronger.

    More capable.

    But still moving the fuck forward.

    We have less than 6 weeks left.

    I think I’m ready for this maze to be over.

    Let’s save the baby.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • I’m building a library

    The really interesting thing about most of my formative teen years being spent in a church is that I have this very weird viewpoint of when I look at something through the lens of the late 90s- Early 2000s church.


    When I hear certain phrases and they take me back to a cheesy worship song, or a quote or something that was drilled into my brain again and again.


    One of my best friends and soul sisters, Joanna, and I have been through a master class in letting go this year. It comes at us from every direction, at every angle, amidst newsletters, emails, on instagram, on sundays. The message over and over, again and again: we need to let go.

    Sometimes the letting go is obvious. Letting go of comparison, or frustration, letting go of hurt or expectations. Sometimes the letting go is up in the clouds, things that feel not real but are usually more real than we’d care to admit. But, big or small, the letting go is never easy. Clinched fists and echos of things that feel like facts that make the letting go feel like it doesn’t need to happen.


    The last sunday words I wrote were about un-gripping from hope and letting it do its magic. I’ve been in a bit of a daze about how to go about that.

    Trying to figure out how to allow myself hope and light and joy.
    Trying to figure out how to let hope in.


    Like I said, Joanna and I have had billboards every week about letting go and today she sent me an instagram that contained the words “Let go to let in”. And to circle back to the beginning of these words I was automatically taken back to high school youth group, to people in college, to words in church telling me I just needed to surrender and all the good things would come flooding into my life.


    Also, let’s cut the crap and realize that all those moments, “all the good things” was a man.


    But, I’ve been doing this christian and church thing for almost 25 years and I can very much tell you becoming a Christian and “surrendering” doesn’t make gold fall from the sky.
    Or lumberjack looking men show up behind you at a coffee shop and pick up the things that fell from your purse.


    So, today, when I saw those words all I could think about was this: what do I want to let in?
    Joanna’s four year old daughter, my sweet and sassy niece Leo, wiser than all the people who pray the demons out of places, simply says this: if it’s good, let it come in.


    And those words make me wonder-all those times in high school youth group and through college and small groups and everything in between; did I ever know what I actually wanted to come in.
    We all have our lists. Our things we want and need. Our ideal partners, the best job, a house.
    A Beauty and the beast library with a ladder.
    But what about the abstract?


    What about the words that live up in the clouds. The words that make you stand taller, walk with confidence. Speak with the ability to know you can back it all up.
    How do you let all that in?


    How do you move past a faith that always told you that the good things God brought were tangible and physical, into one that you know, which is a faith where the good things are simple, and not so simple, just you letting go and letting in to become who you were meant to be?


    I think it’s so funny how everything in our life has to be a tangible. The house, the job, the man, the library with a ladder.
    But what about letting in the things that make you realize that the house, the job, the man, the library with a ladder don’t actually matter.


    What about letting in the fact that the minute you decided screw waiting for a wedding gift and you were going to buy your own damn kitchen aide; you had two in a week.
    What about letting in that what you bring to the table isn’t something you hold in your hands.
    It’s just who you are.


    I know that I come across as a confident, know what I’m about, bad ass bitch.
    That’s what I bring to the table.
    But damn, sometimes letting that all in is really hard when it feels like the table is covered in the magazine clippings of all the reasons I am not any of it.


    This past year has honestly been as if someone took the previous years of my life and just handed me the bookmarks of what has been and said: ok let’s try that again.
    Again and again.


    So, tonight, I’m saying outwardly, to the universe, to whatever is listening: I’m choosing to allow the good in. I’m choosing to allow myself to bring hope, light, joy and peace to the table.
    I don’t have to hold it in my hands.
    I just am.


    So I’m gonna let that in.
    I’m not going to feel shame or guilt about not feeling enough because the “tangible things” aren’t coming.
    I’m going to continue to let go to let in.

    (and honestly, I’m gonna build my own damn library)
    With love,
    Meg

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  • For f*ck’s sake; let’s try hope. Again.

    I am not ready for whatever comes at the end of these words.

    As I’ve said; again and again, I write to untangle.

    I start at the beginning with words, or a phrase or a reference to the labyrinth or something Hannah Brencher wrote or something my pastor said in church (or honestly just during the work week) that pissed me off because I had to agree with it with gritted teeth.

    And then I write.

    Currently I feel that if I begin to untangle I might lose it all.

    I feel, as if I am hanging onto my sanity with an absolute death grip.

    That means, for today, it’s Hannah Brencher.

    She does a series of notes for every month and there is always one or two that I latch onto. 

    For lovely words and truth; @ Hannah Brencher

    I know that I know that I know I’m supposed to be letting go.

    I can physically feel how tightly wound I am, how I’m still terrified at giving hope a chance.

    Because if I can’t control it; who will. 

    (I know I’m freaking digging a deep hole with these words for my week but here we are).

    Truthfully, I haven’t been eating really. I haven’t been sleeping. 

    I’ve been in survival mode for longer than I care to admit.

    The bags under my eyes have their own bags and no amount of concealer can help.

    (I also know none of this will be surprising to my best friend).

    October was rough with ghosts and dates and memories of what once was. Then during nap time at work the day before Halloween, a text that friend had suddenly passed surprised and shocked me, shook me up.

    Solidifying to me that nothing good ever happens in octobers.

    I realized this morning standing in the cafe at my church that I am legitimately still terrified to hope that good things will happen.

    (To me.)

    And that controlling the hurt I encounter will make it hurt less.

    I haven’t been feeling very brave lately. Or strong.

    Or capable.

    These words aren’t meant to strike pity or empathy. 

    They are literally just truth for me to begin to untangle whatever all this is from my clenched fists.

    I think (I know) I’ve fallen back onto a pattern in which doing will get me out of being.

    When I had to get taken care for a month last year, it was damn hard for me. Even amidst all that I was going through, I was still writing the menus for work, typing out notes for each and every day I was gone even though it physically made me ill to look at my phone.

    When it feels like I’ve come so far from this place of doing as a personality trait I’ve realized it’s deeper and deeper.

    That month of dizziness and being unable to move was the hardest month I’ve maybe ever had because if I can’t do then what am I.

    So, today, I stare at my clenched fist.

    I don’t know what to do about it.

    I don’t know what I need to un-grip from.

    I just know it’s there.

    All the things amidst the grief, the pain, the things that don’t feel like hope but actually are.

    And I know; none of this feels good.

    The words would make my mom call me. Would cause people to feel like I’m worse off than I am.

    But you know what; I’m still here.

    And I’m choosing these words because right now in this world, this place we need to know that there are other people moving forward with us in the midst.

    I never want to be a person who brings others into her distress, grief or pain.

    I want you to know that amidst all of that you can live, you can have laughter and joy.

    You can support people and make ordering McDonald’s on DoorDash something you do for the plot.

    You can still have joy.

    Amidst all this I may not have hope but you damn well better believe I have joy.

    We have less than 60 days left in this year.

    My word for the year was _______ again.

    There are so many things I’ve had to do this year; again and again.

    And damn it, I think I’m supposed to learn through these last two months of this year to hope again.

    To believe that beautiful, bold, unattainably feeling things can happen for me.

    Love, grace, bright spots of color.

    I don’t know what else I need to un-grip from, but I do know that I’m supposed to un-grip my aggressive hold on hope and let it do its magic.

    Hope, in the dictionary, is also a verb.

    It’s an action.

    So let’s go.

    Let’s fucking hope.

    For the rest of 2024.

    And maybe onward.

    With love,

    Meghan

    (Because why the heck not)

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  • the spaces we move from

    Lately, I’ve felt more aware than I’d care to admit about two things:

    Point 1: I’m single.

    Point 2: I’m childless.
    (I’m not though a childless cat lady; though maybe I vote like one)

    Obviously, this caused me to do my scroll of the last time I talked about single in a collection of words because heaven forbid someone who is single talks about being single.


    Earlier this year I got to do something I absolutely love to do: bake and care for people I love. I made desserts for a marriage retreat our church had. I (with help of my amazing assitant) baked a dessert for each couple. I helped set-up, I helped bartend mocktails, I tried to do everything I could so that the couples, the people I love and support, were able to set some time aside for themselves. I did everything I could to support the couple who came to run the retreat who happen to be humans I adore more than life. Being able to support the relationships of humans I love is always a top priority and I was absolutely glad to do it.


    When I got home that Saturday night after more or less being kicked out of clean up, I sat on the floor and I cried. Just a little.


    I didn’t neccesarily cry because I was sad I wasn’t married. I didn’t cry becuase I was tired. In all fairness those events and doing all of that fill my soul in ways I can’t even articulate.


    I cried because walking into a space empty of a person for you can start to get heavier. All the moments wherein you feel just outside of a space.
    I’m more grateful than I can ever say about the humans I have in my life. I have the best ones known to man. I have ones near and ones far and everywhere in between.
    I have the absolute best people.


    And because of them I go through a shame spiral every time I feel like I need to bring up how singleness is hard.
    I feel like I delve into a part of christian guilt about saying singleness is hard. All I can hear in my head is all the times I’ve been told that God should be enough BLAH BLAH BLAH.
    I’m sorry high school youth group, I am absolutely whole without a man and God and I are doing just fine.
    And don’t even talk about my reaction to my singleness being brave.


    Lately I’ve just felt in almost all spaces of my life that I’m right outside the circle. Like I’m just enough to be included but it’s only on account of others.
    Like I’m allowed to dip my toes but not able to be fully submerged.
    It’s hard to start these conversations or to even speak them out because of every little thing in my head that tells me that they aren’t valid. That I’m whining. That I should be stronger.
    That I should just be grateful I have people.


    But isn’t it wild that we are so conditioned into feeling guilt or shame for a thing we are designed to want?
    I don’t know what you’ve been feeling guilt or shame for wanting these days.
    I don’t know what lies people have told you or spoke over you to make it seem like your desire is less than.
    I don’t know what season of life you’re looking at through the store windows.


    I just know that it is ok to have moments that it’s hard to be looking through a window.
    I know it’s ok to want that thing for yourself. Be it a spouse, a baby, a place of your own, a cat.
    And I know that you shouldn’t be feeling guilty for wanting any of it.


    I might talk about this more now, I might not. I might just tuck it into a box and deal with it later.


    But I guess I’ll just leave you with this:
    These words aren’t for pity. They aren’t for anyone to tell me all the stories of their cousin Brenda’s best friend who is hair dresser who met a man at 40. They aren’t for anyone to tell me let go and Let God.
    They aren’t for you to tell me I’m brave.


    They are a just a reminder that even the most independent, badass woman (and men) have deep breath to the toes moments, have sit on the kitchen floor in silence moments, have ponder the what-if moments and the take another breath, stand up and keep fucking going.
    I don’t know what moment of silence you have to keep fucking going from; but I’m here with you.
    You got this.
    With love,
    Meg

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  • Heal Loudly

    Heal loudly.
    Simply words in a comment on a TikTok on a video of a woman who got left at the altar.


    I had been scrolling the comments because sometimes they are like a mine field and sometimes they provide soil for gardens of hope.
    And then I paused on the words: HEAL LOUDLY.


    They made my heart stop a bit.
    Because there should be no shame in healing so why shouldn’t we heal loudly if that’s what we need to do?


    I personally have a lot more shame than I would care to admit about what feels like my inability to heal quietly. The words that flash through my brain more than I would like to admit are that it isn’t a big deal, I’m too weak, I should just get over it and live with it.
    And so, instead of speaking up when my heart feels like it’s breaking again, or when my face feels numb or when I would just like to be able to cry out of both eyes; I stay quiet.


    I attempt to just heal.
    I attempt to tuck away my grief, my physical and emotional pain.


    This weekend and the next few days are ridiculously hard for me. I would love to just bury myself under blankets and come out when we’re further into October.
    Screw it. Give me november.


    But then I remember; heal loudly.
    The last 3.5 or so years of my life have been filled with land mines and they actually fucking suck.


    And I realize when I give myself the permission to heal loudly, to reach out, to write, to lift some of the debris off my shoulders instead of begrudgingly carrying it around it helps.


    It takes courage to heal loudly. I think of people who go through unspeakable trauma and then use their voices to speak on behalf of those who aren’t able to speak.
    I think of people who chose to live even when the world keeps pushing them down.


    Healing loudly doesn’t look the same for everyone.


    But it does look like not being ashamed of the fact that you’re still healing. That you’re still grieving.
    That you still struggle to get out of bed but you do anyway.
    That’s also healing loudly.


    It’s funny when I think about how we put timelines on things. Yes, we know give or take how long a broken bone will take to heal, or when the stitches need to get out.
    But, why do we pass that certainity over to all parts of healing?


    We need to learn to heal loudly so that we can in fact heal. However that may look for you.
    For me, it’s writing. It’s acknowledging in words the break in my heart from my mom dying and the fact that I don’t go a day without thinking of her. It’s acknowleding in words that I might never be able to feel the left side of my face or smile again.


    It’s acknowleding how it’s hard to get out of bed most mornings.
    But, still getting the fuck out of bed.
    That’s healing loudly.


    My way of healing loudly is to create spaces for others to do so without shame.
    It’s sharing stories and moments and tears and anger. It’s allowing others, every once and awhile, into that 15 percent of my life that I keep behind the curtain so that they know that I in fact am not holding it all together.


    I’m healing loudly because it doesn’t matter that it’s been three years since my world shattered more than I thought possible- I just want you to know that it doesn’t matter how long it’s been for you either.


    I don’t know what you’re healing from. I don’t know how long it’s been or what happened to you.
    I don’t know if you feel shame or if you feel trapped or if you feel guilt.
    But I’m here to remind you- remind us.
    Let’s heal loudly.
    However that looks, however that is.


    Heal. Loudly.
    With love,
    Meg

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  • Fall has receipts

    My friend Amanda told me I need to replace my hatred for October with cozy socks.

    Well, basically.

    I’ve never been a basic fall girl like my best friend Tori whose love for sweaters and spooky season has rubbed off a bit on me in the last nine years of living in Washington. She goes full send into seasons essentially just for herself and that’s something that I absolutely love about her. Her no holds barred ability to show her love of something. Even if that something is just spooky season.

    It feels ironic and also kismet that her best friend hates fall.

    For me; fall brings all the ghosts out that I tried to keep dormant for too long.

    (And not the good ghosts like Devon Sawa as Casper.)

    But in the fall the ghosts return full force and cause me to have panic attacks and try to sneak into my brain to tell me all the ways that this is how it always is.

    It’s actually kind of funny. There are things to myself that I would absolutely never tell a tiny human. I was talking to my director last week about a few things and I said that the phrase I hate saying to tiny humans and to adults is simply “But you know better”. Because while tiny humans absolutely actually don’t, adults should.

    But I still can’t bring myself to say it.

    I also can’t ever bring myself to speaking over someone that “this is all there is”.

    Myself though?

    Fall is that reminder that the lie that says this is all there is might be true.

    Fall tells me that the other shoe will drop. That I’m not strong enough.

    Fall tells me I’m broken.

    Fall has receipts.

    That I’ll keep circling back to these ghosts because fall will inevitably create new ones.

    But I should love fall.

    Honestly.

    I’m a whiskey drinker, cozy couch loving, preschool teacher who loves an excuse for product art and a  writer.

    So what the heck do I do?

    I have to remember that I’m still here despite fall telling me I’m broken and alone.

    Because I still show up in fall.

    Eight days after my mom died I performed on a stage in front of an audience for the first time since high school. I was in a Halloween music review and the next day I got a plane to spend a week in Kingsburg leading up to my mom’s memorial.

    There was no way I wasn’t getting on that stage. 

    I needed fall to be something more than what it was. 

    I needed something to remind me I could survive fall.

    And now, I sit here, with an immensely clenched fist on my emotions, I realized I have survived fall.

    Specifically, I have survived fall every year since 2008 when the words in my brain told me the world around me would be lighter without me.

    I think sometimes when I write I need to remind myself that I’ve survived the things that I didn’t think I could. 

    I need to drag myself out of the hole that feels like I can’t do it. 

    I need to drag myself out of the hole that says this is all there is.

    I need to gather the hope the falls before this has created.

    I need to lean in to fall.

    Because fall has receipts.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • Hope isn’t a firework

    I’ve lived a lot of life with the persistent fear that I’m letting people down. 

    And to be completely and utterly honest I’ve lived the last three years mostly with the gut wrenching fear that I’m letting my mom down with every step I take.

    That I haven’t been strong enough, smart enough. That I’m not able to take care of myself.

    That I’m not making her proud and that she’s be so disappointed in all the ways I’ve failed.

    And I know that all sounds so heavy but if we don’t ever let the heavy things out than all we will do is let them continually weigh us down.

    I feel as if I have a lot of evidence in my life of all the ways I’ve been chosen last, been written off a list, not been enough for the people I wanted to be enough for.

    That I’m literally just right outside the map with no way if knowing how to be apart of the journey again.

    When I was in Ecuador on one of the first days of the world race myself and my team of 6 other women were handed a map of how to get to where we needed to go.

    The issue was the place we were and the place we were going weren’t actually on the map- the map was the middle.

    We just had to choose to go off and get to the middle without actually having the tools.

    And right now, in the moment, I feel like that again. Like I’m looking at a map and I have to get to the end without all the information.

    And I feel like I’ve already failed.

    I know it’s not true.

    I know that I’m not always letting people down.

    I know I’m not a last choice.

    I know that no one actually has a complete map.

    Lately, the heavy has been more heavy than I know what to do with.

    And hope feels like fireworks in the distance that is gone in a flash.

    But, if there is anything I know that is true it’s that we have to choose to face the lies and the words that go against who we are. We have to not be afraid of them.

    We have to stare them in the face.

    So that’s what I’m doing right now.

    Staring the words in the face that become ticker tape on my brain sometimes.

    Staring them in the face because the more I do the more I realize they are untrue.

    Want to join me?

    Want to stare the things in the face that feel so true until you realize they are mirage that flickers off in the distance?

    And let’s replace it all with what is true and full of gritty steadfast hope.

    That’s all.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • Time to stir

    I’m making myself try.
    I’m sitting here, out in the world, deciding that I can be capabale of putting words on a page. I can be capable of finding something to talk about, something in me can untangle and I can keep trying to figure out the wisps of phrases in my brain.
    A few weeks ago at church I kept having the image of kids in a pool spinning the water in circles. Making a whirpool and going as fast as they could to get the water to whip them around so fast. I remember doing that as a kid and it was always so fun. But, as I thought about it that day I was struck with the fact that the water was moving.
    The water moves even in stillness.
    The kids in the image in my head amped up the movement. The spinning of the water moved things around, brought things to the surface and shook things up.
    But, even without the spinning the water moved.
    I have felt, without a doubt, like still water lately.
    I know that I’m still moving. I know that there is movement in the places that feel stuck. I know there is movement in the places where I feel right out of the water.
    It’s just damn hard.
    I’m a little petrified right now of the water getting spun around quickly. Because, I’ve felt like all that’s come up is the grit and the leaves and the lost pool toys long forgotten.
    I’m a little bit scared because it always seems nothing good comes from the stirring.


    I saw a therapist for about 3.5 years. I ebbed with how much I saw him but it was always at least twice a month and for some seasons every week. I was always so anxious heading into a session. It felt like I never knew what was going to come to the surface and I wasn’t ever fully prepared for it.
    Things always stirred to the surface and it felt as if they were never pretty.
    Because the things that settle on the bottom usually aren’t the good things.
    I’m sitting here trying to scan my brain for any example, anything that gives me an example of something bringing good things to the surface when they are stirred.


    I know that you stir things to keep them from burning, you stir them to mix flavors or to combine ingredients.
    Staring at my computer though; I’m unwillingly to step into something that might stir the depths on my inside.


    Have you ever known in your depths that you needed to leap, you needed to step outside of what was and you needed to let go of a little control?
    Like, you just had to trust that there was something to catch you?
    I don’t feel on the precipice of a big life change at least outwardly.
    But I do feel like I have a death grip on the thing that’s trying to create a whirlpool inside of me and I’m just refusing to unclench my fist.


    I believe we are in an interesting span of time. I think we’re just beginning to fully grasp the depths of ourselves and we’re beginning to grasp our abilities to see beyond who the world may sees us as.
    We just have to choose to believe that we’re up to the challenge of figuring out all that we are.
    We have to choose to unclench our fist and let the whirpool bring the good we don’t yet believe it can.


    I’m afraid right now. I’m afraid of the straw that may break the camel’s back, I’m afraid of the other shoe dropping. I’m afraid of the wizard being found behind the curtain.


    But, I’m also afraid if I don’t unclench my fist now I might never find my way back home to myself again.


    So, I’m going to do some things that might cause stirring. I’m going to let people in to places I’ve forced to be still and I’m going to speak words that create movement.


    That’s all. And everything.
    With love,
    Meg

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  • Smothered Flames

    I have no words.

    It’s been a really hard place for me to be in. A place where I feel incapable of communicating or saying what I mean, or feel. I’m a writer who has spent most of her life using words that come out of my brain as a place to land. I’ve discovered more than I can even explain via my own writing. I’ve untangled, I’ve stared at words on the screen that I had no clue where they came from but just knew that they were true and real.

    I’ve found the end of the rope through my words on more occasions than I can even count.

    I’ve found hope in between the lines of my own writing because at the end of the day, when I write it, I know that it’s there. When I write something I know that there is something more in me, something I can grab on too.

    Something that is more real than the things that feel dark.

    But right now, there is none of that.

    It feels like I’m standing in a hole and I have all the pieces to something that will help me out of the hole, but it’s a piece of Ikea furniture and I have no instruction and I don’t have that damn little tool to help me build it.

    The only way out of the hole is to build it.

    But, instead of building it, I’ve just sat there, not trying because right now it’s easier to stay in the hole than get hurt by the fall again.

    Three years ago today I wrote that I was starting to not be afraid of the other shoe dropping.

    And then a month later my mom died.

    Now, I’m sitting here in this bar, writing these words feeling like I’m just throwing a pity party.

    Because I know I’m strong enough to get out of the damn hole.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about how my high school youth pastor used to talk about how it was better to be a Christian whose fire was completely out than a lukewarm Christian. I remember, like most things from high school youth group, feeling so incredibly ashamed of that. I remember thinking that I just had to stay “on fire”. I had to do all the things I needed to do. I had to show up, be everything. I needed to sing on the worship team, and go to every bible study.

    I couldn’t let the fire die because than I would be less than.

    But here I am over 20 years outside of high school youth group and I would like to call bullshit on my youth pastor.

    I would much rather have some dying embers of faith than feel as if a wet towel had smothered all the flames.

    At the beginning of this I said that I haven’t been able to write; that isn’t completely true. I have been writing.

    The words have just all felt completely and utterly devoid of hope.

    Which, I know isn’t true.

    Because choosing to write is choosing to believe in the hope that there is something at the end of the words.

    Choosing to write is choosing to believe I might be able to be a little stronger than I was before I started writing.

    Choosing to write is choosing to believe even though I feel incapable of it; I’m still someone who has the ability to stir hope and light.

    So, that’s it. That’s me right now.

    I guess, that at the end of it all, I’m here with my hands open, being a little more honest than I want.

    I feel absolutely unsettled by all of these words and normally that unsettledness would push me to not post them, to shut my computer, maybe to even delete them, but instead I’m choosing for a moment to lean in to the things that don’t feel settled in hopes that the action might help them settle.

    Let’s do our best to lean in.

     With love,

    Meg

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