Kara’s Collection: The Power of Community

Kara’s Collection: The Power of Community

from an article originally posted July 11, 2014...

This week has been full, unbelievably full of emotion. So much so that I can hardly handle it all. Today Jason has noticed a quiet in me, and I knew I simply need to come to this place of words and process it all. After months—I mean months—of waiting and prayer, my dear friend Shellie returned from the DRC with her beloved husband and son. Home at last! I can hardly believe they are home at last. The homecoming was unbelievable—tears, joy, laughter. I came home snuggled in bed and looked over and over at the picture of the amazing moment mama and baby boy walked around the corner. I simply stood and cried seeing her beautiful face walk around the corner. It was the moment where you realize God is able, able to do more than we can think or imagine. The moment where you see God’s hand making a way where there seemed to be no way.

What Grieving People Wish You Knew About What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts)

What Grieving People Wish You Knew About What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts)

Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of my parents’ deaths. As that date approaches (looms?), several things stand out to me about those days of intense grief, specifically how others responded to the news. I was 20 and a junior in college; college is a tough time to lose your parents for many reasons, but one is that your peers, although technically adults, don’t have much life experience and really don’t know how to respond. They say and do, well, clumsy things… One of the most clumsy things said to me was a gal who told me she understood how I felt losing my mother and father because her boyfriend had just broken up with her. I imagine she later thought about that and felt really lame, but plenty of adults said things that were hurtful, too, like, I guess God needed another angel (for the record, when you die, you don’t become an angel—there is no place in the Bible that says that) or They’re in a better place. I couldn’t imagine a better place for a mother to be than with her five children, especially as I comforted my 12- and 14-year-old siblings.

Kara’s Collection: Summer, Oh Summer

Kara’s Collection: Summer, Oh Summer

from an article originally posted July 8, 2014...

Oh dear, dear summer—you have been so good to us. Moments full of depths of woes and heights of joy. We have embraced all that has been given and attempted to live fully in each moment. The comfortable space beside the loves in our life. We have tasted the goodness of God and also been reminded how temporary this place is. We take each moment in gratitude.

Faithful in the Big

Faithful in the Big

I feel as if the last decade of my life has been filled with constant change. We have moved numerous times (including internationally three times), had babies, graduated, changed jobs, gone back to school, on and on the list goes. Every year has a new change. The challenges aren’t as much in the change themselves, although that’s not easy, but the challenge lies in staying faithful and steady. How do I stay faithful in this season of constant change? The temptation to slack off seems bigger when there is so much going on.

Kara’s Collection: Cracks in the Veneer

Kara’s Collection: Cracks in the Veneer

from an article originally posted July 7, 2014...

I live fairly openly broken, but I have the gift of hiding even in the midst of my sharing so openly here. I do not, in fact, have it all figured out, together, or tidy in any way, shape, or form. I work to keep my brokenness at a certain distance so I can function through the day, but I am learning, learning how to live beautifully broken and function at the same time.