Mundane, Sacred Invitations

I haven't finished telling you my PPD story, but I'm going to share this mental health tool anyway. This isn't the first tool I wanted to write about, this isn't how I'd outlined and planned it out, but God seems to be inviting me to share it now, so here it is.


I struggle with figuring out what realistic expectations are for myself, and goals that will push me without being delusional, goals that are relevant and appropriate to my life stage and responsibilities.

But I enjoy goal setting, and systems, and tracking things. I love playing around with it all, even though I'm not great at buckling down and actually getting stuff done.

Idealism is... sorta my middle name. To me, there are whole layers of realism. I can work real hard and cut things and make my schedule realistic... and then I realize it still isn't, I need to peel yet another layer off that onion.

So it was revolutionary to me when I was talking with a sister about this and she told me she's stopped asking what other people would consider a realistic expectation, to ask what God expects of her.

It Gets Better

Grief, hope, healing.

It's the new tagline for my blog, the tagline I've been meaning to change to for a while now. But there are so many things I want to change that I put it all off.

At any rate, whether you're grieving or you're just sad and you don't know why, or even if you have postpartum depression but with other symptoms and you don't feel particularly sad (it's a thing) -- I want to give you tools for your mental health, I want to offer hope and come alongside you as you begin to heal.

I want to let you know that I've been there, and it gets better. No, I haven't been exactly where you've been; every body, every situation, every relationship and grief, is individual, unique. I certainly may not have had it as bad as you either, but I want to offer you what I have. Some tools I use may not work for you, but I hope some of it will be helpful. I want to offer you the life-giving, the lifelines that have been given to me.

"Pick what you like, then see how it grows."

Parenting three littles while depressed is probably the hardest thing I've ever done. A little after I was coming out of it a stomach bug went around our family, and I can tell you that a normal day while depressed is harder than a day cleaning up vomit and diarrhea without depression. Definitely, no doubt in my mind. #StillEasierThanPPD

But it does get better, it can, with some mysterious and magical mix of time, hard work, and grace upon grace upon grace.


Let me tell you my story, in hopes that my having been there will be encouraging to you. (The beginning of my story anyway, so I don't put off posting it for forever. Let's ban perfectionism!)

Begin Again Part 2

Begin Again: The Brave Practice of Releasing Hurt and Receiving Rest by Leeana Tankersley
Read: 4/7/18-4/24/18

Last week I started to tell how I found this book, and about my grief with my mother in the late stages of dementia.

I left off with listening to The Next Right Thing podcast, the episode Be a Beginner.

I'd just been told, by multiple people, that I didn't know how to do this, how to proceed, because I'd never done it before.

So this week, if you're in your own grief, anxiety, or transition, I invite you in with these words from the transcript:

"If you are newly engaged or newly pregnant or if you are a new step-parent or just moved into a new house, you are grateful for the new role that you have and maybe excited about the future. But there’s a lot you don’t yet know and there isn’t a handbook to teach you.

Begin Again Part 1

Begin Again: The Brave Practice of Releasing Hurt and Receiving Rest by Leeana Tankersley
Read: 4/7/18-4/24/18

This book is based on/inspired by the line in the Rule of St. Benedict, "Always we begin again." I absolutely loved it and would recommend it to everyone, but especially anyone who's in transition now, and especially especially anyone who's grieving anything.

Why? It's not a book on grief, right? I mean, "Hurt" is in the title, but "Releasing Hurt?" What if you just lost someone and the thing you're beginning is grief, and you're not ready to be done with that process yet?

This isn't a book that only applies to happy beginnings. Beginnings also involve endings, even the "my world is falling apart" sort.

I could give you a beautiful quote from the introduction to prove it, but first, let me tell you a story.

Here's how I found Begin Again. What I've written so far, anyway, and we'll finish the story and review next week. (Hopefully, that's the plan.)


My mom isn't doing very well. Nothing especially new there, but she's at a stage of not doing well that seems to be closer to the end, and I've been surprised at how hard it's been hitting me.

Things I Learned This Spring

Cooper Mountain Nature Park

Linking up with Emily Freeman to share what I've learned this spring.

I'm learning, apparently, to ban perfectionism by keeping things short. (I mean, less than 2000 words is short, right?!) This is the furthest thing from an exhaustive list of what I've learned recently. I could probably write every day for a month on what I've been learning! And I'll tell myself that I will write that series, so I don't feel as bad about leaving things out. It's a useful and pretty lie, it is.

Here are two. Two things I've learned. Well, two categories. Two category iceberg tips.

1. The Enneagram. Mostly when I'd heard about the Enneagram, up until this spring, I'd kind of been like, meh, I like the personality systems I already have, thanks. Don't need another one. I'd heard that Myers-Briggs highlights strengths whereas the Enneagram focuses on motivations, but when you include cognitive steps in your Myers-Briggs you can start to get a bit deeper than just behavior and preferences, too. So meh.

Moments (and a few links!) of Joy

Chatting at the Sky: "The Spiritual Discipline of Wearing Better Pants"

"One of the casualties of my good girl detox was shedding my misconceptions about the spiritual disciplines. I needed to give myself permission not to practice them for a while because I couldn’t figure out how to do them without thinking I was earning something. 

"The past several years have been a re-entry of sorts into the world of the spiritual disciplines. It’s different now – kinder, gentler, tender, and more free. My definitions have changed as has (I hope) my demeanor."

Beauty in Winter

2014 was a big year for learning things. Sad and tragic things, fun things, productive things, beautiful things, all kinds of things! As Gracie sometimes says, "Ah the wings!"

(All the things.)

I would love it if I'd already written blog posts for many of these, which I could just link to with a little summary, but 2014 has also been a hard year, and the words and stories are slow to come. They're coming, now, but I can't push them all out before this linkup. (Speaking of things learned.) So I'll write what I can and maybe add some links later, to future posts.

(Because what an epic long blog post with lots of links really really needs is even MOAR links, to other huge long blog posts. Yup.)

1. Reminders of grace are all around.