DEEP WATERS

I don't fully understand what happens inside. I can't explain the shift. But it seems that when we experience loss, our eyes are opened to others around us that have lost as well. We feel just a little deeper for those experiencing pain. We are more empathetic, more sensitive, more aware somehow. Living through loss can be devastating. I've share a lot about the loss I experienced in 2015, when my Mom and Dad became very ill and passed away three weeks apart from one another. Since then, I've had days when my grief followed me around like a storm cloud, threatening to send a lightening bolt right through the heart of me. Days that storms brought thunder that shook the ground beneath my feet, threatening to upend me. Days that I've moved through the day as if on auto-pilot. I've also had days, and now weeks, when I can feel God's healing balm within me. Days that I believe I'm stronger and wiser and better than before. Days that I know I...

If you're like me, you've been watching the 24-hour news stories about yesterday's terrorist attack on Paris, France.  If you're like me, you were mortified over the news. If you're like me, you're asking lots of questions... How can people have such hatred for perfect strangers? Why do such horrible things happen to good people? How do we make sense of the senseless? I honestly don't have answers to these real life questions. And yet, today I purposefully opened my heart to God's voice while praying over this tragedy.  This is what I heard God say in my spirit... Carla, you've spent most of your Christian life pursuing comfort and safety. But I haven't called you, or any of my children, to a life of safety.  Instead of a life of safety, I've called you to a life of meaning and purpose. Hearing these words from the Lord made me think about  The Barbarian Way,  a book written by one of my favorite pr...

Yesterday the doors of the National September 11 Memorial Museum opened for the first time, welcoming President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, along with families of 9/11 victims. This memorial, a 110,000 square foot exhibition built entirely underground, that runs through the 16 acre site known as "Ground Zero", holds within its walls memories of those who lost their lives that day.   On Wednesday, I watched an NBC Nightly News report featuring the museum and its director, Alice M. Greenwald. As my eyes took in the artifacts that tell the story of the tragedy of September 11 , 2001 , I was pulled into the horror once again. A hand rake used by workers to search for human remains Fragments of the aircrafts destroyed during the attack A pair of shoes that a survivor kicked off so she could escape the World Trade Center  A teddy bear collected from Ground Zero after a prayer vigil I wiped a tear as I remembered. I felt like 9/11 had happened yesterday....

Some people eat good chocolate when they're stressed. Some run on the treadmill. Some take a long, warm bath. Me? I blog. As I sit here watching CNN coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing , wiping tears, and wondering how someone could do something some cruel, so hateful, I wonder what crisis we will watch next. And I wonder what kind of world our children will inherit . A world where fearful third-grade teachers come to school packing. A world where little children suffer post traumatic stress disorder after witnessing their classmates and teachers shot in school. A world where we worry more about mass shootings and bombings than we do possible car accidents or home invasions. Our world is broken . Our world is darkening . Our world needs hope . Today, as the world changes before my very eyes, I'm finding hope in a Savior that never changes. The Bible has this to say about Him: Jesus Christ is the same today and yesterday and forever. * I've d...