When the calendar turns over to a new year, do you choose a word to characterize your coming goals or resolutions? After a devastating and tumultuous year, my word seems simple yet challenging: hope. I’m hopeful for better days in 2021. Hopeful for abundant life. Hopeful that we can move in the direction of our […]
I sat motionless, listening to one of my father’s lifelong friends describe him as a corner post in the fence line of life. Tears gathered in my eyes (a bittersweet combo of mourning, gratitude, and joy), as I heard the essence of my dad summed up in this gracious and accurate metaphor. Words like stability, […]
During this season of The Bearing Life® Podcast we continue taking a look at what we carry into 2021. In this week’s episode, I had a revealing conversation about how stress can manifest within the body and the resulting frustration and pain. After years of debilitating pain, Candice desperately sought resolution and effective treatment. She […]
Getting out into nature helps me address stress in life. Something about the majesty of God’s creation causes me to pause, take stock of anxieties and worries, put things in perspective, and just take a deep breath. Often, I can exhale and just feel the tension breathe out of my body. Mountains, ocean, babbling brooks, […]
Grief can creep up on us and any unexpected trauma can trigger deep feelings within. When we watch our friends face this experience, we struggle to know what help we can provide and how best to support them. In my conversation with Ann Golding on The Bearing Life® Podcast, we share how you can assist […]
Have you ever encountered a boulder on a hiking trail? The loom-large-block-your-path kind where you had to determine another way around? You can’t see over it, under it, around it. The boulder overwhelms our view of what’s ahead on our life path. Great grief often looks (and feels) like this. In the podcast episode last […]
The image of carrying luggage—heavy luggage—sticks out most to me as an appropriate metaphor for the transition from 2020 to 2021. We’ve all talked about and heard how 2020 felt wearying and overwhelming. We will most likely look back and see it as a significant year in our stories. How can we remove some of […]
I recently came across a picture of myself leaning against a brick column in a foreign train station–not in a looking-cool-hip-cosmopolitan-trendy-traveler-nonchalant kind of lean, but in a desperately-seeking-support-for-this-waaaaaaay-too-heavy-bag-hanging-on-my-back kind of lean. My large canvas suitcase with backpack straps hung on my back in between me and the lovely column. I can remember this moment when […]