Natasha Metzler 4 Minute Read I still remember the doctor looking at me over the top of her glasses. “What this means,” she explained, “is that it is very probable you will never bear children.” And something inside me just withered up and died right there. I stumbled through weeks, then months, and then years before I finally started breathing…
Guest Author 6 Minute Read Before my son passed away, I spent almost every night hunched over his medical bed, checking to make sure his feeding tube was working correctly, adjusting his body in the darkness, rolling him on his side so he wouldn’t choke on his saliva.
This was my nightly medical drill as the parent of a child with a rare disease. My son was dying and the weight of that reality meant I did everything to keep him alive while praying for a miracle.
But what happens when there is no miracle? No immediate healing? No answer in the long darkness?
Guest Author 8 Minute Read I begin my broken-story narrative on February 10, 2014–the day my son, Titus, had a seizure. What followed was a massive and swift wave that rocked our lives hard between fear, anger, mystery and defeat.
April 7, 2015, Titus was diagnosed with a rare, genetic, and fatal disease. The doctor had no treatment he could prescribe, no cure in sigh. We were going to lose our boy. And worse yet, our youngest son, Ely, was also in danger of having the disease. We were encouraged to get him tested as well.
Callie Mitchell 5 Minute Read Gilia. That’s the name I chose for the little one we lost, the baby who passed from my womb before we had announced her presence. It’s Hebrew, pronounced Ghee-lee-yah, and means Eternal Joy. She was too small to know for sure her gender, but my husband said from the moment I showed him the…
Rachelle Rea Cobb 3 Minute Read This will be our eighth Christmas without him. My grandfather was a man of few words. The adjective “quiet” fit him to a T. Still, he was there for everything. Impromptu dinners, horse-riding competitions, graduations, and especially Christmas. There’s just something about sitting on the couch next to your grandpa while watching “Miracle on 34th…
Guest Author 6 Minute Read by Anonymous Ever since we got married, I dreamed of Christmas with children. I love Christmas. Always have. Partly because my parents always labored to protect us from materialism by focusing less on the presents beneath the tree and more on stuffing the season with traditions like trimming the tree together, making a gingerbread house,…
Guest Author 3 Minute Read “Why would you let this happen?” “Don’t you care about me?” “Why didn’t you save my baby?” In the wake of miscarriage we’re pummeled with questions—questions about the biology of reproduction, about our bodies, about medical procedures which may be required, as well as questions about how to process grief, how to share the news…
Natasha Metzler 4 Minute Read It was somewhere around my third anniversary that reality hit hard enough to make me gasp for breath. I really couldn’t have babies. Not without a miracle. I had so many dreams that involved motherhood and they all crumbled around me. I found myself standing there with dying dreams and agony ripping my heart to…
Rachelle Rea Cobb 5 Minute Read She thought she’d get to keep her. Katie Davis, a missionary in Uganda and founder of Amazima Ministries, has adopted 13 daughters, but once she had 14. At 17 years old, Katie moved from a suburb in Nashville, Tennessee all the way to Uganda to teach kindergarten. Why move halfway across the world when her…
Guest Author 5 Minute Read by Anika Ryan Ortiz The serrated knife in my shaking hand cuts through the heart of the pear while a ringing trumpet blasts downstairs, singing songs of Christmas. Hope. Joy. Peace. Love. I can’t help but feel as if the knife is piercing deep into the recesses of my heart. My hero, Grandpa Ted, should be downstairs…
Marian Nicole 11 Minute Read I’d always viewed myself as a real, Americana, “Rosie the Riveter” kind of gal. Courageous, innovative, perseverant, optimistic, patriotic. Adaptable to whatever life threw my way. Comfortable in a wide variety of roles, adept at switching between them. I hike, I bake, I can eyeball weather better than most meteorologists (thanks to my mom’s upbringing…
Rachelle Rea Cobb 5 Minute Read At noon on a hot July Friday, my husband, Devin, and I both had routine appointments scheduled with our dentist. After my appointment was concluded, I stood up from the dental chair with cleaned teeth and a clean bill of health. The dental assistant led me to the chair where Devin was still mid-appointment. Our…
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