Ever Singing For Joy

I haven’t written and published anything since the days following Ash’s funeral. (The weight even writing the latter half of that sentence still brings a flurry of emotions) The absence of writing out my thoughts is not for lack of content to document and record; it’s out of motivation.   I’ve said, often, to those who have asked ‘How I’m doing?’ that I’m putting one foot in front of another and letting the muscles move, but that one of the biggest struggles I’m finding in general is motivation to do anything outside of the bare necessity.   There is a bit of a vicious cycle involved with the lack of motivation and being productive in particular areas of life that require motivation. The lack of motivation produces anxiety about not getting things done and then not getting things done leads to this ‘sense of defeat’.   This was REALLY bad for the first couple of months following Ash’s death.   REALLY bad.   It does seem that these past few weeks have been a bit ...

The changing of the seasons is always a welcomed experience in Alabama.  To go from the exhaustive heat of Summer to the crisp (albeit brief) chill of the Autumn air to landing the plane in the cantankerous, somewhat unpredictable Winter... the narrative of the changing seasons parallels life so well.  As a family, we've enjoyed some really great, memory filled moments over the past 6 months; we've also had some really tough, also unforgettable moments during that time as well.  The main takeaway is that much like the seasons, changes in life are inevitable and with each of life's seasons there are ups and downs and, yet, everything keeps moving forward. Undoubtedly, it seems that some of my recent, relatively vague facebook posts have generated a little bit of curiosity so let's shoot back to a little over a month ago (right before Christmas) and recap what's been going on. This stands to be a fairly long post catching everyone up so if you really don't want to...

There are moments in history that change the course of life.  A year ago today was one of those moments. Realizing that we haven't updated the blog in a while, we thought that this would be a perfect time to jump back into the fray. No doubt that I'll have a pretty lengthy write up soon to recap some of my thoughts, lessons learned, current struggles, recent victories, etc. but I thought it appropriate to ask Ash to give me a write up to commemorate the day (especially given that this time last year, the last thing I ever thought she'd be doing was writing a blog post).  Below is her letter.  Thanks for reading it. I hope you'll take a minute to reflect on  your  past year and that you'll see how God has worked in and through you and those around you to bring you where you are today. To recap on last year's surgery day post: Go Here (Unexpectedly Expected) Struggles and trials are often presented to us as things we need to avoid or minimize as ...