“Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” – St. Padre Pio Raise your hand if you’ve felt hopeless at some point in your life. I can’t see you as you’re reading this blogpost (thank goodness, right?!) but I’m going to dare to guess you probably raised your hand. Hopelessness is something that can feel painfully lonely but is not unique to any of us. Even lives full of great joy can be riddled by hopelessness. For some, hopelessness and despair are frequent and expected visitors. For others, hopelessness drops by unexpectedly like the occasional October blizzard. No matter on which end of the spectrum you find yourself, I want you to know…
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In a little white house with a red door and blue shutters a little girl snuggles in her bed and, by the light of a pink lamp, finds patterns in the popcorn ceiling above her bunk. Anxieties about school, tornadoes, friends, and the possibility that Cruella de Vil could be real bounces around her head until her eyes grow heavy. And she worries herself to sleep. 20 years later, in another white house on the other side of town, a woman tosses anxiously in her bed. Anxieties about pandemics, politics, futures, past mistakes and the unknown bounce around her head – a pinball game of worry. Just as the ocean…
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“Well, have you prayed about it?” my mother asks as she gently rubs her thumb over my eyebrow. My long blonde hair rests in little nests on the pillows on my parents’ bed as I lay on my back staring intently at the ceiling. With the utterance of her question, I feel my teenage eyes start to roll and I can hear my frustration sizzle against the cool blue sheets. “Why do you always say that?” I snap. “That doesn’t help me at all. I don’t know what to do and now you’re just telling me to pray!?” I can feel the words sting my lips as they leave my…
