“Leadership is designed to kill you.”

A successful CEO made the statement with confidence, not allowing the podcaster any chance to question her experience.

Driving alone in my old navy blue Volkswagen Jetta, I felt like fist-bumping that imaginary CEO sitting in the passenger seat beside me. Finally, someone said it! Almost everyone wants the status of being a leader–not realizing that for every success there’s a nasty scar.

She allowed me to plunge myself into unsaid self-pity. Leadership had killed me for years and no one seemed to notice.

But then that female CEO refused to meet my fist-bump with her own calloused knuckles. She flipped the script: “Leadership will kill you because great leaders need to build good character in place of ambition. And that is a long, slow and crucifying process.”

My brakes screeched. I stopped right in the middle of a busy street in Saint Paul, opened my passenger side door, and demanded that CEO (and her podcast full of sound waves) to “GET OUT!”

I didn’t care if she had to hitch a ride to the nearest gas station and bother that driver with her high-pitched voice and opinions.

Who was I kidding? The CEO remained in her podcast world. I forced myself to keep listening.

“If you’re going to lead thinking you are taking everything with you–every view of yourself, every bit of ego, every ounce of power, you are solely mistaken.

“The higher you go in this world, you must get lower.

“A walk towards truly good leadership is not about a walk towards fame and promotion. Toxic leadership arises from the internal resistance to humility; the internal resistance to accountability. We must learn to go low and bring good to the people we serve.”

There is a repetitive lesson in my life. It all boils down to a concept I both hate and love; that I daily either contend with or ignore: surrender.

Surrender–that loathsome word that you think is going to kill you but makes you free instead.

Leadership is not about defending your name when a colleague blames you for all that’s flawed.

It’s not about keeping yourself safe through personal success or colorful line graphs that show everyone in the board room that you’re winning.

It’s not even about proving anyone wrong–that old teacher with hateful words who should have retired earlier; that messed-up parent who claimed you as second class.

At the core of a true leader is a surrender for the good of others. {Not to be confused with abusing yourself for the sake of others.}

These kinds of excellent leaders are not always where you expect them to be—in C suites or on vacation in Hawaii at a resort only their salaries could afford.

Two weeks ago, I saw one of these leaders as she prepared to die. Bette Wheeler had fought the battle with cancer and it won. She never received the salary of a top executive. Still a workhorse, she was an excellent mom, grandma, church volunteer extraordinaire, and an executive admin at the local Blue Cross Blue Shield headquarters.

I thought she called us, her pastors, to her home so we could pray with her; so I could sing her favorite worship song acapella at her bedside.

I was wrong. She asked us to come for one reason: to use her tired voice to lead us. Bette had shrunk–become paper thin under a canopy of blankets. The cancer treatment stole the pigment from her hair–brown turned white overnight.

“Pastor Nick and Olivia,” her hair lay flat against the pillow; eyes sunken but immediately full. “I love you. Keep loving God. He will always sustain you. Just keep loving God; never give up.”

And with a hint of that stubborn twinkle in her eye, she shared from her own experience that death hands out–body so thin she shivered. “And He will keep you warm at night.” The pale of her face was illuminated by a smile.

With her final breaths, Bette was leading–making life better for those around her by serving them. Her last bit of bodily strength was used to bring good to others.

Not consumed with fear, doom or self-pity, Bette surrendered. Cancer had brought her low, but she was determined to bring others high.

I once heard Michelle Obama, with her toned arms and great fashion sense, say: “When others go low, you go high!” Her tall frame, in high heels, bent low as she said the words. The stadium crowd cheered as she stood upright and threw her hand up high above her head–challenging us to take the high road when others take the low and easy blows.

Bette, with no muscle left on her bones, barefoot and in a baby blue nightgown, showed me from her deathbed: when others obsess about going high, you go low and love them all.

Leadership will kill you.

And if you’re a good leader, you’ll let it.

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*Bette Wheeler’s memorial service is this Thursday, August 13 at 6 pm at Oak Hills Church in Eagan, MN. You can read her obituary here.

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I was born sad.

I’ve hated it.

I’ve longed to be changed into the person who looks like a party whenever they enter a room.

I’ve loved it.

This “gift” allows me to feel the undercurrent of emotions in every person and leads to compassion. It gives me my ability to be creative—to sing and write.

But sadness can also be dangerous.

It can kill us.

Steal every ounce of energy we have for life.

It deflates our life purpose and halts the beauty we are meant to create in the world—keeping us in bed, on the couch, and alone.

I was born sad and melancholy. But, I’ve also been clinically depressed. I have the genetic, physical illness of brain chemicals misfiring. I swallow an anti-depressant daily so I can live out of the shadows.

Fighting a debilitating sadness my entire life, I’ve learned from living daily in the trenches of a war against depression.

Some days I win. Some days I lose. But, I always fight.

Here are links to the extra materials I mentioned in my teaching:

• Handout with Recommendations of Books, Practices and Therapies for Sadness

• Fill-in-the-Blank Notes for this Teaching

Consider sharing this post with someone you know who is battling sadness or loves someone who is fighting depression.

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I once had an uncontrollable wink.

It wasn’t that my eye muscles closed shut against my will. Rather, I developed a habit of throwing involuntary winks in the direction of unsuspecting people at unsuspecting times.

The habit started 20 years ago while raising my children–when their hands were still small enough to be engulfed in the palm of my own; their toes odor-free and kissable.

Tiny Oliver threw up his hands in the air. He was two years old and had just seen the “real” space rocket in the center of Tomorrow Land at Disney World. “Bwatt Ahhh,” he yelled through a smile that consumed his face; eyes aglow and peering into outer space. (That was his version of “Blast Off!”)

My version of showing him love was to let a smile also consume my face and throw him a wink.

One-year-old Ava sat in a shopping cart at the local market in Armenia. Her curly hair radiated like a star in a sea of black hair. Armenians, who had never seen blonde hair in person, approached–asking permission to touch a curl or take a selfie with my light-haired beauty.

Ava grew accustomed to being adored in the streets of Yerevan. After countless fans left her presence in shopping aisles, restaurants or long lines at the bank, I put my hand atop her little fingers and gave a wink.

We can all agree. This is perfectly normal, “good mom” behavior. But my wink came alive, developed a mind of its own, and began to cross boundaries.

Sitting at dinner with my husband and colleagues, my white-haired boss said something funny.

I laughed.

I looked him in the eye and threw a wink.

What?!? I hoped he didn’t notice.

As a pastor at the church we started in Estonia, a 20-something-year-old male drummer cracked a joke after our worship song fell into a messy tangle and crashed. I smiled and sent a wink in his direction.

Yikes?!? Perhaps he thought I had a lash in my eye.

My kids (at the ages of 17 and 21) have now grown to the stage where they are not quite as cute. Every minute of their lives is no longer enmeshed with my own–held as my captives in shopping carts, car seats and strollers. As a result, I no longer have too many reasons to wink.

My eye muscles have reacclimated to a normal life rhythm. Rogue winks no longer escape in unintended directions.

But, I kinda miss the magic. It requires a light-heartedness of soul to send off one really good wink.

Last night I sat at my dining room table in Saint Paul with a friend. Our husbands were at the same, long work meeting. We connected over pizza and stories.

I have an obnoxiously good dream that has nothing to do with my current vocations of being a pastor, a wife, or a mom. It’s a dream that reaches back to my childhood and it is 99.9999% impossible. But if it ever came true, my serious-self may actually squeal in delight for the very first time in my life.

I took a bite of salty prosciutto and decided to take a risk—I shared my fantastic dream with her.

She sat her salad fork down and smiled just as wide as tiny Oliver, “Why not dream about that? It would definitely be one of those God winks for you, and I love those.”

“I do too,” I played around with the last piece of lettuce on my plate. “But, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a God wink.”

Her smile left; lips formed a straight line of concern.

Oh no…I’m doing it again. I can be such a “Debbie Downer.” (Cue the SNL music and downtrodden face.)

Realizing my mistake, I tried to steer the conversation back in a positive direction, “Well, maybe it’s just been a while since I’ve noticed a God wink. I’ve definitely experienced them before…”

It was 1997. My usually calm parents were mad at me. Without their input, I gave away a large sum of money I saved to go to college. These were funds I earned by being cruel to myself during four years of high school and my parents observed it all–waking up at 4:30 am to study and finish homework, not allowing for anything else than the best grade or test score. Even in my teens, I knew what it took for me to obtain scholarships that would allow me to attend college without accumulating tens of thousands in debt.

It was Christmas break and my roommate called from Wisconsin. She didn’t have enough money to pay tuition and return to study the following semester. I imagined living in our dorm alone–top bunk stripped of her sheets, floral comforter, and presence during the night. Surviving the first semester, in a big city and away from family, had made us some sort of 18-year-old soul mates. I couldn’t imagine living alone on the 5th floor of Miller Hall–my only companions being an empty closet and a stained mattress used by generations.

I leaned against the wall where the 1990s-style telephone hung. It was nighttime and our Christmas tree’s lights reflected against the window pane. As I twisted the telephone cord in my hand, I knew–deep in my “knower”—I had to give some of my money away.

I returned to Minneapolis in the frost of January. My roommate slept in that same old top bunk. I returned from practicing Beethoven in some mildewy practice room, and saw a red light flashing on our answering machine. Pushing “play,” I heard the voice of my dad.

“Liv! You’ll never guess what happened. A local bank called that gave you a scholarship last year. They usually don’t do this, but they said they had so much money to give away this year that they wondered if you could use some of it. Of course, I told them YES!” Within weeks, the small bank in St. Joseph, Missouri mailed me a check for nearly the exact amount I had gifted to my roommate.

God’s wink.

He knows exactly where I am and what I need. No, not just what I need; what I want.

What I dream.

What would make me squeal in delight for the first time in my life.

Telling that story started a flood of recollections–God winks thrown in my direction whose memories were buried throughout the years.

That night, with my pillows propped up against our bed’s headboard, I enveloped myself with blankets and began to write out all the winks I could remember–starting from my childhood…

The baby grand piano.

The Rainbows program.

Pastor Pete & Sister Pam.

Surviving the car crash with a semi truck. My mom screamed and bled, everything shattered, but where I sat was a perfect circle cleared of all glass and debris. My five-year-old body was untouched.

The singing.

The acting in plays.

The 4th grade teacher who told me I could write.

The old ladies at church who loved rambunctious kids and prayed for me.

The making pies with Grandma Juanita.

The Disney World vacation with Grandpa Roger and Grandma Grace.

Birthdays filled with custom red velvet cakes, covered in icing roses, and gifts.

God-winks all around, and those were just during my first 12 years of life!

The skeptic’s voice barged into my list-making: “Maybe those are simply good things that happened to you. What does God have to do with any of it?”

I wish I could cram my developed mind back into my newborn cranium and somehow see this physical world with fresh eyes again—things viewed so many times they’ve become normalized; their magnificence cheapened.

I’d notice…

• Cotton-ball clouds against a bright blue sky

• The songs of birds and hum of locusts that fill the silence

• The brightest green that grows beneath my feet and and out of tree branches

• The smell of fresh pink roses climbing up lattices in a neighbor’s yard

• The feeling of the ocean coming after me with its wind, its waves, its whisper that lulls me to sleep

• The first toothless smile of my baby

• The dog with curly hair and a white belly that cuddles at my feet

• My teenage girl who chose to hold my hand

• The gold-toothed smile of an Armenian grandma as she serves me herbal tea

• The plunge into the ice-cold Baltic sea with Estonian friends

I am surrounded by the tangible beauty of all creation. It is so exotic that I am convinced it’s not some unintentional rogue wink sent in all of our directions.

It’s the work of an exacting artist creator who developed it all for you. For me.

I experience the soul-deep and intangible through my family, my church, the post-Soviet nations I lived in—the love, the bravery, the sacrifice, the perseverance, the hope against all odds.

I daily live among the impossible, but God winks have become commonplace and disregarded.

Take a look. Remember. Write a list.

They are everywhere.

They have always been.

And they will always be…

God, I know you’ll keep sending them our way; crossing all boundaries.

May we notice them.

__________________________________

Bonus Material: I love this video of the famous scientist and physicist Francis Collins—an atheist who led a team to discover the genes associated with diseases as a part of the Human Genome project. He tells of how he went from skepticism to seeing God winks everywhere through his exploration of science and history.

“[...] I realized for the first time that one can come to belief on a rational basis. And, in fact, given the many pointers that one sees around one’s self in terms of the universe, and it having a beginning, and its fine tuning in the way in which those constants that determine the behavior of matter and energy seem to have been set just in a certain very precise range to make life possible, and many other things–including my beloved mathematics and why they actually work to describe the universe. [It’s] something that makes you think the creator must have been a mathematician.”

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***Thanks to all of you who choose to support my writing by signing up for a paid subscription. It is the wind in my sails—God’s wink to me through you that helps me keep going.

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There was poop everywhere.

The Cotwolds region in England consists of miles of pastures turned yellow with flowers in May. These fields are interrupted every now and then by villages–old houses that sit beneath high pitch roofs; all built out of the same color of light tan brick.

Here you find the country homes of David Beckham and former prime ministers—their getaway from the tourists in London who love to halt traffic for selfies in front of iconic red phone booths. They climb over one another to get the best shot with Big Ben in the background.

The Cotswolds hold the wealthy, the quaint, the corner markets on narrow High Streets, and the famous hiking trails of the Cotswold Way.

Nick and I left our hotel in raincoats and running shoes, ready to conquer the four-mile hike completely uphill towards Broadway Tower on the Cotswold Way.

Hiking in the UK is not like the city hiking I’ve conquered in Minnesota. The official path, marked with wooden yellow arrows—purposely small and hidden to not disturb the Cotswold vibe—took us through the green fields of a private sheep farm.

The hill we hiked fed nearly one hundred sheep mothers alongside their baby lambs. Nick and I “ooohed and ahhed” while capturing the cute babies on video. Beside us grazed all white lambs, lambs with white wool and black faces, and the rare all-black lamb that would some day become the “black sheep” of the flock (enter Princess Diana).

The sheep and their babies stood to attention as we heard the rattling of an engine disturb the silence. The flock’s modern-day shepherd, a woman in her sixties, drove up to the base of the hill in her four-wheeler. A black collie dog sat upright at her side—ready for action.

The sheep and their babies began to bleat and run on short legs towards the woman and her furry companion. The dog began running between them–corralling them out of a forbidden gate and forcing the moms and their lambs in the right direction.

We were sad. Our hill companions were suddenly gone. But there were signs that the sheep had indeed inhabited our path. Their poop was everywhere.

If you’ve ever been forced to pry dried poop out of the deep grooves of running shoes with some sort of sharp object, then you will understand my obsession. I tiptoed my way uphill, avoiding plops of brown.

The 18th century hilltop tower hovered in the distance. To my right and left stood acres of beautiful green countryside separated by quaint fences built of uneven planks of wood and stone.

I didn’t care to notice all the beauty.

My entire sight and concentration were consumed with one task: avoiding all that s**t! (Sometimes there is only one appropriate word.)

I was so engrossed in my poop avoidance. But, unexpectedly and without explanation, I halted.

It’s like my very own version of a shepherd and her collie entered my pasture, coraling me to pause.

I stood up straight, my feet still grounded on the incline.

Breathed deep and allowed myself to absorb the place.

I was hiking through the fields of England on a rare sunny morning.

David Beckham was in a designer kitchen nearby cooking high-protein, low-carb pancakes.

Nick was calling me towards the top of the hill where a warm tea and scone slathered in clotted cream and strawberry jam awaited.

This place and experience, for a girl residing in Minnesota, was exceptional.

I pulled out my phone from the zippered pocket of my raincoat, and took a picture of the ground around me. (Take note: everything brown is left by the sheep.)

It reminded me of how I live my life most of the time—always looking down and noticing all the poop clumping up my grand story.

Even today, as I write this, I feel like a hypocrite.

I am back home in Minnesota, sitting at my local cafe with an empty cup that once held a chai latte. I felt like I should not, could not write this. I have PMS and spent the entire morning buried in all the excrement of life—not seeing a way to dig myself out.

The mighty hilltop castle is nowhere on my horizon, and my attitude stinks with the problems I’m surrounded with.

But even on days like this. Even when I cannot find my true self because it’s shrouded in conglomerations of brown, I still believe.

I know the strong tower exists.

In front of me lies a choice:

1. I can roll around like a dog, covering my back in feces, so that the scent of discouragement follows me everywhere I go or…

2. I can turn my gaze upwards and determine to take one step whenever possible. My next step may not come today or tomorrow. But every single step, and one day at a time, will carry me there. I will find myself standing next to the tower atop a steep hill filled with poo. (Nick standing at the base of Broadway Tower.)

I will enter the castle’s wooden doors, bobby-pin a fascinator to the top of my head (those fancy tiny hats the Brits wear for special occasions), sit down for high tea, and I will have conquered life’s hill, decorated with difficulty. I will be safe.

To hell with my tidy white running shoes—let every crevice get mucked up with brown.

I train my eyes to look upward.

I choose to take a step; a shift towards faith.

I stop, whisper thanks for intermittent views of beauty along the way, and choose to keep going.

I know…

The strong tower awaits.

__________________________

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I recently taught at Oak Hills Church about “Six Women Who Saved the World.” In a time of murder, oppression and powerlessness, they knew that God was stronger than anything they faced. They partnered with God to preserve life. I begin speaking at minute 31:55.

“I wonder how many people have died in there?”

Nick turned his head towards me, his short hair blown in all directions by the wind rolling off the Atlantic ocean. The waves pulsed in front of us.

“What?!?” Nick gave me a smile, his eyes looked both surprised and perplexed. “Who thinks like that?”

I imagine shipwrecks throughout the centuries: the ocean’s bottom holding bodies and secrets; splinters of boats accumulating seaweed. Shark attacks. Storms. Capsizing. Submarines and battleships. The Titanic.

As a natural-born melancholy, I had been asking myself that question since I was a teenager who first encountered the ocean in coastal Maine—in awe of the uncontrollable power of the ocean; incomprehensible in its depths; housing creatures that have yet to see a human face or be recorded in some anthology of sea life.

My mom often remembers things I do not.

I was 14-years-old. She recounts that I spread my arms wide and spun around in front of that same Atlantic. I broke away from my quiet, serious self and yelled into the ocean wind: “I was born to live here!”

My love for the ocean has never waned.

A few weeks ago we took a four-day cruise. The old boat carried 3,000 souls into the deep ocean.

We were internet-free for days and kept the balcony door cracked to hear the constant ocean waves as we slept in. I tried to stay within sight of the water at all times. I consumed over 1,000 pages of fiction near windows overlooking the sea, and sat every day on the balcony outside our tiny room. I watched the waves during the day and under the darkness. And yes…I even thought: How many people have died in this thing?

But this cruise was not for philosophizing. It was for something else.

God was in the timing.

We purchased our discounted (Costco!) cruise tickets a few weeks before Nick’s father, only 75-years-old and and his last remaining parent, breathed his last. It was unexpected.

We said goodbye to Alan Puccini on a 105 degree day at a cemetery in Wellton, Arizona–one patch of green grass and headstones in miles of tan desert.

Two weeks earlier, Nick held his father’s hand in a hospital room. He called me on FaceTime so I could stand with him from afar and watch his dad—a man I have known since I was 14—struggle to breathe his last. With eyes puffy from crying, Nick turned the camera on himself: “Liv, I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t do it.”

I can’t do it.

We’ve all said those words.

Thought them.

Cried them out loud when we thought no one was listening—in a car alone or as the sound of shower water pounded our backs and drowned out everything.

After the funeral, we boarded a cross-country flight to Florida and boarded that cruise boat. It gave time for Nick to process his dad’s life.

Time for both of us to process the last 18 months of pastoring a church without a restful break. Time for our teenage daughter to sit poolside, tan, and drink Shirley Temple drinks with a maraschino cherry floating on top.

A few weeks earlier, when Nick’s dad was still alive and life seemed easier, I sat at a table in our church’s fellowship hall. There were forty of us eating a dinner of homemade chicken wild rice soup and sourdough bread slathered in room-temperature butter.

We had gathered for week two of the Alpha Course–a class we offer two times a year for those exploring Christianity. As a pastor, I attend as a facilitator. I believe I’m not like the others—someone who needs to wrestle with questions of faith.

That week’s video lesson ended with a voice of an older woman with a Dutch accent. Corey ten Boom was recorded decades earlier as she told the story:

(Watch the short 2 minute video below and come back to this page to continue reading.)

Those were the last seconds of that evening’s teaching. I looked down towards my plate filled with remnants of sourdough and then my eyes roamed to the back corner of the room. I didn’t want anyone to notice the look of struggle on my face—big green eyes rimmed with tears about to spill over.

I had been living with hurt—it turned into consuming thoughts, late night desserts the unforgiveness said I deserved, and robbed hours of sleep.

I had learned to carry that pain—like a heavy backpack that I no longer noticed. The way it stole my energy and brewed hate; I had become used to it. It was soldered to my soul. In the beginning, I had asked for help to forgive. But, I guess it was taking so long, I stopped asking.

I wished I could go back and somehow realign my life; choose a different path that could have taken me far away from the acquaintance of those who caused the damage.

As Corey ten Boom said when thinking of the possibility of forgiving the concentration camp guard, I echoed her words: “I could not. […] I was not able. I could not. I could only hate him!”

Like Nick standing near the hospital bed of his dying father, Corey ten Boom had reached the end of herself—I can’t do it.

Others say she had the right to never forgive that wicked concentration camp soldier. Her father died. Her sister was murdered at the hand of someone just like him.

I tend to agree.

But somehow…somehow….she chose the opposite. Or rather, the opposite flowed through her.

“Thank you, Father, that your love is stronger than my hatred and forgiveness…

That same moment, I was free. You’ll never touch so the ocean of God’s love as that you forgive your enemies. Can you forgive?

No. I can’t either. But he can.”

I’ve lived around people who kept carrying that backpack of hurt—accumulating horrible stories, always on the look-out for someone to offend them, and stuffing that rucksack to its max. Like me, they grew accustomed to hauling the weight. Bitterness seeped through the pack’s waterproof membrane and took up residence in their inner depths.

They age. They tell the same appalling account of harm again and again—thinking it was the first time you heard their version of the story. People start to avoid their phone calls or quickly move to a different aisle when spotting them at the grocery store; make sure there is no room for them at their dinner table in a restaurant or nursing home cafeteria.

I don’t want to be another soul whose inner-self dies sunken and unnoticed; splintered and accumulating seaweed in some abyss of hate.

I have a new habit that I learned from a woman with a Dutch accent who lived decades ago.

Before bed, or while cooking a meal, on long walks or drives alone—when I pause long enough for old memories to emerge—a pain and inability to defend myself flow over me like a wave. Unforgiveness threatens to consume me.

I stop and echo a wise woman:

God, I cannot forget.

I cannot forgive.

Help me to touch (to dive into) the ocean of your love.

May your love do this through me.

I release it.

I choose to forgive.

I hope I have people reading this who are not Christian; who maybe don’t even believe in God. I love having you in my orbit of words.

But whether you believe or not, you were meant to swim, and not sink, in the waters. Toss that backpack into the sea. Let is rest in the basin with all those skeletons of pirate ships and sailors.

And I have a feeling that as you swim back to the surface, you will encounter a love as vast as the Atlantic Ocean.

And you may throw you arms wide, spin around and shout into the wind: “I was born to live here.”

Because you were.

Thank you for reading. I try to keep all my writing free so you can share it and it’s accessible to everyone. But consider upgrading to a paid membership. Your monthly support of $5 helps me to keep showing up and plopping my bottom in an office chair in front of a writing desk—a very hard thing to do. Much love, Olivia

Tomorrow is the end of Holy Week.

Whether you are a Christian or not, I wanted to talk to you about a discovery I made a few years ago that changed they way I view myself, religion and the death of Jesus.

Also, below, you will find a sermon I gave last night at Oak Hills Church for Good Friday.

Happy Easter! He is Risen. He is risen indeed!

Note: When I play and sing from my piano, please choose CC to add the subtitles. Didn’t realize how loud my baby grand was during the recording.

Good Friday 2026 Sermon (I start speaking at minute 32)

In Minnesota, we’ve entered the season “in-between” and it’s not pretty.

Dead grass emerges from layers of snow–exposing if you did or did not clear your yard of piles of leaves before the first frost.

There are clumps of snow that are still holding on for dear life. Temps are rising, and they refuse to die. Their beauty was lost long ago–hard and chunky; mostly covered in a layer of black soot from an accumulation of dirt and car exhaust.

And every time I enter a Minnesota season of “in-between,” I rush to get my Spanish Water dog with long, curly hair to a groomer. The coarse strands on her feet and under carriage collect clumps of mud, dead leaves, grit and leftover salt from the snow plows. She then shares these mounds with all of us–on our rugs, collecting in the corners of the kitchen, found on the forbidden couch where she takes her power naps while we’re away. With my permission, the groomer shaves her down until only peach fuzz remains. Except for her melancholy eyes, she is unrecognizable.

The season “in-between” often pares us back, shaves us down, gets rid of the nasty clumps attached to our underbellies. And it is not fun.

I wish the season would change–no more winter coats and oversized scarves. I walk on a treadmill at the gym, programmed for a steep incline, over and over again. Lots of effort, but I always end up nowhere.

I close my eyes; remind myself that green and the buzzing of lawn mowers, tulips fed by sprinkler systems, and long walks near the Mississippi River are coming.

May not look like it, but they are…

Psychologist Brene Brown says: “The middle is messy, but it’s also where the magic happens.”

The season “in-between” is that messy middle where beauty fades and we are ready for life to change, but it refuses to.

Why? Because it can’t yet.

Why not? Because we’re not ready. We think we are, but we’re not. We need the cold and in-between seasons of life to make us whole; to chisel patience and generosity into us. Humility and resilience.

I feel like Minnesota on the inside. I meet monthly with a mentor pastor who has seen it all, and she agrees–God has me plowing through a L O N G season of winter, but she always reminds me that spring is surely coming.

And even though my feet still freeze from the cold, and I collect clumps of dirty snow, deep down I know spring’s coming too. I trust in the contract of the seasons.

And, like good ol’ Rue (my 11 year old dog), during this season of “in-between” I am toughening up the soles of my feet. Grit exfoliates my insides until they’re new.

Like those hearty Estonians I once lived with, in the cruelest days of winter, I plunge into a hole carved into the icy sea.

I hyperventilate with the shock, chest heaving up and down. I am unable to control my body’s automatic response until I surrender.

I force myself to breathe in and out slowly; somehow be at peace in the cold.

Today, while walking nowhere uphill on that treadmill, I put myself back in those freezing waters. Eyes closed, I saw the challenges and pain of the “in-between” before me. Imagined myself breathing in and out; my choice to override every part of me that does not feel safe.

I surrender and let the magic in the messy middle happen.

Friends and a warm sauna await me on the shore.

Ice melts and makes way for waves reflecting the sun as I pass by.

Stop fighting. Close your eyes and teach yourself to breathe inhale and exhale the freezing cold.

In my part of the world, the death of winter must always come before the birth of spring.

In life, surrender comes before finding strength—anchored in a peace that cannot be drilled into or shattered.

You’re in the middle. The messy. The “in-between.” It may not feel like it, but teach yourself to breathe. The magic is coming.

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_______________

I recently spoke about a theology of suffering—never been my favorite topic. How do we live through a life that guarantees deep pain?

History shows that the early church grew in leaps and bounds under persecution and death. One of the things that stood out to the Roman world was the way Christians endured suffering. What can we learn from their example?

You can watch below. I start speaking about this topic from minute 38.00.

I grew up in a large church built in the 70s with fake and psychedelic-looking stained glass windows. On Sundays, people gathered to worship God, raising their hands towards heaven amidst the burnt orange pews.

The pastors’ pictures were mounted on the front lobby’s wall. Each wore a suit, tie and smiled out at all who entered.The gold frame held a small plaque at its base where the pastor’s name and position was engraved.

Seeing my father smiling, under a thick mustache, from that infamous wall made me feel proud. Every week, one thousand attenders walked by it in their Sunday best. This made me feel special.

It also made me feel watched. Everyone in the church knew who my father was. Ministers and their families are held to a higher standard: holy perfection.

Lucky for me, our church LOVED kids. The children’s ministry took over the gymnasium with tan rubber floors and brown shag carpet on the walls. A wooden castle was built by the adults of the church who constructed turrets and made medieval walls of painted bricks. From a window above the stage, puppets emerged for conversations with the kids’ pastor. They bobbed their heads and swung permanently-straight arms while lip syncing worship songs.

And the parents of the 80s were different. They raised us on 6-8 glasses of Coke or Dr. Pepper a day, so they had no issue with the handing out of sweet rewards to their children. If we behaved well, brought our Precious Moments Bibles to church or memorized Scripture, we received all sorts of candy that overflowed from buckets as we exited the gym: jolly ranchers, tootsie roll pops, chick-o-sticks and fun dip.

The elderly loved to see a church that wasn’t silent like other churches in St. Joseph, Missouri–pews filled with dwindling congregations of white-haired members. Our old saints allowed us to roll under the pews, draw and pass notes on offering envelopes during services, play foursquare in the parking lot, and rule the church’s lobby like miniature gangs addicted to a sugar high.

My father recruited a few adult volunteers for his weekly youth service and ministry–always a challenge. The good people of the church weren’t lining up outside his office door for the chance to mingle with B.O., blackheads and sass. But, my father still assembled a dedicated crew.

One of those youth volunteers was John–newly out of college and married. He and his wife braved the frey to be a part of Dunamis Youth Group every Wednesday night. And since he was young, he wasn’t opposed to a pack of church kids hanging from his shoulders or chasing him short distances in the lobby.

It was a normal day at First Assembly of God. The kids were released from their kids’ church castle–high on pure sugar. A few of us found John. He placated us and allowed his body to become a human rock wall. After peeling a child off his back he said, “OK, kiddos. My wife’s already in the car. I’ve got to go.”

My posse let out a collective moan. There weren’t too many adults left in the building who liked to play. He grabbed his leather jacket with billowy sleeves and headed to the parking lot. My girlfriends joined me in the pursuit.

They were wise enough to stay silent.

I flung wide the glass double doors that opened into a large parking lot. One thousand church members were disbursing to their cars–climbing into Ford Escorts and Chevy Corsicas.

I yelled at the top of my lungs so John would understand our desperation.

“John! You get back here, you %$&#@*!” (Reader, just imagine a loud BLEEP in your head–the ones used to mask the most horrible of words.)

Heads turned. Mouths gaped. I’m sure some lady clutched her pearls as they experienced me, a pastor’s daughter, cussing for the first time in her life.

How completely unfortunate.

My parents were not there to soak up all the attention. Back in the youth room, they were still cleaning up the disorder left by 100 teens.

Mom and Dad had been there for my first steps. My first words. My first report card. But they missed out on this first. No one there took a camcorder recording I’d later watch while home for Christmas in my 20s. No pictures taken. Just 1,000 eye witnesses who could tell them the story.

I didn’t want my parents to feel bad for missing the occasion of their eldest daughter’s first usage of profanity. So, on the ride home in my dad’s red Jeep truck, I didn’t say a thing.

I didn’t have to. I knew someone in that parking lot would soon share their firsthand experience.

The phone was already ringing when we walked through the backdoor and into our blue kitchen with a rusty brown double oven stovetop range. It was John.

“PK (my father’s nickname at church–short for Pastor Kent), I’ve got something to talk to you about.”

I walked out of the kitchen and plopped down in my usual spot on the black and peach floral couch–peace and calm on the outside, all shame on the inside.

John told my dad the story of my first curse word that bounced off cars and echoed in the hot Missouri air.

“Sorry, PK. My wife and I are officially resigning from being volunteers in the youth group.”

My dad gave a long exhale that could be heard from the living room. He was in a button-up shirt and tie, with dress pants and dark brown loafers. He deflated and propped himself up against the kitchen’s doorframe. “Well, okay, John. I’m really sorry for what happened.”

My dad’s apology only emboldened the young whipper-snapper right out of college, with a new ring on his finger, who somehow accumulated the wisdom of the ages. “You see, I don’t think I could ever respect a pastor who raises children who speak like that.”

I don’t think this terminology was around in the 80s. But John, over a landline phone, gave the ultimate mic drop. Dad apologized again and hung up.

The next two days were quiet–no words from my parents while my mom curled and hair sprayed my sky high bangs or on the way to school. No conversation on the way to my piano lesson; ignored at dinner time. For the first time in my life, I’d done something they had to distance themselves from. The silence, heavy with disappointment, was my punishment.

John and all those haughty church people had won. The 10-year-old Olivia needed to wear a scarlet letter so everyone knew I was sorry.

After a long 48 hours, my parents woke up. “Sorry, Liv. We were wrong.” The silence was broken. “What you did was normal for a kid! John is the one with the problem. We’re sorry we treated you that way.”

That night’s dinner was different. We talked again; laughed. Guzzled our 12 ounces of Dr. Pepper while crunching tater tots.

As a Christian pastor in 2026, I am re-living that experience in my home church’s parking lot. With so much division, one side or the other will stand on the sidelines and notice your “mistakes.” But no one is brave enough to call me or my dad on our kitchen phone to complain and resign.

They send mean emails or text messages announcing the withdrawal of their church membership. Opinions are screamed online while remaining silent face-to-face. When asked, they tell white lies to avoid an uncomfortable conversation (which in the typical karma of lies, always gets found out). Others hope a silent exit, a withdrawal of relationship, will somehow go noticed.

I guess in another time–when hard news could only be given by speaking to someone through a phone on the wall or by sitting down in a booth at Perkins, speaking face-to-face over a cup of bad coffee–that self-righteous youth volunteer, John, was forced to be brave.

He may not have been right. But he was brave. He spoke to my dad and gave my father an opportunity to respond.

To Understand.

Empathize.

Hear the backstory.

Feel their stress.

Not always restore a relationship, but lay a path for forgiveness.

An Estonian–with hair dyed that combo of orange, burgundy and red only found in Europe–once looked down at me over a plate of spaghetti and got brave: “I’m glad you’re a Christian. You need it–like a crutch to make it through life. I’m strong. I just don’t need it the same way you do.”

Unfortunate for her, I did not remain silent; chewing on a piece of al dente penne covered in sauce.

“Christianity’s not for the weak. It’s for the strong. Everything tries to pull you away from living out really hard stuff—like love, forgiveness, generosity. People (especially in Estonia) think you’re just weird for following Jesus.” I took a sip of lukewarm water to chase down a piece of pasta. “It’d be so much easier to just give up, fit in and do everything that makes me happy and acceptable.”

Jesus turned his world upside down through radical love and service. It led him to the cross.

The famous Paul, a saint who has large cathedrals built in his honor, guided outsiders into “The Way” across Asia and Europe. Those found in Paul’s shadow, while passing down a dusty road, found God’s healing.

What did he get? Lashes, beatings, an attempted stoning, ship wrecks, long stints in prison, and beheading.

Estonians are comfortable with long periods of silence during conversation. The friend with the unnaturally red hair stared at me while sipping her own bottle of San Pelligrino. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”

Being a Christian leader in 2026 America is tough. The stats show many resigning and fewer and fewer choosing ministry as a career path—seminaries closing left and right for lack of students.

Although I am not in a comparison game with Jesus or Paul, ministry still costs. It requires great amounts of bravery that is not always reciprocated by those we serve.

Sometimes I beg God to let me just be a normal Christian–love God with everything I have and show up on Sundays to sit in the pews with all the other normal Christians.

I tell Him that I don’t want to live a public faith observed from stages, behind microphones, and through my or my kids’ public mistakes.

Then two Sundays ago, I felt God answer.

From my front row seat, reserved for leaders in the sanctuary, I sing and lift my hands. I ask for God’s help to somehow do this all. To survive. To help people.

“I am here. I have put you here. All will be okay.” Deep inside He somehow speaks to me.

He’d let me cuss into the sky at Him. At the people who hurt me. At the unbrave. At all the church people staring from their Fords and Jeeps, pearls in hand.

He won’t give me the silent treatment for two days. Or one day. Or even a milli-second.

And I think back to that conversation at an Italian restaurant in Estonia. Maybe Christianity isn’t for the strong.

It’s for those who ask for help; ask God for help. They can’t do it on their own–love, forgive, be generous, lead a church.

It’s for those who are silent enough to listen to their insides as He says, “I am here. I put you here. All will be okay.”

Thank you, Antidepressant.

The first time we met, I was still a young American mom living in Armenia. Our relationship was short-lived. I used you for a few months then ghosted you; moved on. Hoped you found someone else to love along the dusty streets of Yerevan.

But that’s when I was young, foolish; thought I wore a super hero’s leotard under my cardigan sweater and jeans. When I moved to Estonia and lost the sun’s light for months on end, darkness took its place.

How the prideful fall.

I came crawling back to you, Antidepressant. I needed you to survive, to raise kids, and to blow away the brain fog.

I kept you close for eleven years–my constant companion every evening before bed. You did everything for me, but I still resented you; wished I could hide you in a closet and run away.

I blamed everything that forced me into your arms.

My life overseas.

My lack of freedom.

My marriage.

All the wrong choices that got me here.

And I didn’t love you. Or life. Or myself for being trapped by you.

Two years ago, I decided to leave you. Back home in America, the sun and I became reacquainted. Life was easier in the land of the free.

But I couldn’t quit you suddenly. I knew you’d rebel and crash the world we built.

I made a plan to trick you, so that in one year you would not even notice I was gone.

I cut you into pieces at night. You didn’t feel a thing. Every month, I consumed less of you. A year later, I grabbed the kids and emptied the bank account. You could find someone else to shack up with and buy a house in the suburbs.

I squeezed my 45-year-old self back into the super hero leotard and wore it like shapewear beneath my dresses.

I am free.

The boy who made me a mom moved to another state to follow his college dream.

A new job that was heavier than Estonian darkness.

I dipped into months of sadness. A doctor told me to humble myself, grovel and return.

You were the missing piece.

I ran back into your arms, Antidepressant. You sat near my bed, ready to help me every single night.

But you have a long memory. Grudges don’t easily heal. I’d left you too many times.

You refused to work; to bring happiness back.

I kept digging a pit in the basement. Tried to get away. Prayed God would take me from this life.

Drove to Missouri. I visited my parents to be rescued from sadness; from my co-dependence on you–the partner who does not love me anymore.

“Liv, please don’t do anything to hurt yourself. I think it would kill me,” Mom said as I drove the long road back home to you.

A new doctor. Checked hormones to see if they were making me crazy. They weren’t. Unlike you, they’re still my friends.

She said I need to leave you and start with someone else. A new antidepressant who didn’t hold our history.

Tired of the dark. Ready to move on.

Again, I had to trick you. Meet with you less and less over weeks until I eventually disappear. It felt like cheating–starting with a new antidepressant who was younger, had a better hairline and vibe.

For eleven years, you were faithful to me. But I couldn’t stay in the pit. Deep down, you wouldn’t want me to.

You let me go. The new antidepressant moved in with its shiny tricks and changed everything.

“Liv. You’re back!” My husband can read my face–33 years together.

After 18 months of staying in bed too long; of hiding away in pits, the real Olivia emerged.

Suddenly.

New antidepressant, I don’t know what sorta persuasive magic you did in my brain.

I no longer blame my life.

My husband.

My regrets.

I blame my brain chemicals.

I love life. I love myself.

I love the scientists who made you–God’s hands at work through years of study, intellect, and ideas to bring people like me back to life.

For those depressed for decades, I pray. Genes make our brains misfire.

We no longer hide our lovers.

Antidepressant, I yield. I take off the red hero leotard; let you fight the disease.

Sickness as strong as cancer or clogged arteries.

You brought me back to life.

And for that, Antidepressant, I love you.

*****************

Thank you to all of those who read and support my writing through a paid or free subscription. It really means the world to me. Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for my antidepressant and YOU.

Love,

Olivia

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Sometimes I think about my parents dying, and I lose it.

I don’t know of anything that’s killing them except the cycle of life–they’re 75.

I sat in a Victorian home built near the Mississippi River with a sign posted in the yard where rich kids once played–Wildtree Wellness. Old bedrooms are turned into therapists’ offices, and the large living area is now a waiting room with wooden pillars and velvet chairs filled with patients who do everything to not make eye contact. On the wall hangs a large statue of a brass rabbit head. He looks kind and wears a monocle–as if he’s looking out for us in our softened states.

After a particularly difficult week, my therapist sits in her arm chair, knitting, and asks: “Is there anyone who you feel you can be 100 percent yourself with–the parts you think are good and the ugly?”

“Only my parents.”

I cry. I collect tissues. The thought crushes me as if I’m living on borrowed time.

******************

There was a mean girl in the neighborhood I grew up in. Her name was Susan. I think she inherited cruelty from her dad–who on the way to his garage in the alley way, would stop his BMW near our trash can and leave empty alcohol bottles on top. He’d do anything to get the neighbors’ tongues a flappin’ about my father, a Christian pastor.

Susan had always included me in the group of rag-tag, dirt-under-our-fingernails neighborhood kids until one day, she didn’t. My little sister and I stood across the sidewalk from Susan and her gang of siblings and friends. Susan’s tall, lanky, tan and beautiful–as all mean girls should be. She points in our direction and says, “You’re not allowed to play with us anymore. Ever again!”

I already hated playing outdoors, and much preferred to watch my collection of Broadway musicals on VHS tapes. The thought of now having to play outside, per my parents’ orders, and living in a state of constant rejection caused something to erupt in me.

I wailed. I cried. My mom heard me whimper all the way up the street through the pores of her screen door. Then the voice of someone else raised above the sniffles–my little sister. Hilary remained planted in front of the bullies, her hair in a pony tail–all of her fine, stray hairs standing in salute to the surrounding static electricity.

“You don’t talk to my sister that way. You hear me! We can play wherever we want.” I imagine her skinny arms raised, fists ready to punch, as I ran into the arms of my mother, safe at home.

On that day, my sister was my best friend. She took care of me when I could not take care of myself. And my parents have been, and are, my best friends. They experienced every side of the true me before I learned to perfect and protect myself.

That’s why I’m afraid to lose them. I’m afraid to lose my people; my best friends–the ones who would pull me through any sickness or kiss me on the head even while making the worst, most selfish decision of my life.

That kinda acceptance doesn’t grow on trees, but grows slowly like a tree–through decades of memories.

*********************

I live in one of those cute, all-American neighborhoods. The homes are old–built of brick or wood and placed closely together. We have detached garages and alley ways; schools built in the 1920s. And our neighborhood has something I rarely see in current day America–kids (without parents) running through yards in packs, racing bikes down sidewalks, selling cheap, sugary lemonade on corners.

The childhood my kids experienced while growing up overseas in apartment buildings looked completely different. Sometimes I wish they could have had a taste of this—their own chance to get dirt under their nails, fall while roller skating on cracked sidewalks, the chance to stand up to neighborhood bullies.

My sixteen-year-old daughter sits in the car with me as we drive through our neighborhood streets. Her hair is blonde and thick, not even tempted to stand on end from the static electricity of a dry Minnesota winter. “Ava, do you ever wish you could have grown up here? In this neighborhood? Had the same childhood as these kids?”

She doesn’t hesitate at all. “Nah. It would have been nice. But living overseas taught me a lot. I had to learn how to be my OWN best friend.”

And it hits me…

I NEVER learned to be my own best friend.

I’ve been Olivia’s critic,

a whip to get her to work harder.

I’ve hated her body,

her melancholy and extreme sensitivity.

I’ve told her that what she feels in her gut doesn’t matter–

there is always some leader,

some Scripture,

some sacrifice

that is higher.

I’ve honed a gift for absorbing pain from the tall, lanky, tan and beautiful Susans of the world. Their hatred flows in my veins. I metabolize it slowly–months or years pass and I’m still chewing on their rejection, waiting for it to finally digest.

My sister can’t throw up her fists and protect me.

My mom cannot hold me on her lap and make it all go away.

Maybe growing up in the neighborhoods of America did not teach me something.

I need to learn to become my OWN best friend.

Last month, I decided to do something extravagant for myself–a piece of me was reclaimed.

This month, I learn the art of self-defense.

Every time I think of someone who hurt me, I activate change.

I don’t whimper, chew on it, and allow it to stay planted in my gut. I throw up my fists and speak the words of a best friend to my kind self:

I live in a constant act of defiance against the bully.

I stop that wench in her tracks.

Instead of ingesting the hurt, I pause and remind myself of beauty–my son thriving at a great college, my daughter’s lead in a Shakespeare play.

Experience has taught me that life is not easy.

Sometimes we must choose the difficult road—the one we don’t want, but is right. Our soul fights to stay safe on our sofa with our VHS tapes, but we’ve grown. We choose not to throw a temper tantrum to stay inside.

Instead, we walk into adversity. Even in the struggle of our lives, we must learn to whisper goodness to ourselves. Be extravagant. It’s the only way we can endure the journey and rise from night into the sunrise.

Ava’s words, her experience of feeling alone in foreign territory, taught me something.

I can choose to be my own best friend.

I can choose to take care of myself.

I can choose what I let live inside of me.

Friends will follow.

Thank God, soft and beautiful girl.

It’s about time.

******

Thanks to all of you who subscribe, read and continue to choose to support my writing with kind comments and through a paid subscription. I love you all. Now, go be your own best friend.

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I go on long drives in silence.

I’m a musician.

I don’t need more melodies.

I’m a pastor.

Don’t crave more sermons.

A writer.

I’m fat with stories.

I feel the steering wheel beneath hands.

Windows down;

Let the breeze throw hair upward

Breathe the air of my past

Hot Missouri nights as a child

Driving through my hometown

Windows rolled down

The rush of the wind

Pausing at stop lights

Hearing the hum of cicadas.

In silence, I whisper

To God

And myself,

Becoming best friends–

With both.

I don’t need your words.

Your posts.

Your homage to the “greats.”

No need for your proofs.

Your boldness.

Your great call to correction.

I want the roads of my youth–

Once simple and safe.

What I need is your silence.

Not the muteness of bound captives;

The silence of a wise and generous King.

Jesus stood quiet before Pilate

Refused to say the words

To save his hands from nails.

Purpose greater than words.

People stand hidden,

Mouths moving about me,

Saying things more than false

And more than true.

I start to type,

Begin to speak,

Sputter and say…

“Keep my reputation.”

St Augustine prays:

“O Lord, deliver me

From the lust of always

Vindicating myself.”

On long drives, I ask for help

To stay quiet.

To trust.

To love the hateful.

To listen.

Not form a holy response.

But heal.

Pray.

To be like the cicadas of my childhood–

Humming a song of pleas to the Heavens.

_____________________

I apologize for my silence in writing the last two months. Unexpectedly, my workload as a pastor doubled and I have been arguing with God—saying what I believed—that this was my season of life to write.

For those who have continued to support me financially through your substack subscription in the midst of the silence, I will be forever grateful for your belief to be stubborn with me in a dream. I promise you, I won’t stop writing.

But sometimes, we all go through periods of unexpected silence—chosen or not.

Much love for a beautiful Autumn,

Olivia Autumn Linneweh Puccini

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This is a repost of something I wrote two years ago this month. I wrote it for me in a grief that slapped me upside the head unexpectedly. But for all of you who have lost something or someone who matters (or for the parents dropping their children off at college far, far away), perhaps this is for you.

Much love,

Olivia

______________

A statue of Mary perches above an entry beneath the second floor window of my son’s dorm room. She is carved of gray stone and wears a heavenly crown. Oliver’s dorm is one of the oldest on campus at the University of Notre Dame—its narrow windows belong in medieval castle turrets; their tall peaks carved in the shape of a clover. His view is filled with thick trees that tell old stories and the grass carpet of the campus’ South Quad. 

On sunny days, young men move their futons from the stagnant air of dorm rooms onto the green. The futons breathe a sigh of relief—rescued from the smell of dirty socks blended with piles of sour laundry. 

I dreaded move-in week—the end of an 18-year-long commitment to clothe, feed, and plow good soil for my first born boy to grow in. I often imagined our final goodbye. I’d wear a Notre Dame tank top of navy blue and gold, running shoes with stripes of emerald green to celebrate my son’s new home among the Fighting Irish. The boy who was once cradled inside of me, the one doctors forced to come early because he was too small and starving, would lean his six-foot frame down to engulf me in a hug. 

And…I would lose it—

right there on the quad’s green;

wails so loud that even the chiseled eyes of Mary would shed a tear. 

She knows what it feels like to lose a son. 

But grief is more like those dorm futons. They unexpectedly appear smack dab in the middle of everyday life—wanting to be exposed, needing fresh air after being shoved into mildewy compartments.

And on the day of the final hug and the long drive home alone, it surprised me. I kinda wanted to celebrate.

Phew.

Eighteen years of fighting for my son was now over, and although this is completely cliché, he really had learned to fly. 

I was still abuzz from all the welcome week activities for parents. I cried when his dorm rector made a promise. In the middle of a chapel with stone arches, wooden pews and windows formed from stained glass, he vowed that our son would become a part of his family. 

I said the Lord’s Prayer from the sticky, blue seats of Notre Dame’s basketball arena. During the final mass, voices of two thousand incoming freshmen and all their parents echoed:

“Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done.”

We especially eyed our sons and daughters as we pleaded with heaven: “And lead us {them} not into temptation, but deliver us {them} from evil…{and copious amounts of booze.}” 

I climbed up in the rafters of Oliver’s dorm room, risking my life to make his lofted bed one final time. We ate hot dogs with shamrock-shaped sugar cookies under the family tent in the quad. The university gave us many ways to say goodbye.

And after years of fighting every possible predator who tried to pick away at Oliver’s health, his dreams, his belief in himself, I felt a celebratory peace. I returned home to my fourteen-year-old daughter and life continued.

I still awoke at 6:30 a.m. every day to take Ava to school.

I cooked the same ol’ rotation of tacos, spaghetti and chicken chili for dinner. 

I baked my customary chocolate chip cookies to celebrate every Friday night. 

But Saturdays were different. 

For years, every Saturday, Nick woke up before the kids and made the kitchen rattle with glass mixing bowls, whisks, and cast iron skillets. Oliver inherited a love of hot eggs, bacon and pancakes from my father, and big breakfasts became our weekly tradition. 

But he was gone, and Ava never really looked forward to the ritual. 

She preferred Saturday mornings alone, lounging in her captain’s bed under a plaid down comforter, surrounded by squishmallows, under the breeze of a ceiling fan. 

Then I noticed that grief was not where I expected it to be—seated on that nacho cheese-stained futon left abandoned on the quad at Notre Dame. 

It was the empty chair at my dining room table. 

The silent Saturday mornings. 

Frothing milk for only one cup of chai tea. 

The silence—no more stories about football practice, or the latest scientific discoveries, or the description of that artsy girl in English class he wished would notice. 

Grief rained down on me once I realized that Oliver was doing exactly what we trained him to do, and my life would never be the same. 

Oliver brought out distinct colors of life, of conversations. He affected the way I interact with my husband, with Ava; provided a unique presence in our home as ingrained as the wood floorboards. And although I can access it momentarily through a chat on FaceTime or during a school break spent at home, the daily color of one of the great loves of my life, is gone. 

C.S. Lewis recognized the same type of loss when describing the death of one of his  friends in a close trio of confidants: Charles (the deceased), Lewis, and Ronald (the famous J.R.R. Tolkien).

Grief never fully goes away. We learn to live with it, to build new loves and daily rituals around it. But we can never completely replace the loss. The color that unique person brought to our lives, and drew out of others, disappears.

It is impossible for me to find the exact hue of olive green that my Oliver brought into every single moment, conversation, and daily rhythm of life. That is both the deep joy and unavoidable pain of real love; of raising a skinny-legged baby to run!

Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, whose work focused on terminally ill patients, made famous a framework of five typical stages of grief with the publishing of her book on death in 1969. Last week, Taylor Swift incorporated Kubler-Ross’ work into her own personal playlists on Apple Music. Swift curated her favorite songs for each of the five official stages psychologists use to help us understand the journey of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. 

These stages are not like my son’s weekly engineering courses—all performed in order, at their assigned times and classroom locations. Grief cannot be prescribed to follow a syllabus. Some don’t experience all of the stages. Many find they occur out-of-order or re-emerge with a certain memory—like a dorm room futon’s gut reaction to run at the slight smell of an athletic sock. 

In sending my first born off to college, I’ve experienced:

 Denial (The high five I gave myself on the way out of Notre Dame’s parking lot).

Anger (Why do I give all of my energy, my love, my everything to someone who eventually leaves me; doesn’t even realize the sacrifice?)

Depression (This is where I’ve camped out most. Sometimes I cannot imagine living years without my Oliver under my roof. I struggle to find hope in a life that creates so much love followed by so much pain.

But a plethora of Taylor Swift songs and C.S. Lewis remind us that it’s worth it:

I grieve because I once loved someone in the womb, to and from football practice, through pancake breakfasts and broken hearts. 

I cry from lost dreams that can never be recovered; from the excruciating work of building a new life that I never designed or wanted. 

You served someone through the long cancer battle, the dementia that stole memories, the final night in the hospital room, through the never-ending questions from the funeral home, and during the long, lonely drive back home. 

Grief demands to be felt.

I can sit in the denial, anger, bargaining and depression now, or grief promises to arise from its burial ground later—a zombie hand clutching for anything to heal the pain.

I will never again have my son sit at my dinner table every night, chatting about a dreaded calculus test. I hope not; that’s not what he was created to do. '

He’s gone now.

The sadness remains in me, shrinking with time. Fresh life waits to grow around the grief. New people sit at my table with their own distinct color that blends into my own. 

And one day we will be able to say, as I did when we left tall, independent Oliver standing underneath Virgin Mary, in front of his new dorm:

“God, I loved them and I know I did my very best…It’s time to fill my empty kitchen with Taylor’s voice singing evermore and invite someone over for Saturday pancakes.”

Look below to find this week’s journal questions to help you process grief.

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Weekly Journal Questions:

Find a quiet place that is comfortable. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths in and out. Find peace after a busy morning or day.

1. Make a list of things in your life you have grieved or are currently grieving. This can be people who are no longer in your life; lost dreams or unmet expectations; a sudden change in your life, job, or relationships that causes loss or pain.

2. Looking at the five stages of grief, can you evaluate the stages you have experienced for those past or current losses you listed in question one? The stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

3. Now take a moment to dig deeper. Are there losses in your life that you have not allowed yourself to grieve, but rather just stuffed and moved on? Make a list, don’t let zombies remain buried to emerge unexpectedly.

4. Can you give yourself the time and space to feel those buried losses? Journal about them, talk to a friend or therapist about the pain, find a song that helps you feel the loss. This allows fresh air to flood into stagnant places and heal.

5. You feel loss because you loved, and that person disappeared or chose to break relationship. What do you need to do in order to risk that sort of deep love again? You may feel loss because life has not gone as you expected. What do you need to build a beautiful life from the regrets?

6. List ways you think your life can grow larger, and more beautiful, around the grief. Whom can you invite to your table to add new color to your life? What new dream can you take a step towards?

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Last summer, Rome was sizzling hot when I went on a journey alone.

My 15-year-old daughter had promised to go with me, but backed out last minute when offered to walk around a local Italian mall with friends while licking a scoop of gelato.

My husband and son fear needles and had no desire to see my skin bleed while poked a thousand times, in seven different directions—all in five minutes.

I was in Rome for my final conference as a missionary. Twenty-two years spent overseas in an organization we were leaving, and I was about to walk into a new life.

So, I guess it was appropriate—sitting alone in a tattoo studio—its entrance crammed in among tourist shops on a cobblestone street in Rome.

I had done this once before—scarred myself to mark the end of an era with a promise. {Read about that here.} The word “trust” is etched in black on my wrist.

But this time, I was scarring my hand—the one I use to play white and black keys on a piano; the one I used to carry and feed my children; the one that types out words into stories.

The night before, I danced in the stands of Rome’s Olympic Stadium with my family. Our shirts darkened with rings of sweat as we shout-sang lyrics with 60,000 other people experiencing the band Coldplay perform.

This concert was our parting gift to ourselves for finishing our decades of life overseas. It was well-fought and well-lived.

And “what” I had tattooed on my wrist all began with this…

{What follows are two chapters from the book I wrote in 2020 and remains unpublished by choice. In order to understand the importance of Tiffany diamonds mentioned in this portion, read the previous chapter here.}

Chapter 39: A Sky Full of Stars

'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars I'm gonna give you my heart
'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars 'Cause you light up the path

I don't care, go on and tear me apart
I don't care if you do ooh ooh

'Cause in a sky, 'cause in a sky full of stars I think I saw you

'Cause you're a sky, you're a sky full of stars Such a heavenly view
You're such a heavenly view

-Coldplay

When Chris Martin’s smooth tenor voice echoed through my van’s stereo it was 2:30 p.m. and the sun was already setting from its daily winter appearance—a few hours of hiding behind the clouds of Tallinn, Estonia.

Our grey Volkswagen minivan, like every other part of my life, belonged to our missions organization. It became my hiding place on wheels. As a part of healing from my self-inflicted open-heart procedure, I needed to invite God back into my songs.

I drove past the famous Kadriorg park with a pastel pink castle erected to Catherine the Great; by the waterfront of the Baltic Sea filled with chunks of ice. The cruise ship-sized ferries dominated the harbor, filled with Finns and grocery carts packed to the brim with cheap Estonian beer. Someday soon it would quench their thirst after a hot sauna beneath the northern lights.

My van maneuvered past the track where I ran away from God, and by the hiking trails interspersed in evergreen forests that I had yet to explore. Noa Restaurant soon appeared on the left—the place where we celebrated after our church plant’s very first service. We stood with our team of twelve missionaries on the patch of green grass in the restaurant’s courtyard near the sea. Nick’s eyes were puffy from tears as he held his engraved medieval sword—a physical reminder of the battle he had fought and won. It started in the mountains of Armenia and culminated when Focus Church was born. He was faithful to what God had asked him to do at the age of seventeen. I had also been faithful to what God had asked him to do.

As I drove along the sea, it began to rain. Worship music filled the stale air of the car and I cried—the type of cry that can only be torn from something broken. The heavy rain protected me; it shrouded me from the stares of fellow Estonian drivers who culturally are not allowed to even show a sniffle of true emotion in public.

My tears felt like torrents streaming from decades of pent up waters. I could no longer tell if my vision was clouded by my windshield washers frantically working to keep up with the rain, or from the cascades of saltwater. They poured out of my eyes, down my cheeks and collected in a big puddle on a loop of my scarf tucked beneath my chin.

Over the past several years, I had become a master of Spotify playlists. I created lists for running that excluded God, and listened to playlists filled with worship songs when preparing to lead two hundred people in worship every Sunday. I knew that in order to survive this, I had to go back to where it all began—to that wooden swing on my childhood home’s front porch and the songs I sang to God as a child. I started to only play worship music when I ran; when I walked through the streets of Tallinn or sat on one of its old trams as it rattled through its route.

On the days where I felt deep loss and grief, when I was trying to replace lies with truth. When I tried to construct hope, I could only lay on my bed’s down comforter and listen. I couldn’t pray. I couldn’t type enough words or sing enough songs to make wounds heal quicker. I couldn’t pretend that it was nothing—that the dream that had been buried for decades finally rose from the grave.

All I could do was imagine myself crawling into the lap of God, His hand stroking away the strands of hair dried along my cheekbone, and listen. He told me to rest. He cried with me in the pain and vowed to carry me through. He promised me that my future would be better than I could ever imagine if I could trust Him; just hold on. He felt close again when I played worship music, so it became the only thing that filled my ears.

I continued to drive along the sea, through the storm of rain and tears, until both began to subside. I had chosen my favorite playlist of worship songs to help guide me home.

Suddenly, amidst the songs about God, Chris Martin’s unmistakable voice consumed my car’s stereo system:

'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars I'm gonna give you my heart
'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars 'Cause you light up the path

I became angry that his song barged into my worship session and planted itself into the passenger seat beside me. How did this song make it into my worship list? Then I felt the voice of God—one that I no longer heard often but had learned to recognize from following Him since the age of six.

This song was was meant for you. I see you. You light up the path.

Does God say such things to a person like me—someone selfish, ready to sacrifice anyone on the altar of her dreams? I quickly dismissed the voice as hopeful self-talk.

Even in battling grief, I was determined that my kids would not feel the repercussions.

No matter what was going on in our marriage, Nick and I still held family meals with our kids four to five nights a week. That day, my pantry had become void of all the staples needed to pull off one of the few meals on my rotating menu—tacos, baked chicken and some form of starch, spaghetti, turkey burgers with sweet potato fries, or some powder-based Lipton chicken noodle soup with a side of grilled cheese. I pulled into a mall’s parking lot, one far away from the East Hills Mall in my hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri and void of the convenient Taco John’s drive-thru at its base.

The mall had a large grocery store attached. Shopping list in hand, I caught the reflection of my red eyes and cheeks as the automatic glass doors of the mall slid open. I took a few steps into the crowded corridor to hear Chris Martin’s smooth tenor voice once again, ringing out the same lyrics over the mall’s sound system:

I don't care, go on and tear me apart
I don't care if you do ooh ooh
'Cause in a sky, 'cause in a sky full of stars I think I saw you

God’s voice once again was clear. You are one of the stars I love and care for. I see you. This song was always for you.

It’s a popular song, God. This just continues to be a coincidence. Look at what I’ve done. I’m no star, and this song was written for Martin’s estranged wife, the long-legged Gwyneth Paltrow; not for me.

On my way to Rimi supermarket, I noticed a neon orange and white sign planted outside the Nike store. The sign promised a big sale, and it was time, whether my mom was with me or not, to pick out a new pair of shoes to carry me through a new stage of life—learning to run again.

I entered the store and the famous Coldplay piano riff began to play through their speakers. The salespeople continued to check out a line of guests, eager to lay claim to cheap Nike goods. A young teen sat on a padded orange square stool next to me, trying on the latest Zooms for size.

'Cause you're a sky, you're a sky full of stars, Such a heavenly view
You're such a heavenly view

That was the moment I knew. God was once again using a song to speak to me.

He was right. The song was mine.

Later that evening, while sitting across the table with Nick over a plate filled with rotisserie chicken, rice and some frozen package of veggies split four ways, I told him the story of the song that followed me around Ülemiste Mall and God’s voice.

You’d think after all the pain I’d caused Nick; after all the selfishness I had lathered on our marriage, our children, our church; that he would simply roll his eyes in disgust.

But he didn’t. “I believe it’s true, Liv. God was speaking to you. You’ve always been one of His stars. I’ve always known that.”

I believe we are all one of His stars—something God designed to do nothing but shine. In our explosions of light, there is beauty; no doubt. But those photons hold more than just explosive energy; there is the ability to illuminate someone else’s path.

Isn’t that what the stars were created for— flares of brightness that light up the dark? Every star has someone’s path that it’s meant to enlighten.

But it had been a long time since I saw myself that way.

Chapter 40: Generous Grace

Christmas time came and I sat at the base of a mountain of wrapping paper filled to the edges with red-nosed reindeers or Santas stuffed into a sleigh two sizes too small. The adults had devoured their traditional cinnamon rolls, the kids had ripped the paper off of every last gift, and Nick stood to find a small box that was hidden in a corner behind my parents’ massive fir tree.

“This is my gift for you, Livy.”

Nick believed that although he tried all of his life to find the perfect gift for me, he always failed. His confidence took a blow the first Christmas we dated, and he heard that as a child, I loved the cartoon character Tweety Bird. Tweety was small and yellow with a high-pitched speech impediment who always outsmarted a black and white cat called Sylvester. With his new-found knowledge, he opened a J.C. Penney store credit card and purchased enough Tweety Bird sweatshirts, socks and memorabilia to outfit a Looney Tunes enthusiast.

He failed to realize that I was a fourteen-year-old girl who still cared if my jeans donned the Guess triangle or my shoes had the small green Eastland tag attached, visible, on the outer sides. I loved his effort, but Nick noticed I never wore the yellow round cartoon bird out in public. He spent a full year paying off the J.C. Penney debt and vowed that one day he would wow me with a gift I could never forget.

I opened the red and white striped wrapping paper and a light blue box, tied with a white ribbon emerged. On the box, in the famous font, were the words that I had heard proudly roll off of Grandma Grace’s plump lips for years: Tiffany & Co.

My sister, perhaps afraid that she had indeed been overlooked in Grandma’s inheritance of the famous ring, leaned in. Inside the blue box was a tan velvet square that I carefully pried open; my red manicure still intact after all the holiday cooking.

Inside laid a platinum Tiffany ring. But it was not Grandma Grace’s diamond. It was my own.

“I saw it, and I knew it was meant for you.”

“Nick, how could we ever afford this?” I asked through tears as he placed it on my right hand.

I’ve never cried tears of joy in my life—not on my wedding day; not at the birth of the two children I center my life around. My happiness always feels silent; a sense of peace.

But after everything I had done to Nick; after blaming his dream for demolishing my own; after choosing to not see the same man my Grandma Grace always saw—one that was willing to move mountains and make dreams come true for me if I’d only ask—it was simply the most generous act of undeserved grace I ever experienced this side of Earth.

I looked down at my hand and there was not one large stone big enough to sell and install a diamond-shaped pool in the backyard of that teal house on Ashland Avenue. No, my ring was different—marquise diamonds clustered together at perfect angles to form one bright, shimmering star.

My star tattoo done in Rome, Italy—Summer 2024.

_________________

As I have often written, Nick and I have had both a rough and beautiful marriage. Recently, through marriage counseling with a Gottman-certified therapist, we feel as if we have finally received the tools we need to make a difference in our relationship.

Dr. John Gottman is famous in the world of marriage therapy because he has spent decades researching the habits that kill marriages and ones that guarantee they succeed. He is famously known to be able to accurately determine if a couple will divorce within three minutes of observing their relationship.

After learning Gottman’s principles, we’ve kept saying to ourselves: “I wish we would have learned this before we got married. It would have saved us so much pain.”

And for that reason, we have gone through the training to become Gottman leaders and will hold our very first marriage retreat on August 30 in Minnesota to help couples learn these researched methods AND share our stories that help you feel less alone in the struggle or disappointment.

Your relationship can be turned around. This is the first step.

Early bird registration discount through July 31.

Register here.

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A One-Day Retreat That Gives You Real Tools To Save or Deepen Your Relationship

Saturday, August 30

10:00 am - 6:00 pm

We believe that those who have healed from a wound are are more effectively able to help others heal from a similar pain.

Today's the day!

Registration is open for my very first retreat to help you have the best marriage possible!

If you know us, you know that Nick and I have struggled through our 27 years together. And we have found so much healing through the scientifically-researched relationship tools of the Gottman method.

We are certified in the method, ready to share our real struggles, and give you time to learn the SEVEN principles that make marriage work!

Space is limited to 25 couples and it's in a beautiful wedding venue in the peaceful farmland of Minnesota.

$50 off Early Bird registration until June 30!

More info + Register here.

During this Seminar You will Experience...

* An 8 hour retreat that includes practical teaching and one-on-one breakouts with your partner to explore the relationship-saving principles

* The Seven Principles Couple Set: Gottman's Bestselling Book, 2 Couples Guides for a Personalized Journey, Love Maps and Question Card Decks Included (a $50 value)

* Three delicious home-cooked meals, including an on-location date night dinner to connect with your partner before returning home

* The opportunity to meet and laugh with other couples on a similar journey and interact with leaders who share vulnerably about a broken marriage

* A kid-free getaway and investment in your relationship that gives you real tools to immediately put into action

* Enjoy the peace of the Cottage Farmhouse--a wedding venue located in the rural farmland of beautiful Minnesota

Another excerpt from a book I worked on for my MFA in Writing entitled When Songs Disappear. This is part one of two—which will be released next week!

************************

When the extra bounce of my grey suede and pink Saucony shoes, and months of discipline worked their magic, I was transformed. My teenage legs were no longer a soft pretzel folded in front of the television for reruns of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. My time no longer spent training my lips to spit out every word of Will Smith’s rap with a Missouri white-girl twang. I now ran—one mile, two miles, then three miles up Noyes Boulevard and back to our Victorian home atop Felix street.

My mother was in awe and stated with a look of slight pride mixed with envy: “Look at how curvy your calves have become! Usually they’re so straight.”

Everything about me—the entirety of my being—had always been straight. Everything except the rounded belly and the strong, broad shoulders my parents said were the key to my success as the best swimmer at the local YMCA.

The running took care of all of that—the belly was gone; my upper body gave the lean Audrey Hepburn a run for her money. Instead, rounded calves emerged and soon I was running a four-mile trek several days a week that spilled out from Noyes Boulevard to one of the oldest and wealthiest streets in town, Ashland Avenue. It was lined with old, gingerbread-like homes. Its mature trees cast shadows over bicycles, cars and passersby. Unrelenting roots of maple and oak unseated concrete slabs of sidewalk and curb, creating a mystical, inimitable charm.

My feet graced Ashland’s paths in the hot, humid Missouri summers.

I pounded the pavement and kicked away leaves in the crisp fall.

My lungs burned as I inhaled the cold winter air and carefully avoided patches of ice.

I jumped over puddles pooling on the uneven sidewalk during the spring.

I experienced Ashland Avenue during every stage of the year. Ashland Avenue experienced its resident in every stage of life.

A home on Ashland Ave that my parents said they almost bought when I was little (but could not afford). I ran past this home that stood next to the graveyard several days a week.

My sixteen-year-old-self dreamed of buying a newly renovated two-story teal house with a red brick chimney climbing up its front. The house sat back, guarding a large front yard where I could host neighborhood Easter egg hunts—my children donned in knee-high socks and crisp white; searching for neon pink, green and yellow eggs under every bush.

Signs, prongs stuck into my landscaped green lawn, would proclaim which presidential candidate our home stood behind every Super Tuesday; hoping to influence the thousands of drivers who passed along the epic street daily.

I’d be the first in the family with the potential to fulfill a promise my father once made to my swim-loving mom. If she would only be willing to sell my Grandma Grace’s pride and joy, he would build her a diamond-shaped swimming pool in her honor.

Growing up, there was no doubt that my grandma was distinctly proud of a one carat diamond and platinum ring she inherited. She couldn’t help but name drop at Niagara Fall’s elite social club for retired ladies, the Tattler, while their dentures maneuvered around small crab cakes in a renovated mansion near the Niagara River on 4th Street.

“You know. This ring is from Tiffany’s in New York City. It even has Tiffany & Co. inscribed on the inside.” My little sister and I heard the story of the Tiffany ring since we were young. We knew the store had to be something magnificent if Grandma ceased talking about her high school for teenage mothers long enough to tell the Tiffany story any time someone admired the large sparkler on her right ring finger.

My grandmother’s building of a legend around that ring brought dissension in my household. My little sister, Hilary, and I fought over who would one day inherit the great ring.

My grandparents always rented a room in the nicest hotel in St. Joseph when they visited every Christmas. As young girls, we sat atop one of the double beds, covered in a cheap, stiff floral comforter at our local Holiday Inn. Grandma pulled each ring off her puffy fingers. Hilary and I squinted our eyes to read the famous Tiffany inscription on the platinum rim.

“I said it was mine first. So, the Tiffany ring goes to me.” Hilary still argues this point in her forties. “You get her other ring.”

The other ring was normal yellow gold and held four smaller diamonds nestled together in a long line—Grandma Grace’s wedding diamond, her mother’s diamond, Grandpa Roger’s mother’s diamond, and some other distant relative’s tiny gem that a young girl can never remember when being outshone by a Tiffany ring.

“But don’t worry, Olivia. The jeweler told Roger that my diamond, though small, was nearly perfect.” Grandma attempted to give me hope. I walked over to the small table in the corner of the room and drowned my misery with bits of leftover bran muffin from the morning’s room service.

My mother always chimed in to calm the great war of the rings that made even the hobbit Frodo run in despair, “You forget, girls. The rings come to me first.”

Yes, my perfect home on Ashland Avenue had a yard big enough to even dig the Tiffany diamond-shaped pool my dad always promised. My four-mile running trek on Ashland also required that I run past something too crowded and depressing for dreams of swimming pools—an old graveyard. My Sauconys carried me by the iron gates, letters in an exotic filigree of curved iron arched above the main entrance: Ashland Avenue Cemetery.

It was an old and small cemetery that reached its capacity a century before. There were no fancy red marble tombstones with golf clubs etched near the name of the deceased; just old, grey, cracked headstones and the occasional monument crowned with a carved angel, goddess-like beauty, guarding the body buried below.

An ornate grave I used to run by inside the fences of the Ashland Avenue Cemetery.

By the old mini-mansions that surrounded this plot of dead, it was obvious that its graves held many of St. Joseph’s once prominent citizens. Did a young girl, forced to grow up in the fancy red brick house next door to the dead, now lie inside those gates?

Was this the final resting place of the city’s once affluent factory owners, doctors, or Mr. Castle—the lawyer who built our home on Felix in 1902? My dad had recently wall-papered his old law practice’s library in a floral evergreen. Would Mr. Castle approve?

Maybe under the marble angel’s wings lay a young wife—who, like me, also tried to run away from her husband’s dream. One that her loyalty forced her to support; one that made her accustomed to residing in tombs. Perhaps her man was one of those Methodist missionaries sent into the Wild West; finding a home in the city of the Pony Express. Would her grave soon be my own? Were we both running away from something?

But we had a team on the ground ready to plant a church in Tallinn, Estonia. The crowds were gathered to view our launch, and I had promised both my husband Nick and God to be faithful. I could no longer buy a home on Ashland Avenue, and I had decided I hated graveyards long ago. I just had to keep running.

Despite the eerie graveyard, I kept running down Ashland Avenue. When I moved away to college in the inner city of Minneapolis, my father gave strict orders to only race in circles around the safe indoor gymnasium. I didn’t listen. I continued to run alone at night in Elliot park and ran rings around the huge football stadium where the Minnesota Vikings played to roaring crowds.

When we moved to Armenia, my attempts at running took me up the city’s famous street dedicated to a string of BBQ restaurants. Exhaust, filled with the char and scent of pork and roasted eggplant, formed the oxygen that filled my lungs and propelled me forward.

But I was safe jogging along these paths. I knew I was never alone.

************************

Part 2 of this story to be published next week! Check your inbox! Thanks for those of you who read faithfully. I desire to keep my work free, but if you have the ability to start a paid subscription it helps me keep going!

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We never want to learn from people who have created lives that are too safe, far from risk or adventure.

Or too hidden—always pretending all is easy and good in the world.

Because we know that life is guaranteed to hit all of us with beautiful sunrises AND violent tornadoes.

I’ve been through a lot, and still far less than some.

But whatever I’ve experienced, both the wonderful and the excruciating,I want to use to help others—to become a wounded healer. I’m sure you do too.

For a long time, I’ve had the dream of creating retreats that use all of my true stories, and your stories, to bring healing.

I am excited to announce that my very first retreat is on the calendar for August 30, 2025!

My husband, Nick and I, are high school sweethearts who have been married for 27 years. As you can read here, in a post I wrote years ago on my website, we have nearly lost our marriage several times—a very painful experience we want to help others avoid or walk through to the other side.

After meeting with different therapists throughout the years, we recently learned the practical, research-based methods based in the Gottmans’ Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work and experienced tools that brought real change in our relationship. So much so, that we decided to become certified in the method.

I have planned a one day retreat where Nick and I share openly about our relationship challenges, and also teach couples about the habits the Gottmans found are scientifically proven to destroy marriages, and the seven principles researched to save them.

Registration will open soon, but join the email waitlist to be the first to know!

Space is limited to 25 couples.

Stay tuned for future retreats I am dreaming up: a women’s mental health retreat (in co-operation with a therapist) and a writer’s retreat—helping you write your stories!

___________________________

Finally, sticking with the theme of sharing true stories that heal, I recently had the chance to speak at Oak Hills Church in Eagan, Minnesota on “Things I Wish I Knew in my 40s.” Research has shown that, despite what we’ve been told, that the 40s are the Decade of Unhappiness.

In this talk, I share the things I wish someone had told me before I blew out the candles on my 40th birthday. {But would I have believed them?}

Whether you’re in your 40s, younger or beyond, there are truths here that we all can wrestle with.

Watch HERE.

Hoping June brings beauty and a chance to eat ice cream or run through a sprinkler on a hot summer day!

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I didn’t mean to make my grandma cry.

Seated around my grandparents’ kitchen table, her mouth froze mid-bite, and she sat the half-eaten blueberry muffin down on her plate. My mother was in her 30s, and asked her to tell the ten-year-old version of myself about our ethnic heritage.

“Leslie, we don’t talk about that.” Grandma pushed away from the table; the feet of her chair screeching against the linoleum floor. She rushed out of the kitchen, feet pounded up the wooden steps, past the hallway’s wallpaper painted with green ivy, and into her bedroom.

Her husband, Grandpa Roger, kept chewing on a blueberry and shrugged his shoulders, “She’s a redhead, you know!”

That day I learned something that my great grandmother and her daughter, my Grandma Grace, had been instructed to never talk about—we are ethnically Jewish.

Grandma Grace’s mother, Sarah, was only a teenager when she boarded a large ship bound for Ellis Island from the Netherlands—this moment captured in a black and white photo on my mother’s bookcase. Her father, Maurits, is skinny with spectacles and wearing a black suit. Sarah wore a brown linen dress, cinched at the waist. Her hair is twisted back in a style I often saw in the Anne of Green Gables episodes I consumed as a child on The Disney Channel. Next to Sarah, stands her little brother and sister, Leo and Teresa. She’s nearly a decade older than them and her hand rests on their small shoulders—as if protecting them from the huge life transition ahead.

A picture of my Great Grandma Sarah (right), and her siblings Teresa and Leo while growing up in the Netherlands.

It was 1906 and Sarah was only 14, but anti-Semitism became a national reaction to the large influx of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Before Jews gained more acceptance on American soil after World War II, they were considered low-class and untrustworthy; not allowed into elite colleges, clubs or to purchase homes in nice neighborhoods. Our great American car-maker, Henry Ford, published articles blaming the Jews for creating World War I in order to profit. The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 added a hatred of immigrant Jews and Catholics to its anti-black ideologies.

My Great Grandma Sarah was 23 years old when men gathered across the United States in white pointed hats, faces covered, united in a hatred of people like her, Maurits, Teresa and Leo. Psychologists say that the body keeps score of our fears and trauma, and it seems my Grandma Grace inherited the shame of our Jewish heritage while growing in Sarah’s womb.

During her first years, Sarah did everything to become unnoticeable in American society. She worked to lose her Dutch accent, and traded simple shoes for the style of young women in 1910—pointed leather boots with two-inch-high heels. After attending a revival service at a local church, Sarah converted to Christianity—something her Jewish father disapproved of but refused to hinder.

I imagine her young and alone, sitting in the wooden pews of the Methodist Church on Sunday mornings. And while Sarah grabbed at other changes to “fit in,” her conversion to follow the Christian Jesus grabbed her heart.

As a young wife and mother, Sarah started a weekly Bible study for young ladies that were once like her; starting their journey of faith.

Although it wasn’t a catchy name, she called her Bible study: Room for One More. My Grandma Grace said their living room sofa and chairs were packed with young ladies. Some played their banjos and ukuleles while singing hymns; their laughter and prayers echoing through the house.

Of course, as the mother of three, Sarah’s home, schedule and heart became crowded, but she wanted to remind both herself and the girls—there was always room for one more.

One more person at the dinner table. One more conversation in our busy schedule. One more individual who needs to be noticed and invited in.

Sarah had a button made that she and all the girls in her Bible Study pinned on their white collars. It was simple and had four letters: RFOM—Room For One More.

Some of the girls in Sarah’s Bible Study—Room for One More—sitting on the steps of her home in St. Louis, MO. My Great Grandma Sarah is sitting in the middle row, far right, with my Grandma Grace sitting in front of her as a child—her head turned, likely talking, making the teen next to her laugh.

Inside, I live with a constant dichotomy—both fragile and strong. Lately, I’ve felt more breakable than enduring. And when I feel threatened, I collapse my world. It becomes small. I become small. My hurts and healing consume me—crowding out room for anyone else.

*****

My parents lived and worked in the Netherlands for two decades, and I often visited the homeland of my Jewish Great Grandma Sarah. As a girl growing up in Missouri, my Wednesday night church group read a book, The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom. Corrie’s family were Dutch watchmakers who decided to use a secret room in their apartment above their shop in Haarlem to hide Jews as they fled Nazi deportation.

The Ten Boom family rescued over 800 Jews from death until they were caught and sent to a German concentration camp alongside those they tried to save. After ten days in the camp, Corrie’s father died. Corrie and her sister, Betsie, returned after hours of forced labor to lead groups of women in worship and Bible study around a tattered Bible smuggled into the camp. Betsie’s health deteriorated, and after enduring ten months, she died.

Corrie recorded some of Betsie’s final words: “There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still.”

Twelve days later, Corrie was released by mistake, due to a clerical error—one week before all the women her age were killed in the gas chambers.

****

The final years my parents spent in the Netherlands, they lived in the city of Haarlem and I visited the Ten Boom Watch Shop and apartment that is now preserved as a museum.

I entered the store’s corner door and joined a group of people waiting around display counters filled with old watches. I walked around the show room, pretending to look at the antiques as a way to protect myself from small talk with strangers.

But in my isolation, I knew I was being watched.

The day’s tour guide approached and leaned over the counter. She whispered above watches resting in dust beneath glass: “You’re Jewish, aren’t you?”

Unlike my Grandma Grace, the piece of chewed gum did not drop out of my mouth. I didn’t push away from the counter and run out into the cobblestone streets. My green eyes met hers.

Generations of secrets stood around me. “Yes, I am part Jewish. My Great Grandma immigrated as a Dutch Jew from the Netherlands to America.”

“I knew it,” she smiled as if she was a master detective once again proven right. “I’ve been a tour guide here for decades and I can always tell when someone has Jewish heritage. There is something special in the eyes.”

While researching for this post, I found a picture of Corrie Ten Boom’s father—the man who risked everything to make room for one more life to save. And I noticed something in his eyes: a wisdom, a clarity, a deep kindness. And I thought…

Maybe someday I can have eyes like his.

Maybe someday I can I have eyes like my Great Grandma Sarah.

Despite rejection.

Despite making myself safe and small.

Despite a worry that there could be a pit so deep and dark that God could not rescue me.

Still…I inherited something special in my eyes.

You did too…

Eyes looking to make room for one more.

I recently had these pins and stickers made as an homage to my Great Grandma Sarah, as a gift to my mother who loved Sarah so much, and as a present to those who I see making room for more people to come alive in their story.

*If you choose a new paid subscription between May 21 - June 30, 2025, I will ship a free RFOM pin or sticker to you as a reminder to always make room for one more person at the table of your life.

During Friday sunsets, I drive by men with black, brimmed hats and long beards; white tassels peek out from trench coats. They are accompanied by women and girls—in dresses and make-up free; young boys have the top of their hair covered by yamakas.

The orthodox Jews in our neighborhood leave their cars at home and begin their Sabbath rest with a walk downhill to the synagogue—six blocks away from where I devour Friday take-out and my living room’s walls dance with the light of a TV.

I drive past them, going a few miles over the speed limit, with a warm pizza resting on the passenger’s seat. I sigh and wish I was a part of a community that forced me to Sabbath–get off all electronics, not even start a car’s ignition, and rest. I want the guilt of breaking a holy law if I try to cook, clean, pay bills or make a run to Target.

I memorized the Ten Commandments when I was young—at the age when I still couldn’t pronounce my “r’s” due to a speech delay. Back then, we still wore dresses with big collars to church, and I probably won a handful of tootsie rolls for standing in front of my Sunday School class and quoting:

“Thou shall not murder.” (sounded more like muh-duh for me)

“Thou shall not steal.”

“Honor thy father and mother.”

“Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” (Six days of work, one day of complete rest—the Sabbath)

I’ve done pretty good at most of these ancient laws, but my few attempts to follow God’s command to rest have failed.

Growing up in a minister’s home, I never saw anyone try to rest. It was explained as a rule that Jews keep, and as a Christian, our sort of Missouri “sabbath” involved waking up late to watch Saturday morning cartoons and my dad giving my mom the night off from cooking by picking up a bucket of fried chicken with free sides. There was still yard work to be done, wood floors to be swept, homework to be completed and the dreaded run to Wal-Mart to get groceries and watch questionable people fill their carts with questionable things.

Sundays were long days of work for my father—8 a.m. church services. I doodled on offering envelopes in my dad’s office while he turned off every light and locked up the building. Then we’d come back to do it all over again for a Sunday evening church gathering.

And that is what the good, Ten Commandment-following people did.

We never rested.

No one ever taught me to rest. I absorbed its counterfeits—watching movies, eating out, scrolling fun sites on my computer and phone. Rest became anything I can do to numb my mind and make me forget the real world demands that await me.

And I’ve noticed something that has resulted from my weekly tradition of “fake rest.”

I want to quit—everything.

Every job.

Most relationships.

Life itself.

When my counterfeit rest wears off, lies scream loudly.

I forget every good thing that has been and is.

I feel trapped; believe I chose the wrong path.

And I get jealous—the kind of jealous that violates well-memorized Commandment #10: “Thou shall not covet.”

I scroll through Instagram and observe people being kind to themselves—going on a vacation, getting a massage, having friends over for a game night, or taking a weekend away with former college roommates. Their laughter can be heard through my phone’s screen. I see their pedicured toes dipped in sand as they read a book, and I get angry: “Why them, and not me?”

Why them, and not me?

I “covet” and want to quit because I’m tired. Years-upon-years-piled-up kind of tired. And perhaps the real question I am asking myself is: Why have they learned to be kind to themselves and I have not?

And a friend, probably drained from hearing me contemplate my options to quit, once sent me this:

“If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.”

Let us find what rests our souls, and not settle for counterfeits.

I say “Let us” because I have not been able to learn to rest as a lone ranger. I am caught in a decades-long cycle of unkindness to myself; of constant work and numbing. I’m not yet able to share a “before picture” of me scraggly and exhausted followed by an “after picture” of me radiating rest—my wrinkles and dark eye circles miraculously injected with some form of Sabbath botox.

The Jews in my neighborhood start each Sabbath by lighting candles as a reminder that a day of rest has begun. Strict rules are followed: no cooking or folding laundry, no TV, phones or internet, no mowing the lawn or gardening, no writing or business transactions. Instead they have three Sabbath meals with a focus on family, and a communal service where they read aloud Scripture and sing lyrics that welcome the joy of rest. Braided challah bread is blessed, and they go to bed full.

And I no longer think that they “sabbath” in order to be seen not breaking a holy law. I think they rest because they have centuries of proof that Sabbath reminds them of everything good. They’re teaching their children to be generous to themselves.

The greatest kindness we can give the world is a life rumbling with the laughter and laced with peace. The gift we can give a divided nation is to bring healing out of a place of rest and not defensive, haggard bitterness.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to have a habit of rest. But, I want to try. I need to try.

I know I can light a candle and take a walk at sunset with my phone turned off.

I know I can gather my family around the dinner table instead of a TV.

I know I can lay in bed and whisper prayers instead of scrolling.

I know it’s time to stop asking: Why them and not me?

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What story do you live in?

What story do I live in?

I imagine myself in some sort of fancy play on a stage with red velvet curtains. The artists have drawn different backdrops to be unfurled during the scenes of my story.

There’s the red brick house on an inner city street in Kansas City; the Victorian home on a hill in Saint Joseph, Missouri. A painted version of our black English cocker spaniel stands near the front porch.

When I’m 18, the scene turns into a hospital converted into a college dorm. It’s old, but stands in downtown Minneapolis with the lights of skyscrapers towering above.

The scene designers tried their best to capture the feel of foreign soil with paint on canvas, but I’m disappointed with their rendition. Armenia and Estonia have their own smells, sounds, stares and stresses that a two dimensional version cannot capture.

And the final scene shows me today–in a small white house with green shutters in Saint Paul, Minnesota. They paint a version of my constant shadow—a shaggy dog named Rue—laying at my feet.

The director found actors to play me at different stages of my life. They always have long hair and sensitive eyes—likely to wipe away tears during some point in the monologue.

But, in the Saint Paul scene, I play myself and I’m getting kinda old–nearing 50. I’m typing at a standing desk because the carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist makes my fingers go numb when held at the wrong angle. I wear new Hoka running shoes with three-inch rubber soles—prescribed to pamper the arthritis in my right knee.

To those of you sitting in the audience, I’m sure it seems like I’m pursuing the great dream of writing. In your version of my story, I daily close my laptop with a smug smile of success; one that comes from reclaiming my life.

But that’s not the story I live in…really.

It’s been 10 weeks since I last created with words. Why? I got lost in a story that cannot be painted, but lives inside of me.

That story is not delusional. It’s based on the past–themes my psyche predicts will appear in my story arc over and over again.

I killed my love of songs by following a dream to be a professional musician in college. In that plot, there is a distinct before and after picture–every ounce of my confidence leaked out by the time I held a diploma. Thirty years have passed and I still feel the ramifications. The innocent love of singing in the shower or on car rides has yet to return.

In that void, I determined to help other people’s dreams succeed instead. Those “other people” would have moved heaven and earth to help me if I’d only been able to articulate my own aspirations. But, I no longer trusted my heartbeat; didn’t even know how to listen to its thump until it eventually screamed at me.

Thank God that buried dreams learn to shriek or yell; to not be satisfied buried in dust.

But screams are painful and they rip apart the scenery of the dead-kinda-life one nestles into as home.

So, as I stand at my writing desk in my purple Hokas and try to force words to fly off the ground, I find it hard to believe in a new story—that I can paint a new backdrop for the next decades of my life.

Aren’t the artists tired of rendering my story? Too busy with the shiny people performing in the new theater across the street?

The repetitive themes of my old story play on loud speakers instead.

Just give in. Keep doing what you were doing the last 20 years–you’re good at that. You help others with that. You’re too old and hardened to accomplish a dream. You’re setting yourself up again–all the sacrifice and effort that end in a burial.

That’s the story I’ve been living in the last 10 weeks.

Why? I have proof that painful things happen to dreamers. And lies are easier to believe than truth.

Someone screams offstage: “There is a greater story!”

I pause in the middle of my monologue. Rue’s startled from her sleep and growls in the direction of the intruder.

Deep down, I know. That scream is meant to save me.

I know there is a greater story.

This great story requires a ton of work and time, my fingertips pounding laptop keys. It demands risk. And it’s fuel is grace–tons of grace.

I am grafted into the Great Story that paints a backdrop of extravagant generosity; of reclaiming dry fields and creating a harvest of green. It feeds generations to come.

It asks me to flee the slavery I’ve known and walk across the sandy path as God, somehow, does the impossible and parts deep waters.

I have a choice. Which story will the final chapters of my life be lived in?

I massage my wrist and think a bit. Rue stares at me and seems to sniff out the correct path…

I choose to follow.

I demand the playwright change the ending and order the artists to paint a new background.

The red velvet curtains are opened, and I stand in front of it. It’s a work-in-progress—being painted as I speak, write, sing and risk.

I still have long hair and big eyes that cry.

I’ve moved out of countries and learn to uproot old, stubborn mountains that have blocked my path.

I’m living in the Great Story that says not even death is able to separate me from the writing of dreams or the love of the Dream Maker.

So…

What story are you living in?

_______

Here is a song that has been helping me live in the Great Story—sent to me by a friend.

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Thanks to all of you who have chosen a paid subscription. It really helps me to keep going. Your generosity is part of an extravagant story.

What if tonight’s sunset is for you?

Its pink and purple above a frozen soccer field.

Its oranges and reds smile through the mountains at the edge of your city.

I once felt that a sunset was just for me.

I was driving my Volkswagen van along the Baltic Sea in Estonia. A large ferry left the harbor. The sea was locked still, white with ice, but the boat sailed through a lane of liquid blue—a path cleared by an ice breaker all the way to Finland.

It felt kinda like my life. The year had felt hard; frozen. I was plowing a way forward.

“This sunset’s for you.” I heard words inside of me–in the place that is ancient.

I immediately protested. My church upbringing taught me to push down personal extravagance. I never want my narcissistic side to win. “No, it’s not. This sunset is for everyone–certainly, not me.”

“It’s for you.”

…………………………………………….

I’ve left Estonia, and now live in a 90-year-old white house.

It sits on the corner of a busy street in the capital city of Minnesota, Saint Paul. Dark green shudders form eye lids around each window. The house number nailed above our front door reminds me of some colonial home in Boston that got plopped in the hearty midwest. “Seven Hundred Sixty-Two” is painted in evergreen and written in cursive.

But, there’s one thing our house does not have: a fenced backyard.

So, three times a day, I strap a leash to my dog’s neck and take her on a required walk.

These walks include green poo bags that are impossible to open and being yanked in the direction of every squirrel.

The walks also force me to witness a daily sunrise and sunset.

I agree with you–such acts of nature are a communal gift; meant to be shared with all the houses in my city. The morning light prompts children to wake up with their bed head and sweet breath. The diminishing light tells us all it’s time to slow down, but I often don’t listen.

But if one of those great apocalypses we all fear, but love to read about or watch unfold on a movie screen, was to happen, and you were the last human standing on the scorched earth…

the sun would still rise and set for you. Only you.

Those pinks, purples, oranges and reds would dance across the horizon and smile upon you.

Take a moment this weekend. Plan to wake up early, sip coffee, and witness a sunrise.

Take a walk at dusk. Look up instead of down.

And when the sky starts to show off, hear the voice of God in the ancient corner of your soul who says: “This one’s for you.”

Yep, tomorrow it may be for everyone else or somebody else.

But today, those colors rain extravagance down on you.

Be like the Estonians. After a very long, dark winter they stop when the first ray of spring’s sunlight crosses their path. Halt their walk to the tram, winter puffer jacket on, hands in gloves, eyes closed—they stand, smile, and absorb the sun.

Absorb the beauty. Digest that the God of the sunrise and sunset sees you.

Stand still and smile back.

……………………………………

“The problem is not that we think too highly of ourselves, but think of ourselves too often.” ~I am guilty of often thinking too much about myself—how to keep myself safe and provided for. I wrote this essay because we all believe the problem with humanity is that we all have bloated egos. I argue the opposite. Maybe if we knew how powerful, wonderful and loved we are (even with our flaws), we’d find freedom. When we know we’re safe and accept that beautiful confidence, we are able to let go of the constant focus on self-preservation and self-promotion.

Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

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