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The Latest from Cheri’s Desk
The Gift I Give in Grief Today Is My Pain – A Mother’s Prayer
Pain can feel like protection. If I hold it tight, no one can tell me to move on. No one can rush me. No one can take what's left. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has held pain this way. Close...
God Smiled Down on a Starbucks Line: How A Stranger’s Invitation Became A Gift I Would Need In My Hardest Season
An Ordinary Morning in Texas It was June 2021. We had moved from Seattle to Tennessee in the middle of the pandemic. After months of screens and isolation, I was finally going somewhere. I was going...
The Stories Fall Brings Back: When Remembering Becomes Comfort ~ The Infamous Applesauce Fight
How does fall arrive in your heart? I love fall, but out here in Tennessee, the stores have been decorated for fall and selling fall decor since August, when school went back in session, and that is...
Finding Faith and Purpose After Loss Guest on The Love Offering Podcast
When You Don’t Have Any “Hang In There” Left People say it all the time: "Hang in there." I know they mean well. But there have been days when I don't have any “hang” left in me. God tells me...
The Days Grief Makes Me Forget How to Twirl
The dress hung where she could see it every day. For months. My sister Jolene was getting married, and Annie, who was four years old, was going to be her flower girl. She had a very important job....
Leaning on Faith and Community After Losing Our Daughter – My guest conversation on Hope After Child & Sibling Loss
Thirteen days changed our family's history. That's how long we had from the day Annie went into the ER on August 11 until she passed away on August 24, 2023. She was 29. The cancer that took her was...
How God Met Me in the Month I Lost My Daughter
I flipped the calendar a couple of days early… August is a month I would rather just keep flipping past. The page in July is already the heaviest one I turn all year. And I didn't want to see...
When the Season Changes Before Your Heart Is Ready
There are losses we recognize right away: the death of someone we love, the diagnosis, the divorce, the empty chair, the phone call that changes everything. Those losses usually have language around...
Carried In The Clouds – Written by Annie Lauren
One week before what would have been Annie’s 32nd birthday, I found something unexpected tucked away in her old Gmail account. It was a piece she wrote in February of 2016 while flying back to...
A Table Set for Remembering: A Bereaved Mother’s Day Tea
Sunflower Cottage About a month after Annie passed, our neighbors let us know they were going to sell their home. We were not in a position to even think about buying a house. But this one shares...
Why I’m Hearing a Christmas Song This Bereaved Mother’s Day
The Last First Day I won’t forget that September morning in 2021. A text came in from my youngest son. I opened it to see him standing in front of his college apartment, holding a sign: Last First...
Will My Loved One Be Forgotten? Finding Peace in God’s Promise After Loss
Will My Loved One Be Forgotten? The Question So Many Carry This is one of the deepest fears carried by those who have lost a loved one—especially a child.Not always spoken out loud… but...
