Beth Morey's Blog, page 24

These Things That I Know

I like to think He left these here just for me
I love to know things.

And by "things," I don't mean all things, but the important things.

The things upon which we hang the hopes of this life and what we long for here and after.  The things that stitch our hearts together and keep the blood from gumming up solid in our veins.

And . . . I realize that I don't know much of these things.  Not absolutely, because the things of faith and Life and holy are unknowable by their nature.

But I want...

20 Months Later

 {photo by Daniel Littlewood via Creative Commons}  It hadn't happened in a long time.  Longer than I can remember.  But last night, driving home under the swelling moon, the panic came again.

A few months after Eve died, my therapist shared that she thought I was dealing with PTSD.  One of the ways that this manifests is that, when I find myself driving at night the route my husband and I took away from the hospital that horrible night that our lives were instantly, s...

Wild Goslings: Engaging With Kids in the Mysteries of God

I am sitting at my kitchen table typing with my sweet son at my side happily eating his rice puffs, and I am teetering on the edge of tears.  I have been reading this wonderful book called Wild Goslings: Engaging With Kids in the Mysteries of God.  And it makes me want to cry with how beautiful it is.

Wild Goslings is a brand new book created by friend and world-changer Brandy Walker dedicated revitalizing and revolutionizing the way we as Jesus followers love, teach, and raise our children. ...

When the Questions are Impossible

It’s been twenty months since our Eve’s stillbirth, and I still choke when I find myself confronted with one of those impossible questions.  You know the ones — the questions that make you avoid small talk with new acquaintances, the ones for which there is no easy answer.

This evening, I found myself facing down another one of these questions again at a party.  I introduced myself and our rainbow son to the group, and suddenly there it was.
“Your baby is so sweet . . . is he your fir...

Questioning Holy

This month, I came excruciatingly close to walking away from my faith.

It doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that, also recently, my lifelong Christian husband told me that he is now an atheist.

His is not a militant atheism. His is not born of emotion or bitterness or pain. These things I would understand. Instead, his atheism has an intellectual genesis. After nearly a decade of investigation and research and reading -- research that he began in the hopes of strengthening his faith -- he kept w...

When Poetry is Like Coming Home

It is far too early in the morning, and I haven't gone to bed yet.  There are words whirling through my soul that must be set down, so here I am, setting them down.

Today I remembered that I am a poet.  I tiptoed away to a coffee shop during naptime while my husband stood watch at home, and I drank the very best chai tea that I've ever had, and I remembered that I am a poet.

I don't know when I forgot.  When I was a teenager, I used to pen so many poems.  I don't know that i...

Creativity Is

 When I am asked why I write, why I paint, the reply is simple.

I do it because I have to.

I bleed soul words and press my heart to canvas through a laden brush, and it puts my heart back in order.

And like many, if not all, artists, I long to provide for my family’s needs with my creative work.  But if it didn’t work out like that — if I never made another thin cent from what I create — I would do it anyway.  I would have to.

Creativity, for me, is life.

Today I am writing ov...

Don't Lose Your Google Reader or Google Friend Connect Subscription on July 1

{photo via creative commons}
Hi, friends.  This post is pure bloggy housekeeping.  But it's important, if you're interested in keeping up with my words and adventures here.  Because as of July 1 (that's Monday . . . wow it snuck up on me!), Google is shutting down Google Reader and Google Friend Connect.

I'm very sad that this long-rumored changes are finally coming into being.  I use Google Reader to follow along with all of my favorite blogs, and think it's unparalleled. ...

When a Former Anorexic/Bulimic Loves Her Body

This morning I stood in our bedroom pulled on a camisole-topped two piece bathing suit.  I looked in the mirror and -- there they were.

Those thighs.

This picture here, it doesn't do them justice.  And by "justice" I mean that it does not show you the dimpled cellulite that jiggles overly much when I move, nor the stretch marks that came from binge eating and not from babies.  It doesn't show you the warty lump that protrudes where my right thigh meets my bottom, and it doesn't s...

When I am an Anti-Abortion & Pro-Choice Jesus-Loving Feminist {Thoughts on SB5}

[photo by ian usher via creative commons]
Tonight it seems that Senate Bill 5, a piece of legislation restricting abortion and women's health services, was [illegally] passed in Texas.

I hate abortion.

I think abortion is violent and tragic, and that it robs children of their lives and wounds the mothers who choose it.  I wish abortion did not happen, and did not have reason to happen.

But.

I do not believe that restricting women's access to safe abortions is the answer.

We've been here before. ...