Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “brokenness”
@bethvogt “There’s always hope,” my daughter Amy said. “I’ll hope in a minute,” I told her. I was sitting down, leaning over, grappling with some unexpected news. Unwanted news. The kind that takes your breath away, even as your eyes sting with tears. You know what I mean, right? For just a minute, you lose your grip on hope … …
My friend Mary and I went for an early morning walk the other day. During our weekly walks, we take turns talking about life in an honest, here’s-what’s-going-on-with-me kind of way. Mary invited me to go first, so after discussing my latest ups and downs, I yielded the, um, sidewalk to Mary. As we neared the end of our …
@bethvogt I’ve heard the term “heavy-hearted” quite a bit recently. People are heavy-hearted about their life circumstances – from family struggles to friends’ setbacks. People are heavy-hearted about life “out there” – events playing out across the world via nonstop news headlines every single hour of the day. How do we counterbalance the ongoing challenges that weigh our hearts down? …
@bethvogt My walking buddy Mary told me to write this blog post about our conversation yesterday. “Write a blog about it. See what your readers say.” So, yes, you may thank Mary for today’s post – and yes, I’d love to hear your thoughts about … my choice of T-shirts. At the end of our hour-long walk yesterday, Mary commented …
@bethvogt I was the little girl who loved to get lost in books. I loved fairy tales. The magic of them. No matter the dark forests to be traversed or dragons to be battled or evil queens to be outwitted, each story had a fantastical happy ending. The authors of those stories, with their imaginary characters and magical overcoming of …
@bethvogt I’m determined to choose hope even as I struggle to comprehend another senseless act of violence, this time in Boulder, Colorado. Is there an act of violence that ever makes sense? My husband Rob and I spent a long weekend in Minnesota, visiting our youngest daughter whose spring break morphed into a volleyball pre-season. Good days. Good conversations. Lots …
@bethvogt It’s so difficult to see someone we love struggle. When a family member or friend is hurting, so often we want to rush in and fix the situation for them. Figure out some way to make everything better. If we can figure out the magic equation to make everything better … Poof! The difficult circumstances and devastating emotions overwhelming …
@bethvogt Some days are going to be harder than others. Just typing that simple sentence made me feel a whole lot better. I’ve been slogging uphill against my expectations and emotions this past week. Looking back, I see reasons why the past seven days have been challenging – everything from anxiety before, during, and after some dental work, …
For all our hopes this new year would be better than the previous 12 months, the first 27 days of 2021 are disappointing. Such an understatement, right? I texted with a good friend several days ago. Normal “how’s it going” stuff. And then a little while later these words appeared on my phone screen: got some really bad news. A …
@bethvogt Our Thanksgiving holiday is complicated this year. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. It is 2020, after all. A world-wide pandemic doesn’t take a day off so we can observe our annual holiday traditions. Some of us have already decked our halls with fa-la-la-la-la because we just need a little Christmas right now – not later. Then in …
