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Tend Your Garden, Unload your Burdens, It’s Been a Year.
Firm Grip, Let Go & More Cake.
Laughter is the Best Medicine
Sunny Yellow with a Chance of Gray
Offering it Up

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Brain Cancer Journey
Faith
Family
Life
Marriage

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houseofloveandlaughterblog

Wife, mom, friend, homeschooler creating a soft place to land in my home & heart. Weaving words on growing a family with faith, hope & love.

🌊🌊 “Laugh and grow strong.”-St. Ignatius

🌊🌊
“Laugh and grow strong.”-St. Ignatius of Loyola

Pondering thoughts on Laughter, Joy, Sorrow and Hope excerpts from Henri Nouwen’s book Here and Now.

“but in the God-centered person, sorrow and joy can exist together….Often we discover the joy in the midst of the sorrow…I dare even say, ‘My grief was the place where I found my joy.’ Still nothing happens automatically in the spiritual life. Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

“We do have a choice, not so much in regard to the circumstances of our life but in regard to the way we respond to these circumstances.”

“Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under the cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.”

“Joy is contagious, sorrow is too…Are you surprised by joy or sorrow?”

“The great challenge of faith is to be surprised by joy.”

“Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worrying about.”

“There is an intimate relationship between joy and hope. While optimism makes us live as if someday soon thing will go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart. Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope.”

“We were so preoccupied with our mutual struggle that we didn’t notice the magnificent sunset spreading a rich spectrum of color over the wide, silent beach. Suddenly my friend exclaimed: ‘Look…look at the sun…look’.”

“Joy and Hope are never separate.” #Nouwen

“The joy of the Lord is our strength.”-Nehemiah 8:10

“She is clothed in strength and dignity, and laughs without fear of the future. Proverbs 31:25

🌊🌤And she found joy and laughter standing under the stormy sky while also looking at the sun. She slowly inhaled the salt air, allowing water to wash over her feet as she anchored them in the sand. #choosejoy

#ADMG -St. Ignatius of Loyola

“We must never stop tending our garden—the lit

“We must never stop tending our garden—the literal garden and the garden of our hearts. Even when we are weeping, even when we are encounter difficulties (and terrible conditions,) we cannot stop sowing because life gets hard.”-H.L.L.

Except from rmost recent blog post

“Tend Your Garden, Unload Your Burdens, It’s Been a Year.”

Link in Bio

🌱🌱🌱 I agonized way too much about what to

🌱🌱🌱
I agonized way too much about what to unload about our year.
A year ago I sat in a room alone in waiting for well over 6 hours while Jon was in surgery removing a mass. I met a new friend who texted me this morning to remind me she is still with me on this journey.

I share quite a bit about the most important theme that has carried my husband and me through this year. It’s a song of hope and joy.

“I started to write, A LOT. I kept seeing hints from God that sowing and reaping and trusting and growing were prominent themes. I have a lot to process from this past year as a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend.

The dance I do often with writing is to vacillate, doubt, pause, and toss away words that could be bring others hope.

I wove together words in a reflection that were inspired by a verse out of Psalm and a song about the same verse that has captured my heart.

Earlier this week, while alone, I switched on an scripture app I often listen to in the morning.

The reflection starts with a song that connects with the verse that will be read. And there was that song, Psalm 126, once again leading that day’s reflection. The same verse I shared earlier in the week.

"Our mouths they were filled with laughter
Our tongues they were loosed, loosed with joy...Restore us, Although we are weeping Lord, help us keep sowing...All those who sow weeping will go out with songs of joy."

It is difficult to articulate how we have been restored or set free by our suffering, our story of brain cancer. BUT WE HAVE BEEN.

One thing is sure, like any struggle cancer changes you, I have heard that so many times, but you cannot truly understand how true this is until it is part of your life.

After that difficult season it took months for my garden to get back on track. We needed to amend many things.

The rocky soil required amending to become more fertile.

The foundation of a few raised beds needed securing.

The boundaries (fences) were worn with gaping wounds allowing in persistent pests and unwanted critters.

The gravel that washed away because of a few downpours had to be replaced to lay a good path...”

I invite you to read more at the link in bio.

💃🏻🕺🏻 Yesterday, we walked into church

💃🏻🕺🏻
Yesterday, we walked into church with hearts full of gratitude, thanksgiving, and a slight bit of grief.

The last few days have been surrounded by reminders of what was, what is to come and what we cannot yet know.

I took to a few hills to walk with my hubs & son on sacred ground both in location and in our hearts. We shared some wisdom, laughter, and things that weigh on us deeply. After, we gathered more college supplies to launch my son.

The girls went shopping together for I don’t know what, if anything at all. Isn’t that how young ladies roll? They are holding tight to one other and making memories. They know the weight we have all carried this last year. Exciting new things are coming for the young lady who leads that bunch.

Then we all gathered back home. We shared more stories of the dance of this last year, a diagnosis, grief, immeasurable loss, and discernment of new incredible things.

We are holding space for an anniversary we’d like to never have to celebrate much less acknowledge.

It has been a year since our world was thrown offbeat. It certainly wasn’t a well-played choreography of our life. We were following all of the arrows until we lost our step. We lost our certainties and a few people we loved dearly.

We have spent the year learning new moves to the beat of a drum that sounds out of tune.

It seems out of sync to celebrate this year in any way.

There is truth in wondering how we can celebrate a diagnosis given to us a year ago. The truth is the tune of gratitude, hope and thanking God in all things has brought us strength and supernatural peace.

Even after all that this year has brought our way; we are grateful, time has been the greatest gift. After the record scratched, we all can still dance.

Isn’t that something to celebrate when the sober statistics offer you something very bleak?

So we took to dancing to celebrate-daring to learn Steps.

For hours we danced, laughed, hit repeat.

We counted, twirled & kept trying even when our steps fell out of sync. We danced moves to a viral Fancy Like.

We never gave up.

This year may have thrown us offbeat, BUT we can still dance as long as our eyes and arrows point to a Cross.

🌱🌱 “When the Lord restored the fortunes of

🌱🌱
“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.”
Psalm 126

St. Louis and Zelie, the first set of spouses to b

St. Louis and Zelie, the first set of spouses to be canonized together, have been close to my heart for many reasons. With a strong desire to raise a family in faith, these two saints were devoted to family and raised a few saints of their own. St. Therese of Lisieux, a well-known and beloved saint, is their daughter.

Having joined the Catholic church as a young adult, long before I understood the impact saints had on my spiritual growth, the lady known as Little Flower always caught my attention. She would show up in many places in my life as a reliable friend would in my time of need.

Over the last decade, her voice as a soulful writer (Story of a Soul) continues to touch my heart in unexpected ways. No, she is not (nor is any saint) a person I have come to worship. Instead, I look to her as I would any heroic figure who chose to accept God's Will for her life, who walks with a heart for God, and who wants to point others to Heaven.

It makes sense The Little Flower became a strong model of faith as she learned from her parents to walk in faith with a desire to accept God's plan joyfully.

@lisahendey writes, "At the core of their family life seems to be a passion for their fath, their dedication to personal and family prayer disciplines, and an unquestioning willingness to accept God's plan for their marriage."

Perhaps their dedication to faith and family inspired my strong devotion to this beautiful example of marriage with God at its core.

I've read about Louis and Zelie often. But today, I am touched more deeply by this saintly couple's example, given I am now walking alongside a spouse living with cancer. I don't know the heart of their cancer journey, but I do know Louis continued raising their daughters after he lost Zelie and managed to raise a few beloved saints.

Cancer changed many aspects of our lives-pressing pause on plans, guarding our hearts, carefully choosing how we fill our time, where we focus our gaze, and trusting our Good and Faithful Father’s will.

No matter where this journey takes us, I pray we can be a model of faith and hope for future saints.

"God gave me a father and a mother more worthy of heaven than of earth." St. Theresa

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