Stories
Healing with Grace
I decided to donate my wedding dress to The Angel Gowns Project, by Real Imprints, a few years after losing my daughter, Grace. My daughter was born sleeping at twenty-two weeks. I did not anticipate any problems with my pregnancy; therefore, I was in total shock and...
Protected by Christ Through Capture, Imprisonment and Torture
My wife Blanca and I were in our clinic attending to patients on April 18th, 2018 when the news began presenting a demonstration by the elderly protesting their right to their social security. A few hours after the protest began the government in Nicaragua began...
The Bravest Super Heroes
A melancholy permeated and hung heavy in every inch of our room. It had been just over a month since our 10-year-old daughter Chase Savanna was diagnosed with brain cancer, but sitting there in the small room at the Ronald McDonald House, our life before diagnosis...
Stories of Yes- A Dad’s Perspective on Down Syndrome Adoption
I looked at Stacy and said, “I don’t think she has Down syndrome because she doesn’t look like it to me and even her behavior is nothing like I ever imagined it would be.” My wife smiled and said “That’s because now you see your daughter, and not “a child with Down syndrome.” Now you see her with your heart and not with your eyes. Your heart sees your precious daughter, Josie.”
Cancer is Not Always Pink. Sometimes it is Yellow for the Children.
September is Childhood Cancer Month. The statistics and memes that are all over the internet, posted mostly by families just like ours, mean so much to us. Caden didn’t have a lifestyle that leads to this. He did not drink, did not smoke, did not do anything but live as a child until he was forced to grow too quickly into a man overnight. He was healthy, and then he was not.
Reach Out! We are Not Meant to Go it Alone.
They would rather help you than lose you. I’ve heard multiple people who have lost someone to suicide say that no matter how hard it was to keep helping their loved one in life, it’s nothing compared to the pain and trauma of losing them. They would choose the mess and trouble of helping you live, than the tragedy and trauma of living without you.
Finding Deeper Connections by Disconnecting
I knew that something in my family life needed to shift. I was frustrated with the lack of connection to my children and husband, often stuck in a cycle of being too tired to connect in the way that I wanted. Then when I had time to connect, I was often triggered by...
Kids Get Arthritis Too
Siobhan and Meghan at and Arthritis Foundation event, October 2013 There is a story that circulates throughout the world of special needs and medically complex children. Summarized it goes like this: You plan for a trip to Italy with all of the trimmings-visiting the...
Answered and Unanswered Prayers
photo credit: Donna Lipsh, Treasure Portraits The apartment was quiet and dark. I could hear the soft breathing of my husband and son from where I knelt as I began to speak with my Father in Heaven. Outwardly everything in my life seemed perfectly fine, but inside I...
After Darkness, Light will Come Again- My Angel Story
After a few years of wedded bliss, my husband Gabe and I began the process of trying to start our family. We did not know then that our journey would not be as smooth as we imagined it to be. At first, it was all excitement and talking about the future. I downloaded a...
How I Learned That Happiness Isn’t in Having
I got off the plane in Mombasa, Kenya, Africa and braced myself for what I might experience over the next 10 days. I had never been on this side of the world and certainly never this far from home. Most of my travel until this point in my life was to see family or go...
When I Vowed to Fight Chronic Pain by Writing My Gratitude Every Day on Facebook
I hurt. There, I said it. That’s the first thing I think when I wake up in the morning. I hurt. The pain instantly hits me in my conscious state and I know that this day will be just like all the others I’ve had since being diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia 15...
I Gave Them Light, They Gave Me Hope
We were traveling down a dusty dirt road, packed like sardines in a rickety van. We bounced up and down as I peered out the window. The mountainscapes around us were breathtaking. It was one of the moments, once again, in my life where I contemplated how I got here. I...
When Happily Ever After… Isn’t
Prayers And Questions Every. Single. Night. We. Prayed. We prayed constantly in our hearts. Why couldn’t we get pregnant? Why did we have a miscarriage...again? Was I worthy of another child? Was I worthy of the one I already had? What were we doing wrong? Where were...
My Battle With Infertility, Miscarriages and Celiac
I remember growing up hearing people say after they ate, “Oh, I feel so sick, I ate way too much.” I remember thinking that what I was going through was completely normal. I would have never guessed I had a disease that could have been easily treated. It was usually...
Why Wasn’t I Warned?
I'll Rise Up, In Spite of the Ache (My Story of Coping with the Death of a Child) Fourteen years is a long time to miss someone. It can seem like a long time and yet short when you consider a lifetime. The hurt is less after fourteen years, but still there. Next year...
The Dream and Promptings That Saved Me From My Infertility
I will never forget being young and newly married and receiving the most beautiful dream about a baby boy. He came to me twice in two separate dreams. He was about 2 years old in both the dreams. I remember thinking he was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. He...
Twins Was Nothing Compared to Cancer
When the doctor came in with my husband's diagnosis, my seemingly perfect life began to crumble. I believed in a God of miracles, but would that be enough? I met my husband, Rob while attending BYU. As much as I didn’t want to be that typical BYU couple, we were. We...