As an infertile adoptive mom, I so deeply appreciate your footnote. My family doesn’t look like what I envisioned before I had it, but it is no consolation prize.
Your vulnerability and labor to beautifully share the very crux of the hard thing is, as always, a gift.
When life interrupts. The title caught me and your words are sitting with me. I got your book The Understory just in time for our trip to Seattle. Our middle son and his wife had scheduled C-section for birth of their son. We took my 67 year old intellectually disabled brother along because he lives with us and he wanted to see the Mariners. Which we did. After the birth the baby developed breathing problems was transferred to a higher level NICU and there were continuous progress and setbacks. He is still there but improving. In the meantime my brother had a complete meltdown screaming and yelling because of a golf game his favorite player lost and he could not go see the baby. It had been a tiring trip. It has been a while since we’ve experienced one of his screaming meltdowns. My younger sister had medical problems when she was younger and now functions well with just one kidney. but my whole life I was in between these two. Supporting taking the heat they couldn’t growing up. I asked my younger sister to stay at our house to keep my brother in his routine so we could travel back and forth to Seattle to be with our son, she refused. She lives an hour and half away. There is much more to this story that’s enough to share. Your book. The Understory. The tree that fell. That’s me. I’ve been leaned on my whole life and now in my 60s I just can’t do it anymore. The tree has fallen and I’m making changes. In your book you talk about making people angry with truth. And sometimes even in families that causes broken relationships. The tree may have fallen but like that tree in your book I know there will be new life working beneath the surface of this hard circumstance. There will be broken relationships too. I talked with my therapist about this yesterday and she loved how I related to your story of the tree and how it describes my life. She agrees. Sorry to be such a long comment. But I wanted you to know that your book is not dead. It is breathing new life into me. It was just the right time. Thank you for writing it
You're always a wonderful writer whose words resonate with me but this piece really helped me / touched me today. Thanks for writing it. I appreciate your honesty and your calling it like it is. For years in similar spaces to you (exvangelical in Denton, TX here, some overlapping acquaintances I believe), I felt so exhausted by being pressured to believe and say that, as you worded it, "what I had [and what others had been dealt] was good whether it seemed good or not, and that if I didn’t have it, it wasn’t good." I feel freed by your strength here to say that's not true.
I just don't understand why my life has to be so hard. I have always heard God would not put on us more than we can stand. Maybe I need to read your book.
One of the aging parents in GA, dictating to her phone that she really liked this article and that she also especially likes the " life given to us" and "working with the life that is given to us".
I’ll be forty soon and statistically speaking for my medical conditions my life will be 2/3rds over. I know it is a statistic and not a fact. Yet it helps me keep my life in focus and as a single woman contemplating some of the same things you raised in this piece.
While I wish none of us had to go through some of this painful awful stuff, I am so thankful I am not alone in looking at a life that wasn’t on my vision board.
PS my Matter Matters came and it was not what I was expecting in the best way possible. Thank you for giving me easy digestible actionable information that I can share and do
We have very different situations yet I resonate with much of it. ❤️
As an infertile adoptive mom, I so deeply appreciate your footnote. My family doesn’t look like what I envisioned before I had it, but it is no consolation prize.
Your vulnerability and labor to beautifully share the very crux of the hard thing is, as always, a gift.
When life interrupts. The title caught me and your words are sitting with me. I got your book The Understory just in time for our trip to Seattle. Our middle son and his wife had scheduled C-section for birth of their son. We took my 67 year old intellectually disabled brother along because he lives with us and he wanted to see the Mariners. Which we did. After the birth the baby developed breathing problems was transferred to a higher level NICU and there were continuous progress and setbacks. He is still there but improving. In the meantime my brother had a complete meltdown screaming and yelling because of a golf game his favorite player lost and he could not go see the baby. It had been a tiring trip. It has been a while since we’ve experienced one of his screaming meltdowns. My younger sister had medical problems when she was younger and now functions well with just one kidney. but my whole life I was in between these two. Supporting taking the heat they couldn’t growing up. I asked my younger sister to stay at our house to keep my brother in his routine so we could travel back and forth to Seattle to be with our son, she refused. She lives an hour and half away. There is much more to this story that’s enough to share. Your book. The Understory. The tree that fell. That’s me. I’ve been leaned on my whole life and now in my 60s I just can’t do it anymore. The tree has fallen and I’m making changes. In your book you talk about making people angry with truth. And sometimes even in families that causes broken relationships. The tree may have fallen but like that tree in your book I know there will be new life working beneath the surface of this hard circumstance. There will be broken relationships too. I talked with my therapist about this yesterday and she loved how I related to your story of the tree and how it describes my life. She agrees. Sorry to be such a long comment. But I wanted you to know that your book is not dead. It is breathing new life into me. It was just the right time. Thank you for writing it
You're always a wonderful writer whose words resonate with me but this piece really helped me / touched me today. Thanks for writing it. I appreciate your honesty and your calling it like it is. For years in similar spaces to you (exvangelical in Denton, TX here, some overlapping acquaintances I believe), I felt so exhausted by being pressured to believe and say that, as you worded it, "what I had [and what others had been dealt] was good whether it seemed good or not, and that if I didn’t have it, it wasn’t good." I feel freed by your strength here to say that's not true.
Praying for your family, your hearts, and the people who are loving you all through it. (Also, what a beautiful footnote).
I just don't understand why my life has to be so hard. I have always heard God would not put on us more than we can stand. Maybe I need to read your book.
Amen again and again to that footnote.
Always a good word and yay no AI EVER 👏 🙌
One of the aging parents in GA, dictating to her phone that she really liked this article and that she also especially likes the " life given to us" and "working with the life that is given to us".
I’ll be forty soon and statistically speaking for my medical conditions my life will be 2/3rds over. I know it is a statistic and not a fact. Yet it helps me keep my life in focus and as a single woman contemplating some of the same things you raised in this piece.
While I wish none of us had to go through some of this painful awful stuff, I am so thankful I am not alone in looking at a life that wasn’t on my vision board.
PS my Matter Matters came and it was not what I was expecting in the best way possible. Thank you for giving me easy digestible actionable information that I can share and do
Back when I was on TikTok I always got served videos of this song: https://youtu.be/-_v46K547go?is=ky0lfrDf0m7NbEc8
Love love love this post. I appreciate you and your words so much.