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I shy away from truly expressing my feelings. Which people who know me would question, because I don’t think anyone would call me “emotionally reserved.” I cry most days—good cries, happy cries, grateful cries, excited cries, and of course, sad cries, too. But despite how many feelings I show on the outside—I have a zillion and ten more that I stuff down and keep inside.

Some days, I’m hard to live with.

Ask my husband, David. God bless him.

Maybe you are too?

David is a carefree spirit whose motto in college was, If I can crawl over it, I can sleep on it. He eats whatever I cook and seldom notices piles of laundry or dirty dishes. If an opportunity for fun or adventure presents itself, he’s all in. He’ll figure out the details later. He’ll abandon even the best laid plans to help someone in need—especially children and the elderly.

When our church’s small group leader asked how we felt about doing an extended prayer experience together as recommended by the curriculum we were using, some of us were hesitant. Thankfully, enough trust had been built in the group that people had the courage to voice their misgivings. Someone shared about how extended prayer times felt impossible for how their brains worked—too easily distracted. Others said long periods of prayer somehow left them feeling more distracted, distant from God, and guilty. Someone shared that they would probably find it peaceful but very likely fall asleep!

There’s a cliche, “time heals all wounds.” This rang true to me for many years after my father divorced my mom when I was a little kid. The pain of him leaving dulled as I learned to live life without him. But some moments pick at the wounds and the pain demands to be felt no matter how hard you try to shake it.

We were a family in disarray, like a bunch of pickup sticks dropped to the floor. Our young daughter was seriously ill—again. Months before, she’d been rushed to Children’s Hospital, where her lungs finally opened up, allowing her to breathe freely after eleven hours of constant asthma treatment and a near miss admission to the ICU.

“Your flight has been canceled.” The notification popped up on my phone during team-building sessions. I tried to stay focused on the intense conversations about our personality styles while wondering what new travel plans I would need to embrace. Knowing that my driving nature can get things done but can also alienate others, I wanted to be present in the meeting. I breathed a prayer, asking Jesus to help me.

Clicking open the email, I smiled at the subject line: “LGA instructions with my artistic map attached.” For the past few years, I had been planning a solo trip to visit our daughter who lives in New York City. She and I finally had the margin to make it happen. Wanting my trip to be as easy as possible, she sent me an email with the best routes from the airport to her apartment. I had traveled to New York City numerous times, but this was my first time flying into the city instead of driving.

I’ve never considered myself athletic. Sports and disciplined workout regimes were for athletic, coordinated people; I was not one of those people. I’ve enjoyed jogging for most of my life, but that didn’t make me think of myself as someone athletic or strong. Anyone could put one foot in front of the other. I ran because I wasn’t athletic enough to do any other sport!