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Remembering Wanda
The community of women that I scrapbook with lost our fearless leader Wanda rather suddenly earlier this month. Going out in style, Wanda passed away on National Scrapbook Day. She had just laid her...
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A Letter on Leaving the Nest
He’s gone…my firstborn child graduated from college last month. Then we packed up his belongings and settled him into an apartment 500 miles from home. The last several weeks have been a frenzy of...
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CR Mission Update 2 – Leaving France
Originally posted on Celebrate Recovery on the Plateau:On my last mission update, I (Ardis Nelson, member of the CR leader team at PLCC) was preparing to give my testimony at the Celebrate Recovery...
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On Mission for God, Part 7 ~ Review & Gratitude
I am struggling! It’s not like last year’s return from Spain. But I am at a loss on what to write about my trip and how to re-engage in my writing discipline since my return two weeks ago. I’m not...
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A Journey to Brother Love, Part 1
With my father and brothers in 1996 Recently a new pathway of healing opened up to me: a “journey to brother love.” My father married many times and had children from multiple wives—my siblings being...
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A Journey to Brother Love, Part 2
My brother and I with our half-brother (center) in 2014 In the post, A Journey to Brother Love, Part 1, I shared how as an adult I was shocked to learn I had a half-brother. I only met him once, 18...
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Keeping our Loved ones’ Memories Alive, Part 1
Every year I mark the anniversary of my mother’s passing by writing her a letter. For the past two years I’ve published excerpts of those letters online to model healing and vulnerability, and...
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Keeping our Loved ones’ Memories Alive, Part 2
In Part 1 of this post series, I wrote about my 3rd annual letter to my mother after her passing, and shared an excerpt. Does writing a letter to a deceased loved one seem like an odd thing to do? I...
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The Last Time I Saw my Mother Alive
Mother’s Day 2015 marks the 5th anniversary of the last time I saw my mother alive. As I approach this anniversary and invite God into my healing and memories of this day, I am struck by the...
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A Mother’s Day Gift for my Sons & my Readers
The last time I saw my mother alive was five years ago over Mother’s Day weekend. As I wrote in “Walking My Mother Home,” my story in Journeys to Mother Love, these trips back home were instrumental...
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Being First: A Graduation Legacy
Last week a class of 115 students proudly walked across the stage of our church auditorium to receive their diplomas from a new high school in Washington State. My son was one of these students in the...
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Another Life Lost to Cancer too Soon
I recently heard of another friend losing their battle to cancer. Her name was Mary Ann. She was a part of the group of friends I hung around with back in Illinois at Monmouth College. We were all...
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A Bittersweet Birthday Gift
Every year since my mother passed away, I can’t help but think of her on my birthday. It was on my 50th birthday that I was by her bedside, 2000 miles away from friends and family. It was a very...
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A Lesson in Ending Well
A few months after my father’s passing I wrote a piece dedicated to his final breaths. It was part of a memoirs in-class exercise to write about a loss. Still fresh in my grief, I replayed in my mind...
View ArticleSaying Goodbye to my Mother
This week marks the 7th anniversary of the passing of my mother. Sadly, those precious memories that forever changed my life are fading. I don’t want to forget them, so I’m writing once again to...
View ArticleIn Loving Memory of my Aunt Mary
There was another passing of a loved one in my family recently. It was my Aunt Mary, my mother’s younger sister, and last of the siblings in their family. My aunt was included in my published story,...
View ArticleFor Glenna
My heart grieves again for the loss of a loved one so dear to me, my stepmother Glenna, so, I dedicate this post to her. Glenna passed away in early June. Her memorial was held last month. I was...
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