The deepest darkness of grief is the discouraging reality that since our love for our son will never change, the agony of his loss will not either. It has be...

I wrote these words less than a month after John Paul Raphael died. I want to share them today, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They reference a...

For those of us who have lost children, there is a constant tension between the reality of our life without our child and the "what might have been" we can n...

Do you remember this song? Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came… Isn’t this true for all of us? Isn’t ...

After 10 months of grieving, I gave myself permission to stop trying to grieve well and just grieve. What followed was ugly, messy, and profoundly healing. F...

As Lent begins, I offer a portion of my struggle to come into the light. What if, as I feared, the light of Christ is not a harsh, disinterested glare but ...

We prepared so thoroughly for John Paul Raphael's birth and life. Now what? I don't mean the lifetime of loss we are left with 13 months later, but th...

Thirteen months ago this week my beautiful son died in my arms. It was the holiest and most brutal day of my life. It has taken me this long to be able to pu...

One year ago today John Paul Raphael Leon was born by emergency c-section. Here is his story of that beautiful day. We were blessed with 1,690 minutes of p...

This week, I look deep into the eyes of sweet baby Jesus and I hear his voice -- Will you come close? Will you trust me? Can I be enough for you? Will you l...

On this special feast day, I want to share from my heart about my love for our mother Mary and what a vital role she plays in my life. This is a testimony ...

"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 In November of 2017, I traveled with Ralph, Maggie, ...

When your baby is no longer here, every other baby is an occasion of longing for your own child's presence. I am working at being brave to make space to hav...

"There is an appointed time for everything and a time for every affair under the heavens... a time to tear down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a ...

In the fall of 2016, God gave me a vision. I am very uncomfortable with that word. It makes me feel extremely unworthy; I assure you it is only with a deep ...

I have managed for a little while now to somehow look “all together” on the outside while I slowly do the work of putting piece after piece together on the i...

How can we measure the cost of love? How can we know what we are really capable of until we find ourselves on the brink of the hardest thing we have ever do...

When my outside world finished falling apart, God allowed my inside world to fall apart. Not as a punishment, but for freedom. The walls I didn’t even know I...

The light of my beautiful John Paul Raphael went out after only one day, but the hallways of grief that I will walk the rest of my life are as long as those ...

Who can know the mind of God? Why do some prayers seem to be answered and others not? How does God choose who gets the happy endings??? "He performs wonde...