A Day Trip to Fjällbacka, Sweden

For years, Camilla Läckberg has remained firmly planted within my top ten favourite authors list. Her stories are beautifully written tales, intricately woven with characters and history and murder. And so, when my husband and I booked our summer vacation to Sweden, I had but one request — we had to visit the site where Läckberg’s mysteries are set, the little village of Fjällbacka.

It was a two-hour drive from where we were staying to the coastal village of Fjällbacka. The drive there is filled with a mixture of pasture and forest, with Sweden’s adorable yellow and red homes dotting the farmlands outside our car window. Our GPS took us on a half-hour detour down a deserted gravel road and I joked that the murder mystery tour had already begun.

As we pulled into Fjällbacka, the landscape takes a sudden turn. The sea dazzles and sparkles in the sunlight while the dark rocks loom up behind the picturesque fishing village. This is what I’d been waiting for.

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Sneak Peek at New Book Cover!

I am SO excited to give you all a sneak peek at the cover of my new book, Embrace: Clinging to Christ Through the Pain of Pregnancy Loss.

This book has been on my heart for so long now and it is an honour to share that with you.

It’s not a book I wanted to write.
It’s not a book that I want women to NEED to read.
And yet, I believe that this book is so very necessary.

Because 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss. And yet, despite those staggering statistics, we still struggle to talk about grief. We still struggle to carry the weight of this pain.

Let me tell you friends, this may be a story of loss but it is also a story of love. Of redemption. Of hope.

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Dear Kindergarten Teacher, You’re Missing One

To This Year’s Kindergarten Teacher,

Your classroom is full. It bustles with kids in squeaky, new shoes and oversized backpacks. Some of their smiles are shy, their eyes wide and nerves evident. Others squirm and hop their way around the room, their energy radiating out through a little body that struggles to hold still.

“Welcome to Kindergarten!”

You’ve written each of their names on little placards dotted with star stickers. Over the coming year, these names will grow from mere faces into personalities and stories that you know and love.

But what you don’t know is that there’s a name missing from your class list this year.

You’re one spiderman backpack short.
One tousled-haired child with a mischevious grin is missing.

You don’t see him. But I do.

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August 2019: Reading Challenge Reviews

So this may be the “August reads” but if I’m being entirely truthful, half of these books were read last month. This month has been busy as I’ve been focused on my writing and haven’t had a ton of time to read. (In case you haven’t heard, I have some exciting book news on my own!)

But, that’s part of the fun of the challenge, right? Navigating life and squeezing in moments to read — even if that means it’s only a paragraph or two at a time. Hopefully, I’ll get back on the book track for September, but for now, here are my “August” reads:

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Nine Fun Board Games for Kids Under 5

I may not be a mama with a great capacity for imaginative play, but when it comes to board games, I’m all in!

Sometimes, though, it can be challenging to find board games suitable for younger kids. Their attention spans are short. Their hand-eye-coordination is still developing. And they can’t always follow along with complex rules. So to make the shopping a little easier, here are some of my favourite board games for kids under five.

**There are no affiliate products in this post — just fun games we love to play!**
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Exciting Book News!

The words were barely audible — a quiet whisper to a bruised heart.

Write.

The newborn stirred sleepily in my arms, a slice of my heart set out for the world to see. But there was another bit of my heart that wasn’t so noticeable — a piece that belonged to the baby not in my arms but in an infant-sized grave.

His death brought me to my knees. Like the tear-soaked tissues I clutched, the trite answers to “how I was doing” fell apart upon further prodding and yet, I wasn’t ready to wade deeper. I hid behind a veil of fake smiles and flimsy responses, a pretense at normality when I genuinely didn’t know what to feel.

But the word, write, burned ever stronger. As my fingers twitched and fluttered over the keys on my computer, a blog was born.

I started writing as a way to process my grief and as an outlet to the new world of motherhood in which I now stood. It was a type of motherhood that was significantly more messy, more broken, and more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. But it took time to discover that that beauty and pain could coexist — that they were, in fact, a glorious roadmap to a life lived more fully in Christ.

I uncovered grace as I wrote.

Grace as I dug deep and pushed my way through the walls of grief and into the comforting arms of Christ. Arms that hold tight. Arms that give freedom to grieve wholly and fully.

Grace to embrace the gift I’ve been given — a gift of tears and love that led me closer to the cross.

And out of those blog posts came a book about pregnancy loss, about stillbirth and miscarriage and clinging to Christ in the midst of it all.

A few months ago, I submitted my manuscript to an amazing, Canadian based competition called the “Women’s Journey Of Faith Contest.” Every year, the winner of this competition has their book published by Word Alive Press (an incredible opportunity for hopeful authors like myself.) I had previously entered this contest in 2017 and been shortlisted, so sending this in felt like a longshot. There are so many talented writers out there with stories that need to be heard. But I also knew that I needed to be faithful with the story that God had given me — and so, with a deep breath and more than a few prayers, I submitted my manuscript.

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July 2019: Reading Challenge Reviews

We’re over halfway through this year’s reading challenge and I think I can safely say that I’ve found my favourite book of the year.

But honestly? This was a good book month. Aviation history, time travel to one of my favourite eras, the story of an incredible life, and a fun alternate-reality style novel — I would happily recommend each of these reads.

So which one was the favourite? You’ll just have to keep reading to find out.

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First There Were Two

We took this photo when there were two.

On a warm, July night, five years ago – when the sand burned the bottoms of my soles and the air smelled like salt and heat. I held my belly between the palms of my hands and felt the tangle of limbs kicking within. Two boys tumbled and rolled and life collided with possibility and promise.

And then, the waves rose and the sandcastles crumbled and the world which I had so tenderly held disappeared.

We took this photo when there were two.

Before we knew the babies were sick.

Before the rush of blood from one to the other.

Before his heart stopped.

Before the world changed.

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I’m Not The Mom Who Loves To Play, And That’s Okay

I’m not the mom who loves to play.

I’m not the one who enjoys scuttling around on my hands and knees, driving cars around an invisible track or fighting off pretend pirates.

Imaginary play is NOT my strength.

And sometimes, I feel guilty about that.

I want to be the mom crawling around the park, pretending to be a crime-fighting dinosaur named Nora. The mom who spends hours acting out intricate storylines about robots and aliens, running around the house in costumes as we dodge lava pits and trolls. The mom who doesn’t get bored after a couple minutes of playing with Lego people.

I want to be that “uber fun mom” with endless energy and creative passion for free play. I want to give my kids that experience.

But that’s not me.

And that’s okay too.

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June 2019: Reading Challenge Reviews

Happy summer everyone!

I can smell someone grilling BBQ outside of my window, and I am so ready for nice weather and sunny days spent by the lake (with a good book of course!) We’re off on a few getaways this summer so I am excitedly loading up my Kobo with new books. I’m not sure why I didn’t get onto the e-reader train earlier, because my suitcase has never been lighter!

And as always, here are a few book reviews from this past month. This is part of my 2019 Reading Challenge and while we’re now HALFWAY through (where did the time go?) you’re more than welcome to jump in! If you’re not part of the Facebook group, be sure to join us there too.
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Book Review: Justice Delivered by Patricia Bradley

I don’t know about you, but I usually have two or three different types of books on the go at the same time. I hop from one to the other as the mood strikes — flitting from biography to theology to general fiction. But when it comes to relaxation, there’s no genre I love more than a fast-paced suspense/mystery novel.

That’s why I was excited to review this new book: Justice Delivered by Patricia Bradley — and with its big plotlines, true-to-life characters and multiple twists and turns, this novel did not disappoint.
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Because He’s Dad

He sat beside you as you waited for the doctor to confirm the results — that little plus sign ready to change his world forever.

He held your hand through the first ultrasound as you nervously waited to hear that first heartbeat.

He went out for late night ice-cream runs, laughing with you about the pregnancy cravings and offering sweet reassurances that even with your expanding waistline and swollen ankles, you’d never looked more beautiful.

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