Behold your son: Walter Wittwer [Retrieve Lament]

"There is something about generational blessing that I think is important. It is a way of passing on something mystical, a deep calling another deep, a spiritual DNA of sorts. I believe all parents should bless their children and, at the proper time, all children should bless their parents. I took it upon myself to bless him whenever I saw him. I secretly hoped that he would bless me in return. And perhaps he has. As I write this, I wonder if perhaps he has. Blessings have a way of boomeranging.”

What's one of the most lavish meals you've ever experienced?

Tamara Hill MurphyOctober 5, 2016a few reasonable words, food, feasting, hosp, storytellers, Conversation Comments

If you could talk to the world right now

Tamara Hill MurphySeptember 27, 2016finding Tamara, Conversation, storytellers Comments

Retrieve Lament: a mourning story from Nancy Linenschmidt

Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill MurphyMarch 21, 2016Retrieve Lament 2016, grief, guest post, holy week, retrieve lament, storytellers, Today you will be with me

Retrieve Lament: Paul Van Allen (Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.)

In God’s mysterious and inexplicable ways he has taken mine and your mother’s broken DNA and woven in an extra copy of the 23rd chromosome into you. The grief that that news brought us has been gradually replaced with expectation of blessing. The stories that surround different boys, girls, men, and women with Down Syndrome that have come our way since your diagnosis have been consistently stories of childlike and irreplaceable joy.

Life has its costs and its benefits and the thing about believing in God is that we look with faith for surpassing blessing. Life is not a zero sum game for those who love God.

Retrieve Lament: Rachel Brown (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)

I have Bipolar Disorder. This is not news. I always think it’s news. I always think it’s going to be so scandalous to announce. I think that telling anyone I am sick will be disappointing, will discredit any ounce of wisdom and wellness I may ever have, and undo any bit of the good I’ve done. As if this is a disease tamed by diligence and strong moral character. It does not matter how perfectly I eat, how long I sleep, how meticulously I curate my media consumption, sometimes,

I just get sick. Really sick.

Retrieve Lament: Les & Renee Aylesworth ( I am thirsty.)

Many of you were and some still are people we've never met - yet you have become family to us. You have loved us. You have personified what Jesus said in Matthew 25: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

I grew up poor, but I have never known such need as this past year: emotional, spiritual, physical. And Jesus used many of you to meet many of those needs.

Retrieve Lament: Chris Pousseur ( Woman, behold your son.)

When Max died, we suffered for something. Our suffering was redemption because we did it with our hope in Christ. God redeemed the very act of suffering not by negating it, but by bringing meaning and purpose to it, making it more whole than it was, more complete and holy. When we lost our plans for a future missionary life, I didn't have the faith to believe there was purpose or meaning. In this way, the pain and anguish from this loss quickly overtook my pain for our son. It became the less bearable of the two, and the one I avoided.

Retrieve Lament: Brian Murphy (Father, forgive them for they know not what they do)

Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill MurphyMarch 30, 2015Brian, Church, Retrieve Lament 2015, all peoples, community, forgiveness, grief, lent, retrieve lament, storytellers, Father forgive them

A mini-mag of Sarah Day's neighborhood notes from Southwest China

Tamara Hill MurphyJanuary 22, 2015Steller, epiphany, mini story, photo diaries, storytellers, walking epiphany 2015Comment

Holy Week Lament: Tamara Hill Murphy (Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!)

A eulogy to an ex-friend:

I've given up hope for now, but let's put a pin in it

-- until the One holding that first breath of

once-dead for all the coming-alive-again in His

unbloodied mouth

breathes hot life on us in the new city,

the new garden where we get to try again.

Forever.

Holy Week Lament: Nancy Gilmore Hill (I am thirsty)

With my leg stretched out in front of me, I watched the stain of red seeping through the fat wad of gauze around my toe. The aching pain moved up my leg, and I sobbed. I had no mother; I had no father. I felt so very alone, in a house on the edge of town, with no pictures on the walls and no curtains at the window.

Holy Week Lament: Tamara Hill Murphy (Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!)

Since it's only Saturday, and we haven't yet

really seen the Sunday (haven't beheld him in the clouds),

all we can do now

is hope you'll open your hands

and catch us from the

ground.

Holy Week Lament: Sharon O'Connor (It Is Finished)

The doctor patiently went on to explain what he thought best for treatment. The course he was charting included radiation and chemo for the second time in two years. There were no words for our grief.

Three months have since passed. Radiation and chemo are, again, complete. More tests lay ahead, but the view from our battered vessel shows a sliver of sunlight breaking through the stormy horizon.

Holy Week Lament: Nancy Gilmore Hill (I am thirsty)

I can still see her hands —dipping the cloth in the pan, wringing out the water, wiping my face, my damp forehead, my swollen eyes. Her hands—dipping the cloth in the water, wringing it out, wiping my face, my forehead, my eyes. Making soft, soothing sounds.

My sobs stopped, my body relaxed, and now it was just the murmuring of Flossie’s voice, the swishing of the water, the cool cloth on my face.

A gentle grace-filled quiet entered the room—and I slept.