never been here before

I'm honored to have received a nomination for the Liebster Award by Karen Brown over at  Stooping for Manna . Karen is a dear person in my life, who God only placed into my life for a season, but our connection has long passed the time we had together in the same city and the same church. I am grateful for her encouragement and her amazing spirit and what it has brought to my life. Here is her shout out: "Stephanie has a way of slowing down moments and inviting her readers into them- so that you must feel, think, and experience as a reader. She is an honest and brave writer, and beautiful friend." Um... yeah. Speechless. Liebster is a German word that encompasses the following meanings: dearest, sweetest, kindest, lovely, and valued. That's a great word to name an award after. Nominating someone for the Leibster is like giving credit to someone who has a blog that you would like to bring attention to. It's a way that we, small-fry bloggers, can ch

I find myself checking my phone a lot lately. My email. My phone log, my text messages. Every few minutes. Just in case I missed it. I have a hard time leaving those I love. I even tend to hang on and stay long past the expiration date. It’s funny, though, but I generally don’t see myself as a hopeful person. But hope is the only thing that keeps me from leaving. Hope is holding me captive. This seems like this should be a good thing, no? Not if it’s false hope. Then my heart will just continue to break and I will waste my time, energy and most of, my love… on this “hope.” Walking away is hard. Because when someone has crawled into your heart (and in my case, they normally fight like hell to get there) it's very near impossible to let them go. There are very few people in my life who I consider close friends, and even fewer I count as those who get me. I don't have the emotional energy to spend on frivolous small talk, because I seek deeper connections

Say something I’m giving up on you. Because I am. I tried to hang on. Short of showing up on your doorstep in tears, I gave you more than enough opportunities to notice. To notice what I was going through. To notice how much I need you. Anywhere I would’ve followed you Actually, no. I didn’t just give you opportunities to notice. I straight up said, “I need you.” This wasn’t just some expectation I had for you to “notice.” I’m still learning to love. I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. And neither of us has to be. It’s also a lovely reminder than we are both starting from the same place. Say something I’m giving up on you. It’s not my nature to give up. I’m a fighter. Always have been. When I know someone who wants to can be better and it matters , I fight to see them become better. I walk beside them, challenge them, love them through it. But when they don’t notice either you or what you’re doing… Or notice you and what you are needed from them, it

  I’ve missed a lot of prompt words from FMF lately, which is too bad because I know how powerful those posts can be for me to write. But my life is just not in a place where I’m willing to be aware of enough that I remember to think,“Oh, it’s Friday. That’s means blogging.” Especially since I can’t seen to get FB to show the reminder post on my newsfeed. "Out of sight, out of mind" is how most things have been going for me lately, unless you’re a significant person in my life. So I’m doing my own version. Not for 5 minutes. Because BAHAHAHAHA. But I still find so much value in the inspiration words. This last week’s prompt word was “Still.” It’s 4:30am. AGAIN. I roll over and sigh, because HELLO, it’s 4:30 am and once again, I woke up and my mind is now officially racing and I’m composing an email in my head and thinking about that last phone conversation I had with friend X and wondering if I remembered to confirm my haircut appointment on Friday and asking m

Loss. It’s a word that provokes a lot of emotion. The loss can progress over time, but can also decrease over time. What kind of crazy-ass supernatural kind of emotion does that? Loss does. Sometimes loss is inevitable. Sometimes we’ve seen the writing on the wall for a while; perhaps the roller-coaster of the experience hardly made the loss a surprise. But you’re still riding on that roller coaster. This means there are ups and downs, terrifying moments of scream-filled terror and also let-go kind of joy-filled moments that set you free. Loss does this. It’s CRAZY. I’m facing a few losses right now. But there is a pretty big one in the midst of several tiny ones and I normally would be absolutely wrecked about this. But I am not. (And it’s freaking me out. Hahaha. The humor is not lost on me.) Part of me hopes my calm demeanor over this loss is simply God’s graciousness to me. Oh, please, let that be the case. But another part of me is wondering