Month: March 2017

The Weight of Waiting…

2003: I made a deal with God in an effort to secure my “happily ever after.”

It went a little something like this:

“Ok God, I’ve been through some pretty awful stuff. It’s helped me grow up a lot and you’ve graciously provided me with family and friends who love and accept me unconditionally. Thank you for getting me through. Now that we’ve got the hard stuff taken care of, I’d like the rest of my life to be smooth sailing. Got it?”

It seemed like things were on track too…I married a wonderful man, we have a beautiful house, I make music for a living…

waiting weight

You heard it, didn’t you? The inevitable but that’s coming…


We always knew we wanted to have children and started trying in 2011. We thought our dog Penny would be lonely once we were distracted by a baby so we adopted another dog, Shadow, to be a playmate when the baby came.

2012: No baby yet, so I applied to grad school, because I always heard you get pregnant when it’s most inconvenient to have a baby. What could be crazier than holding down two jobs and getting a graduate degree? This was definitely going to work…

waiting weight

2014: We now have two dogs,

I earned a masters in music, and….

still waiting.


We were diagnosed with infertility. The diagnosis meant that no matter how much money we were willing to spend or treatments we were willing to try there was no way we could make a baby together.

And yet we still wanted to be parents.

2016: We discovered the miracle of embryo adoption.

It’s a unique process that began because couples who have undergone fertility treatments often end up with more embryos than they can use. These embryos remain frozen in storage and are often called “snowflake babies”.

Our adoption agency matched us with a family at the end of last year and the embryos were transported to our clinic a few months ago. We get to experience the miracle of adoption AND the miracle of pregnancy…what could be better?

We are so close to becoming parents!


Close…but not yet.

I have been composing this post for months and waiting to hit publish until I had a happy ending to share.

And now I’m realizing that’s not what life is about.

Even though I would LOVE to fast forward to the happy ending!


God isn’t just here to handle the hard stuff or hand us the happy stuff.

He’s here for everything in between.

So I’m going to get comfortable with God and hand him everything.

My hopes, my dreams, and most importantly…

my timeline.

He’s got a plan for when this baby will come.

I will do my part and trust that He’s got this.

And whatever you’ve got going in your life? God’s got that too…

God IS blessing you, even in the waiting,

A Priest walks into a Harpist…

Sounds like the start of an awesome joke, right?

Even better, it’s a true story…


I was alone, driving a borrowed van, headed to retrieve my harp from school where everyone was already gone for spring break.

The place would be deserted.

This meant for the first time ever I would be faced with loading this massive harp all by myself.

Time to pray! ​ “Ok God, let’s review:

~ I’ve never loaded the harp alone.

~ It weighs 96 pounds.

~ It is the most expensive thing I own.

The way I see it, we’ve got two options:

1. Help me do it on my own or

2. Provide someone who will help me load it…

(preferably a responsible adult).”

I got to the school, covered the harp, strapped it into its custom dolly, and started walking through the building, all without seeing another soul.

Just as I was nearing the door, a man came walking through the building and asked if he could hold the door for me. I accepted and then asked if he could walk me out to the van and help load it in. He graciously agreed and we accomplished the task without incident.

As I was thanking him, I realized he was one of the priests on campus! I smile now just thinking about how God answered my prayer for a responsible adult with a priest! 

So glad I was specific, and so glad that God cares about EVERYTHING in our lives!

I created this meditation “My Hope is Built” with voice and harp is a great musical reminder of this!