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Everyday Ordinary Dawnings

We met at church — I remember that much, but little else about how she came into my life. At 14 years of age, one doesn't know to pay attention to certain deceivingly inconsequential events, but that giggling girl there on the other side of the room was destined to stay for a lifetime.

We rode four-wheelers at the river and drove the beach with windows down, sandy hair and loud music flying crazy.

She is still the only person on earth I've shared a single bed with — well, aside from a night or two with my hospitalized two-year-old.

I wore her dress to the funeral home the night before we buried Jeff. Her gesture was not unlike my own desire to clothe my brother. She was newly married to Jeff's best friend, whom she was in love with since the beginning of time. Their bond to each other was another lash layered and entangled around my heart.

The relationships in which we have the most confidence are the first to suffer our neglect, and so we have stayed in poor touch through the years. Our lives have crossed only a few times after high school graduation. We know each other’s children only from Christmas card pictures.

But her voice is the same these 35 years later, and when I hear it, I'm not talking with a stranger. We are right there, still caught up to our hearts in knowing the other.

We talk of heartache, loss, failures and success. What makes us happy, worries us, and demands our time. We talk menopause, college kids, and husbands who were once teammates. We broach aging parents and confide that we've both mostly lost touch with our coastal hometown and don’t much care.

Four days later, I'm still thinking of her, haunted in the best way by the cliché of friendships with distance yet no distance at all. It's a serendipitous delight.

This woman still gets me, even though neither of us is the girl we were then, and we haven't been privy to the process that made us who we've become since. We knew each other young, and somehow, three years in the tumultuous lives of high school girls was enough.



Photo by Cheryl Holt, via Pixabay, used with permission under the  CreativeCommons License.

May 28, 2017 No comments

Special days to celebrate family ties and other things that bind us mean more when we contemplate the deeper things that define us in these contexts. May you find a way to see the blessings that come in the messy and all too human relationships that make us who we are in the end. And may you find that it is beautiful.


"Are we afraid of growing apart? Yes. We’ve seen too many couples drift apart as they’ve cultivated hobbies and passions away from their spouse. We’re aware of the risks. But what if we are like two hands playing the same piano music?"  Read on in ...

When You and Your Husband Have Different Callings // Leslie Verner for She Loves Magazine


Our youngest is about to graduate from high school. We have faced this twice before, but this time it feels more like the ending of an age for the parent part of me, not just a milestone in my child's life. If you're facing some endings of your own of any variety, Kimberly's words are a grace.

How to Navigate a Season of Endings // Kimberly Coyle


What this video lacks in quality, it makes up for in content. It's about songwriting, but, more broadly, it's about how we are all creatives in our own way and how incredibly important our creativity is. When I sent this to Adrian, he texted back the following:









I'd be remiss if I didn't share with you where I spend a bulk of my internet time. This guy's music has been the soundtrack of my life. Adrian is a songwriter, music teacher, worship leader, and performer. He's sharing most of his music for free these days, and you can explore his music on his landing page at AdrianMichaelMusic.com.



AdrianMichaelMusic.com


May 13, 2017 No comments
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About Me

About Me
Dawn is a writer, Bible teacher, speaker, and pastor's wife. She co-founded Columbia World Outreach Church in Columbia, South Carolina with her husband, Mike. By day, Dawn manages a law firm. In the leftover hours she writes for various online and print publications. You are welcome here. What you will find is real life and a faith that's a living organism -- which is to say it's growing and sometimes cranky, exuberant, stinky, wobbly, petulant, overconfident, tired, satisfying, and beautiful. May you find here some courage to own your own days and your own unfinished faith.

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