A Reason to Stand: FEARless (quarantine event)

The day I started my blog I thought I was going to be writing a story of hate about a broken girl, in a mess of a life, raising hurting broken children. Instead that day I was given a gift—to see that life, those kids, that girl in a new way. Instead of seeing the pain, I remembered moments where a little glimmer of light carried us through. 

A little glimmer of light is all a broken girl needs to be brave. 

Sometimes it takes a miracle to see a glimmer of light when you are—or feel—stuck in the dark. My life—just like yours—has been full of these moments. I call them grace—a gift I used to think would be given when I lived a perfect plan—but have come to see as a gift that lifts us when it feels impossible. These moments—of grace—have shown me what it feels like to have hope. In the world, in God, in others...and in myself. 

Brave isn’t a word to describe someone living a perfect plan. It is a word to describe someone who holds onto those glimmers of light through the darkness and lives life anyway. Brave is someone who is hurting and shows up for someone else. Brave is being scared to death you aren’t enough, but trusting that you have a Creator who believes you are. That’s grace—a Savior show sees us just as we are and loves us anyway. 

Grace. Watch for it. It comes quietly. It doesn’t always change the pain—or take away what is scary, but it always bring peace, if even just for a glimmer of a second.  A light at the end of the tunnel promising that there is a reason to make it through. It brings hope and light regardless of where or who we are. Hope in grace is the decision to trust in God’s plan, and to know that even this darkness will one day end. 

I know it will. 

Tonight would have been A Reason to Stand in Brigham City. Since we can’t meet in real life...we are coming to you. Follow this link to find a virtual event with so many amazing people sharing stories and tools of FEARless warriors. Please leave comments for our presenters—as speaking to a phone is so different than standing on a stage and getting the energy and direction you feel from the audience.  That is the part we all miss as we have struggled to speak from our hearts to people we don’t get to walk up and hug after.

Happy quarantine online conference. You aren’t alone. You are enough. You are brave. You are a warrior! FEARless. 

Please share with friends and family that could benefit from hearing these messages.

We miss you and so appreciate your support and the support you are giving each other through this hard time. Stay safe and healthy, and most of all look for those little glimmers of light.

Here is the YouTube link to the conference playlist:  https://bit.ly/2S23dBb

7 week do over

7 weeks. Just sounds like a random number right? Ya. It probably is for most people. A seven week old baby. For me this milestone has been one I have been scared to face. 

A few nights this week I dreamed it all again—he was seven weeks old exactly. Too young to do anything on his own, too small to even sleep through the whole night. It was just him and me in the quiet house...waiting for an answer I promised him we would find. It was his crying I remember the most that night. The rest of it with the detectives is still a blur. Somehow my memories are more clear in my dreams, but lately it has been a six week old baby that has made some of them so clear. 

8 years. I have spent doing everything in my power to forget that moment. Therapy, thousands of dollars. Time. Energy. Pleading to be able to let go of this feeling of helplessness and abandonment. Sharing my heart through my healing in ways that I didn’t want to . . . all with a promise that it would help me heal. And I thought I had. Then the last two years I have had to relive some of the feelings I thought had long since past. This pregnancy and these first six weeks of her life have been—as I wrote in my book about the moment in my closet—a “do over” I didn’t know how badly I needed.


This week as I have stared into the face of a baby getting closer and closer to seven weeks old . . . I have watched her innocent eyes as mine have filled many times with tears. I am here again. A seven week old baby in my arms. This time to heal.

These silent fears that I have carried, I am here again...to feel them, so I can let them go.

So here is to letting ourselves feel the pain, remembering the story, moving forward and walking away stronger. This “do over” has been my chance to come face to face with the fears of things that took me down that dark lonely road. Not all seven week old babies will lose their father. Not all post pregnancy bodies will be cheated on. Not all men are the same. Not all rough days will end in murder. PTSD is a real thing. Triggers you never thought would mean anything all the sudden become moments that try to take the air out of your lungs. Through these PTSD moments I have remembered things I had forgotten about that seven week old baby. He was my life line during that time, but the one thing I had given him for seven weeks, that was his lifeline, was taken away. The day after the funeral my milk dried up and I could not feed him any more. I didn't know it then, but these last few weeks as I have struggled with mastitis and cracking, and so so so much pain nursing . . . my fight  to keep going has been more than wanting to keep nursing. I felt like I had failed Tytus, not just in losing the milk, but in letting him lose so much. What is crazy, looking back, is how much I let myself believe that any of these hard trials in this story were all my fault. It has been so empowering to reflect upon them again and have these quiet moments to say goodbye to the guilt of things I could not control, the pain of things that still hurt, and remember the strength of a girl who made it through them all. 

I am so thankful for a Father in Heaven who answers our prayers. He knows me. He knows my needs. He heard my prayer that dark night. I asked him for a do over. Since that prayer, I have been in many of the situations I would have had to face had Emmett not died. Realities I said I would have done standing by his side. The second time around instead Heavenly Father told me I was worth more. I was worth more than being forgotten and used. I was worth more than having someone sneak behind my back. I was worth respect, but before I could find it in another person . . . I had to stand up for it in myself. 

Maybe I would have stayed, that gun made the choice for me. Maybe I would have had to stop nursing, maybe I would have been in a different kind of fog for a long time, had I just found out about the affair without the murder. 

We don't know what could have been in all the WHY's to our stories. Life isn't really something we can plan or try to figure out why things didn't turn out different, but this much I do know . . . we cannot do it alone. You have a Heavenly Father  and a Savior who know you. They hear you. I can promise you, the darkness that you find yourself stuck in, or the moments that try to bring you back to it . . . He is the light to change that part of your story. When you feel alone, or trapped in a place you didn't choose, turn to Him. When you feel too angry to forgive, or too hurt to let it go . . . it is through His grace that you can and will find that peace. There is no story too dark for Him to not come and bring it light. 

When the pain comes . . . those are our moments to feel, work through, and ultimately let go. Grace in action. "Do overs" sometimes aren't possible in the way that we think we want them, but they are real. Don't do WHY, it only leads to more unnecessary pain. Do life. It is pretty amazing. 

This seven week old baby just wanted to say hello. And yes I promised you her birth story, and I will carry that through, but right now we have been busy showing her what living is all about. TIME. LOVE. and family. 

Hope you guys are having an amazing summer. When nap time is a thing and all these kids are back in school I will do more with this blog. Until then please follow me on Facebook or Instagram "The Moments We Stand". I will be posting more there! 

Always the plan

I have been ghosting all of you the past few months. What started with giving some freedom to someone I thought I could trust . . . ended in a reevaluation of what and who I want to be, and what I want this blog and my non profit A Reason to Stand to become. I have never been surrounded by so many “business” people driven by power and money, than I have the past six months; masked in the form of genuine hearts willing to help.

It has been healing to step back and compare watching others try to take something that didn’t belong to them, and realize that I still had a lot of pain from another time someone came and took from me something that didn’t belong to him. I have felt like my walls went back up, leaving me too afraid to be vulnerable—and in protection mode all over again.

After a month of preterm labor, and now a few weeks engulfed in all my efforts being used up in a desperate fight to no longer be pregnant . . . it is no surprise to me that I sit here at six in the morning, feeling a need to get out of my head what has been on my mind.

Protecting our children.

I am about to give birth to a child that is coming into a different world than the other five have lived. The last time I was here, I didn’t know it, but my world was about to shatter. There have been many moments through the last nine months that I almost felt inadequate to give her a home that she deserved. A pure—un-traumatized—baby why would she want a mother who has been so broken? The dude in my head has had a great time brining me back to the fear that I couldn’t protect my other kids . . . why would this time be any different? He has been truly creative at bringing back inadequacy to a new kind of level.

So I as I have pondered these fears, and worked through some of the trauma I thought had long since passed, I have realized a few things . . .

In this world—though she hopefully won’t experience first hand what her brothers and sisters went through—she will still need to be protected from it.

We live in a world obsessed with two things. Sex and Murder. Glorified at every turn, our children are constantly bombarded with marketing full of images depicting the Hollywood version of these two sins, but what they don’t tell you is how murder really feels for the kids who live it every day.

What they don’t tell you is that both of these choices—affairs and murder—shatter hearts. What they don’t tell you is that these kids effected by losing someone close to them at the hand of another person . . . lose their childhood—their innocence—in a single moment. What Hollywood fails to portray is the years that follow. They want us to think that murder is intriguing, they want our children to think that it is just part of life. Little do they know is how it really feels when it happens to you.

So what does growing up in a world of murder feel like? It feels like panic attacks at school when a Hollywood version book about murder is read out loud to a group of 8^th graders. It feels like anxiety for weeks after a 12 year old plays a shooting game with all of his friends. Haunting nightmares after accidently seeing a commercial during a football game—a commercial about a cereal killer. Little kids scared to go up to their room alone. Kids afraid to go to school after a lock in drill. Tears in the night after someone says a simple phrase when not wanting to do a task at school,
Just shoot me in the head.” Words that in any one else’s world seem so simple—to children of murder—brings about an image that is all too real.

So to those in Hollywood who make light of taking a life . . . I want you to know that murder isn’t just a cool topic that—as my daughter’s eighth grade teacher put it—“keeps their attention because kids like this stuff”. Kids only like this stuff, because we have let it become commonplace in their life. I know for a fact that we wouldn’t let them read books about 10 different ways a sex addict raped someone—so why is it ok to have them read a book about 10 different ways a serial killer murdered people?

Our kids are being told lies. They are playing games that take away their view of the preciousness of every life. They are watching movies that glorify and give power to sex and violence. They are surrounded by images that take away the importance of fidelity and protection of life. Then we wonder why young kids bring guns into schools; we wonder why they do it in a way that they have no empathy for anyone else . . . it is because we have taught them that it is ok . . . and not just ok—we have let them come to believe that it is cool.

Our kids deserve more. They need us to care about what we let the world put into their heads. We need to protect them from the numbing effect of stories and games that fog their view of reality and fantasy. They need us to filter out the world, and teach them right from wrong. They need to learn empathy.

I learned the importance of this by parenting what the world might call “broken children”. But guess what . . . the world is the broken one. God wants us to have empathy. And my unlucky children learned that the day their father was shot in the head. They care about what others are going through and how things feel for them. They care about every emotion I feel—sometimes to an obnoxious level. They cry when their friend’s parents get divorced, because they don’t want them to hurt. They ask for an extra ten bucks when their school is raising money for a student with cancer—not because they know him well—but because they ache for another in pain.

Emapthy is what we have to teach our kids, to care about every life that is around them. Empathy—heart for another person’s needs—is what changes everything. Empathy is what this pure child who hasn’t felt the effect of trauma is going to learn from her siblings who have lived a life full of it.

So little baby. You are coming to a family that some days has felt a little broken . . . but what I finally figured out: this was always the plan. You won’t see them as your broken brothers and sisters—you will see them as brothers and sisters who learned at a young age what it is like to care. They will protect you on a fierce level at every turn, because they will never want you to hurt. They will be your warriors, because they learned a long time ago that life is precious. They will give you their hearts, because they know what it feels like for hearts to be broken. You won’t see them as broken, because it is in their broken past that they learned how to love.

Empathy is love—caring about the life and needs of another person. In a world full of empathy there is no room for the world’s view of what makes us broken. God doesn’t make any mistakes . . . so little baby, I am ready to be your mom. I am worthy to be your mom. This was always the plan. My heart is ready to do it again, and I have faith that this time it will be different. It won’t be perfect—no life is—but what I can promise you is that it will be beautiful. A perfect kind of mess. The world isn’t what we are bringing you into . . . you are coming straight into our hearts—and we can’t wait.

God’s plan is beautiful . . . and I am so glad you choose us. This was always the plan.

Silence didn't break us

March 11^th.  It is hard to believe it has been eight years. At moments it feels like it was thirty seconds ago, and others feel like it could have been a few hundred life times that have passed.

The fog always seems to try to find its way back into our hearts—I wonder if that will just always be a thing around March—yesterday I had more than one child struggle with the memories of this time of year. Memories can bring a lot of pain, anniversaries of trauma . . . those seem to be pretty instilled in the person that experienced them. It is hard to endure in your own mind . . . but nearly impossible to comprehend watching it in your child.

Since the moment I sat on my couch eight years ago—and was told many stories by detectives who had just left a crime scene, I have had more than a dozen people say to me how lucky I was that Emmett was killed, that I didn’t have to go through divorce and having him not want me as a choice.  And though I know they have meant well—and many of them only knew him from different murder mystery shows about our story (those never really portray the “body” as a human being)—I  have never once looked at that day as lucky. It was a moment that has tried to break me—and the five little people I was asked to protect—for the last eight years. I know if you asked them, they haven’t felt lucky, but blessed—we have been blessed. Blessed to have each other; blessed to see who are real friends are; blessed to see grace in our lives; blessed to fight for a relationship with our Savior; blessed to comprehend just how precious every moment of our lives really are; blessed to smile again; blessed to laugh; blessed to see each other, and share this journey together.

For them, I like to make this day about the love they had—in an imperfect man who died in a horrific way—and the love they get to carry with them through out their life . . . from each other.  So to my little warriors, on this day that is so hard . . . I want you to know you are my best friends. You did not deserve the pain you have had to face—but you absolutely deserve every blessing that has come as you have fought through it. Thank you for choosing me, believing in me, and holding me up on the days when I couldn’t stand. You are five of the bravest people I know, and by the amazing lives you are living . . . you are showing not only your Heavenly Father, but your father in heaven, just how brave you can be. Just like us—the parents who you hear cheer you on every day—I know they are too, and they couldn’t be more proud.

March 11, 2011: Silence Breaks

True Healing

**After a long conversation with a new friend, I have felt the desire to share some of the things we opened up to each other about. So after getting her permission to do so, this post was created.

This week I got a chance to talk to a new friend, who had attended the conference, this past weekend. The conversation soon turned to this, “So what about those of us who God doesn’t love—or people like me who don’t even believe there is a God . . . anymore—how are we supposed to heal. You guys stood on the stage telling everyone how your faith in Him got you through, I am calling bull shit. He has his favorites . . . and I am not one of them. So how am I supposed to make it through this hell? How are the rest of us—the forgotten ones—supposed to heal?”

Her words caught me off guard. I had never thought that maybe God had favorites—and I can promise her, looking back on my life I would never consider myself one of them if He did. I didn’t even know how to respond. I asked for clarification, “ So tell me again what you are asking? You don’t believe in God . . . but you are afraid you are not one of His favorites?”

She responded with a stern voice, “Ya. If He loved me, I wouldn’t be here right now. He would have made things right by now. I wouldn’t be ten years down the road still fighting to make it every day. So how do I heal, without Him?”

I took a deep breath, and with a love for my new friend and my faith in our Father responded, “You don’t. We all want an easy answer, and can’t look past needing to know all the whys. There is no easy fix for the messes we find ourselves in. There isn’t always an answer to the why’s that we ask over and over . . . but that God you don’t believe in—but are dying to know that He still believes in you—He is the answer. You need Him. You need His Son. You need grace, and love . . . but first you have to remember your faith. He loves you. He loves me, and the best part is . . . He has the capacity to love us all. You are a parent, you know that your heart is big enough to love each of them, hurt for each of them, but genuinely work to protect each one of them. He feels that way about you. No matter how many days you spend mad at a Being you say does not exist . . . He is spending those same days loving you right where you are. So, you ask me how you can heal without Him. I want you to know—deep in my soul, I know—you cannot.”

It was very silent; when my friend finally spoke I had begun to think I might have lost her with my sincere honesty. The next few minutes she talked about a Being—her Creator—that was greater than us all. She shared her journey with me. It was full of trauma, pain, abuse, neglect, and death. Her life story—full of darkness and secrets and pain—and she shared with  me her journey to believe that she had always been—and always would be—forgotten.

We talked for some time and shared our hearts with each other.

Today I got a message that my new friend had said her first prayer in 10 years. “And I felt His love for me.”

She was willing to let me share this story with you guys, and she wants you to know . . . God is there. He is real. We need His Son, and with His grace we have the power to heal even the darkest of moments in our lives.  You are one of His favorites, not because of anything you have done, or haven’t done . . . but because of who you are and who you were created to be. His child. A child of God.





My favorite talk on this subject. His grace is sufficient by Brad Wilcox.