Letting Go...To Grasp What Really Matters
Guest Post by Natalie Rebecca Stafford, age 15 I was around four years old when I started asking my mom for “Talk Time.” It was more like Question Time because I always asked her to tell me “something bad” that happened in the world that day. Somehow I knew life was not always like the happy stories I read in…
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“And then I realized that to be more alive I had to be less afraid, so I did it. I lost my fear and gained my whole life.” -Cleo Wade I remember exactly where I was standing when I told my husband that my 14-year-old daughter and I wanted to travel to a foreign continent. Scott reacted just as any…
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“Do the things you always wanted to Without me there to hold you back; don’t think, just do More than anything I want to see you, girl Take a glorious bite out of the whole world.” -Snow Patrol, You Could Be Happy Lately, I’ve been expanding my knowledge on teens. I’d like to write a book to them, or for…
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{This morning, I posted the following piece on social media. My hands were shaking. I can’t remember ever feeling quite so vulnerable. Within a few minutes, there were two comments that indicated my story was her story, and we are not alone. The crack of light I discovered last week suddenly got brighter. As the morning has progressed, the light…
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“I can feel you with me in the darkness Reaching out a hand to pull me through Sadness used to think that it owned me Now sadness has to share me with you.” –Matt Nathanson, Sadness I’ve been holding onto a piece of paper for several weeks—a poem of sorts that I started in August when I was feeling sad…
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I’d pretty much assumed our hand-holding days were over. She’s 15, after all. But during an African Road Learning Trip this summer to Rwanda, my daughter repeatedly reached for my hand. Yes, hearing personal accounts from survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide was extremely difficult. Yes, we were thousands of miles away from anyone and anything familiar. Yes, the…
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