Unpacking boxes after our recent move, I spotted a long-forgotten envelope. On it, I had written my parents’ home address in pencil. Unfolding the paper from the envelope, I remembered sprawling out on the carpeted floor of our church youth room with twenty other teenagers, scribbling out our goals on church letterhead paper. Our youth […]
God Was Already in the Middle of Saving Me
by on May 20, 2016 14 Comments
The day I got the news I hung up the phone, faced my toy-strewn rec room and exhaled. Now what? I knew that I should have some kind of reaction, some kind of emotion but I just felt … nothing. And everything. I was wife, mom, daughter, sister and friend. I was a Sunday […]
When It Is All Up In the Air
by on September 3, 2015 31 Comments
I realized that perhaps there was something I was trying to control when I spent two hours picking out the perfect pajamas for my girls to receive for Christmas. It was last week. Exactly 134 days before Christmas. I ordered them, and the matching dolls that go with the pictures on the front. I didn’t […]
Valleys of Trouble, Doors of Hope
by on April 9, 2015 42 Comments
I was six months pregnant, but somehow I managed to make it to the top. Not a mountain, hardly even a hill, Dùn Ì is the highest point on the small island of Iona and we’d decided to make the trek to its peak. As we hiked I gradually discarded most of the many layers […]
Full Circle, Whole Heart
by on February 26, 2015 12 Comments
By Melissa Hartwick | Twitter: @melissahartwick I moved to Nicaragua several years ago as a missionary, with a heart full of so many dreams and plans. My initial work was to start a children’s home, but I hadn’t even been here a year before I expanded that to include a rehab center for women who […]
