Mended: Week 4

Hi Friends. It’s Ashleigh again.

We are on Week 4 in our discussions of Mended: Pieces of a Life Made Whole. If you have yet to comment, it’s not too late. The way this book is structured, you can comment at any point. So if you’ve yet to share your thoughts, jump in.

Our readings this week are “The Sea and the Scarf,” “The Glorious Hem,” and “Worth More Than Diamonds.” Each of the chapters “spoke” to me in some way, but in my notes I want to focus on “The Sea and the Scarf.” As I read this portion, I thought of my friend Julie.

Julie is the kind of person who’s not afraid to enter into others’ pain or grief or messiness. She’s honest and raw and genuine. When she speaks of my kids, she remembers them all — not simply the ones living on this side of heaven — by name. And as Angie’s Ellie offered her love and friendship to the woman battling cancer, I imagined one of Julie’s sweet, tenderhearted daughters doing the same. Julie — who knows deep personal grief — is teaching her children well.

She inspires me, and I have no doubt others, to take the plunge. In those moments when I’m tempted to separate and protect myself from those in pain, which is something Angie notes is common (she draws that from a Beth Moore study), I sometimes think of Julie.

I’d venture to guess she and Angie would get along well.

What about you? What did these chapters bring to mind? How did they challenge you in some way?