I am struggling with my physical body. I am 43, and I have been through both death and divorce, and I feel… disheartened. I have always had to fight for a healthy body… most of us have to fight for good health. But, lately… my fighting spirit has been on vacation or something? I cannot

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I love to write. I have been blogging since 2006. In a world of Tik-Tok, Insta-everything and fast-paced social media, it is important to still SLOW DOWN. Blogs are like content-filled books, compared to the digital sticky notes that flash across the screen, to grab our attention. I have a slow-moving kind of brain-train. I

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I love rainbows. I love thunderstorms, hard rain, lightning, wind… all of it. Storms feel… powerful. I have been known to just go stand out in a storm and let the wind and rain blow violently on my skin. It is invigorating, and the power of nature and God is inspiring. The power of wind

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Holidays can be really hard after losing your spouse. Everything just feels kind of… empty… and broken. I remember the first Halloween, back in 2014, after Charles died. I wanted so desperately to enjoy it, and I wanted my children to enjoy it, because my family LOVES the holidays. But it was hard to enjoy

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I sat with someone in a leadership position, and I was seeking some guidance and counsel for my life. I had been a widow for a few years, and I was really, really, struggling at the time. I was in what I would call my “dark days,” where everything felt very bleak and desperate. I

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I am tired and battle-weary, but I keep moving forward. For almost ten widowed years, I have been operating under the motto of “Cling to Courage.” I blogged about my life on clingtocourage.com, I wrote about widowhood, and my family… remarriage, divorce… and just whatever was on my mind at the time. I have given

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I have been changed by the traumatic experiences I have been through. But… I am still me. I am still Mari. I have seen death, and survived a brutal divorce, and it has altered my heart permanently; but I hope my heart is changed for the better. I don’t want to always stay the same,

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“To smile, or not to smile,” that is the question we all must ask ourselves.  Smiling can be a very difficult thing when our hearts are heavy and the tasks before us seem insurmountable.  But we do not have to push away our sadness and grief to still feel joy. We are more likely to

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After Charles died, I knew that I had to keep going. I asked myself daily if I really believed in the things I had spent my whole life believing, and if I believed in God’s plan, and that there was a plan for me. I had this deep gut feeling that my faith was going

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What is worse… death, or divorce? This question comes up a lot for me. I have a simple answer: Both. Experiencing both is worse. I can sometimes hardly believe that I lost my first husband to death, and then also have gone through a painful divorce. There are some similarities in the pain I have

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