by Emily Wierenga | Jun 4, 2013 | cancer, church, death, faith, peace, psalm 23, shadow, sheep, shepherd, trust
I’m learning how to shepherd. I feel the call, tugging at my hemline.But before you can shepherd, you have to know what it means to be a sheep.Sabbaths are hard for me. Not because I don’t want to rest but because I feel obligated to keep doing, keep... by Emily Wierenga | May 20, 2013 | blog, blogging, brain cancer, death, korea, mum, technology, vacation, virtual community, words, writing
I am sitting across from my blogger friend and her husband, in Tennessee. The walls are cumin yellow and there is a basket of limes and lemons in the center of the dining room table.It’s lush here. It’s been raining and the leaves are the kind of green... by Emily Wierenga | Mar 5, 2013 | children, daughter, death, grief, husband, loss, miscarriage, mourning, pregnancy, prodigal magazine, wife
She slid so smoothly into the toilet.And you didn’t know you would ache like that, with a baby-shaped sadness.You didn’t know you would watch her wash out of you, that she would stain your bathroom rug red, and that you wouldn’t be able to move from... by Emily Wierenga | Feb 27, 2013 | 40 Days of Water, alcohol, brennan manning, coffee, death, drink, Easter, eating disorders, Emily Maynard, food, guilt, Lent, numbers, poverty, sacrifice, sin, theology
Welcome to Imperfect Prose on Thursdays! This week’s prompt is FOOD. Recently, an editor asked me to compile all of my stats: numbers from Facebook and Twitter and blog, etcetera.Numbers undo me. I’m an eating disorder survivor. For seven years of my life,... by Emily Wierenga | Nov 9, 2012 | canada, death, grandpa, kill, life, peace, remembrance day, soldiers, tim hortons, war, world war 2
(Grandpa Dow holding Aiden soon after he was born)Dear Grandpa,I thought of you today as I pinned my poppy into the red felt cloth of my coat. The petals and the cloth bleeding together. I was standing in line at Tim Horton’s and they had a basket full of... by Emily Wierenga | Sep 26, 2012 | book launch, book release, chasing silhouettes, death, dying, eating disorders, giclee print, giveaway, hope, imperfect prose on thursdays, meal, nurses, she loves magazine, skinny
Rachel Naomi Reimer wrote, “What a blessing it is to outlive your self-judgement and harvest your failures.”I think it’s a blessing just to outlive something.Because the nurses said I should have died. Funny, I didn’t feel like I was dying. I didn’t really feel like I...