About Me

I am a 35-year-old wife to Marcus, and our temporary home is in Alabama. We just celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary this summer and the one year anniversary of the surgery that took 1/3 of Marcus' lung and a cancerous tumor with it.

I feel blessed to stay at home with our three wonderfully precious and vastly depraved little girls. They are 7, 5, and 2. Two have red hair- and no, I have no idea where it came from. I homeschool our kids and also send them to public school for supplementary education. We are never short on drama or on fun around here.

I grew up a rabid University of Georgia fan in Winter Park, FL.  I love ice cream, thoughtful books, and hot baths. My guiltiest pleasure is watching “the Bachelor” on ABC, and buying a minivan is one of the top 5 best decisions of my life.

I embrace being a mom (hello, swagger wagon!), and I believe children are such a gift from God. But I just don’t love babies, no matter how hard I try. I like to think of myself as a runner and as a twenty year old, although my track days and my twenties are long gone.
 

I am and always have been a daddy’s girl. I will venture to say that no father and daughter ever loved each other more than we do. I basically hit the jackpot with both my parents, Robert and Berta Alston. My brother Travis and I are beyond blessed.

I am a recovering legalist, as I spent most of my life thinking I am a pretty good person. Until one day in Athens, Georgia, God used Hal Farnsworth to show me that there is no one righteous, not even one, and that my best deeds are filthy rags to a perfect and holy God. At my core, I am a beggar, who by God's grace, has found the Bread of Life and the true Living Water. I hope to spend the rest of my days on earth telling other beggars where there is food. 
 

Presently I am broken, into a million tiny little pieces, after the sudden death of my precious dad on May 27, 2013. I have no training, and truly not much experience with grief.  I only know this: God is good even when grief consumes everything (hence the title “Good Grief”); When all else is despair, He is hope. He has not changed. He is ever-present.

My dad’s voice is the one I have always heard in the depths of my heart—encouraging, even pleading with me to write. In fact, the last email I got from him only a few weeks before he died was a list of quotes about writing and a note telling me how God has gifted me with words. The Lord is so sweet to use my dad’s exit from this world to ignite in me a desire to write again as I haven’t in years. 

In no way do I think my grief is the right way or the "good" way. I have no clue what I am doing here! I do not believe that time heals all wounds; Only that over time, if we confront our pain and seek Him in it, God is faithful to ease our grief. I simply offer this blog as a sacrifice of praise and a hopeful glimpse into the refining work of Jesus in my life through suffering. I pray that the light of God’s glory will blaze through the huge hole in my heart.

Thanks for joining me in pondering the Word of God and the character of God in light of pain and loss. Please offer your story, your opinions and your comments. I would be so honored for you to share them.

**Did I mention I have the greatest friends in all the world? Special thanks to Rachel Norris, Susie Lovekamp, Alexis Bolz, Jennifer Miller, my family, and other friends who encouraged me to blog about my experience (thus freeing Facebook of my emotional rambling).