Author Archives: Sarah M. Wells

Advent Day 18: Dance with Me

The past several years I’ve tried with varying degrees of success to incorporate advent activities to help make this season special, to be intentional about our time together. Last year, the transition following our move to Copley and a new job combined with Brandon’s football travel season made it a little more difficult. We didn’tContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 18: Dance with Me”

Advent Day 17: Real or Not Real

A couple of weekends ago, I drove from the hospital where my mom is undergoing treatments to kill the silent cancer, to the luxury cinema on the south side of Cleveland to watch The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part Two. When I walked into the theater, there sat LeeAnn and Jillian who bounded up with hugs.ContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 17: Real or Not Real”

Advent Day 16: For Better, For Worse

With all of the crises of the world spinning around, demanding my attention, I think to myself, It’s been a while; maybe it’s gone now. Maybe all of that self-pity and loneliness got squeezed out with Mom’s cancer, work, and kids taking up all of the space. A few weeks pass and I haven’t thoughtContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 16: For Better, For Worse”

Advent Day 15: Limited Sight Distance

As we drove home from dinner the other night there was a freezing fog advisory. I had never heard of such a thing–fog when it’s below 30–but there it was, thick and thin and ethereal. It’s just air. It doesn’t push back or put up resistance; it parts and we move through it. But withContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 15: Limited Sight Distance”

Advent Day 14: Fishes Kiss

  At the end of the day, after my boys don’t listen when it’s time to get out of the tub and they don’t listen when I tell them to put their pajamas on and they don’t listen when I tell them to brush their teeth and they don’t listen when I tell them toContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 14: Fishes Kiss”

Advent Day 13: Oh God, Help Me

  I rode with my boyfriend from some youth group gathering back to his house, staring out my window as dusk turned to night. We took the curves of Geauga Lake Road and descended into the woods’ shadows. “What kind of God would save a murderer,” I spat, “just because he believed, and not me?  I’mContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 13: Oh God, Help Me”

Advent Day 12: Psalm 36:9

  When I can’t find the light, I look for it in small things glowing. I flick a switch to ignite white bulbs on branches, each reflected four-eyed in the double window pane, multiplying possibility. I find it captured in my bridal veil, cascade of white descending from a frame a foot above my desk twelve years behind me. But some nightsContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 12: Psalm 36:9”

Advent Day 11: Fashion Forward

LinkedIn offers you the option to endorse people’s skills. For instance, people can say “Sarah M. Wells knows about editing” or “Sarah M. Wells knows about proofreading.” When this happens, a little tally mark gets added to my junk drawer of sources of self-worth. Ooh, I think, someone thinks I’m good at this! Not once hasContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 11: Fashion Forward”

Advent Day 10: The Valley of the Shadow

They wheeled me down the hospital corridors the evening after my c-section to the bay area where our newborn son was being prepared for transfer to the Children’s Hospital across town. I had seen him for a second after delivery, held above the sheet that blocked our view of my internal organs, red and angryContinueContinue reading “Advent Day 10: The Valley of the Shadow”