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The Redbud Hyphen // Surrendering to Possibility (August 2025)
The Redbud Hyphen // The Glow of Connection (January 2025)
The Redbud Hyphen // Believing (December 2024)
The Redbud Hyphen // Ghosts of Summer (June 2024)
Awake Our Hearts // Remembering Life (September 2023)
(in)courage // The Gift of a Grilled Cheese (June 2023)
Posts
shedding skin
Growing up in the 80s and 90s in the Midwest, everyone wanted golden tan skin. My friends and I went to tanning beds to get a “base tan” so that we could then slather on baby oil and lay out on the beach during Spring Break and over the summer. With my Filipina...
wise men say
My earliest memories are framed by my mother’s love of two larger-than-life figures, Elvis and Jesus. I remember getting off the school bus in front of our house and hearing Elvis’ voice all the way down the driveway, crooning from the record player inside. Loud...
taking my time
Soon after my father died in 2013, I started writing stories that became the beginnings of a memoir about me, my family, love, and faith. A few years ago, I outlined chapters and started drafting a book proposal, and late last year I committed to intentionally carving...
life stories
Our family is in the midst of becoming licensed to provide Transitional Foster Care, giving a temporary home to unaccompanied children seeking asylum at the border. I wanted to participate in the program as soon as I heard about it because it sounded like a meaningful...
are you listening?
Listening is easy when you are falling in love, talking to your best friend, receiving good news, or meeting a kindred spirit. It gets harder when the person you are talking to is not so close, and even harder when you’re distracted or tired or unsure of what to say...
seeing and listening
I believe that books come into my life when I am supposed to read them. Some months ago I found myself going down a rabbit hole after listening to a podcast. I researched the guest and her contemporaries jumping from website to Instagram profile to the library app to...
faith of our mothers
Abuelita Faith came into my life after hearing the author, Kat Armas, on the Next Right Thing podcast. As she spoke, I could hardly believe how much of what she said aligned with my experiences related to the formation of my faith and beliefs about the church. Similar...
a story of migrations/una historia de migraciones
One evening in 2017, a Polish woman named Anna came to dinner at our house. A few days after, upon her return to Poland, she was able to do research and give my husband, Mario, insights into his family’s history that seem eerily connected to the news today. Mario is...
one home to another
I feel a sense of responsibility and urgency to write about the immigrant and refugee experience, especially with all that we are seeing in the news. For some of you, this may mean a continued exploration of knowing yourselves and living authentically (as discussed in...
“We do not write in order to be understood;
we write in order to understand.”
– C.S. Lewis