Heather Caliri is another woman I’ve met through our shared writing but haven’t had the pleasure of sitting down with, face to face. There’s a vulnerability and a sense of acceptance to be found in her words. Her site is titled “Seeking the Easy Yoke,” and through reading her words I’ve learned that the burden hasn’t always been light. But I love the creative ways she tries to reclaim the faith she wants. Head over to her site when you have time to stay and read for a while. It’s worth your time, I promise you. In the meantime, today she’s giving me the opportunity to post on her blog. Here’s a letter I wrote to the 12-year-old girl I once was…

Bruno Flicker Creative commons

Dear, sweet girl. You lie there in the angle of light bent around the door, in that sheltered, private spot where the light illuminates your papers, but your parents, in the living room downstairs, can’t see you from where they are reclining. The white painted posts from the stairs in the hallway outside your door cast striped, curvy shadows across the carpet, and you hear the faint noise of a laugh track from the television below. You can’t see her, but you know your mom is wrapped in a soft blanket, quietly turning the pages of a book until she yields to her yawns and goes to bed.

In that sheltered place, you make charts, three-hole-punched sheets of graph paper, painstakingly transferring your prayer list to a new sheet when the check boxes are all filled. Maybe your prayers… << read more >>