Soul Writing
I didn’t hear about Velvet Ashes until about my sixth month in Southeast Asia. It came by way of my mom, who shot me off an email and said,...
Author: Joy Smalley
The Burden of Baggage {The Grove: Baggage}
I imagine we all have an unhealthy knowledge of baggage limits. I bet many of you can feel when a bag has reached its fifty-pound limit without having to...
Surviving College Re-entry
I was eighteen when I returned home to California. It was an intense summer before college began. I learned to drive, pump gas, get a bank account and found...
Goodbyes are Awful {The Grove: Goodbye}
I was ten years old for my first, genuine goodbye. Our church prayed for us before we left for our initial move to Mongolia. I sobbed on the sanctuary...
The Importance of Being Father
I love my Dad. He has always been my biggest cheerleader, the one I am able to receive criticism from and the one who can talk me off the...
Nature vs. Nurture- Renewing the Mind {The Grove: Personality}
I believe in asking the question, “Who am I?” It is a good question to ask and information from personality inventories can spur on conversations about our inner selves....
When In Doubt, Choose Something
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a special process that aided in discernment? I’d like to have a special prayer that I could pray, or maybe a unique...
Hold Fast to Hope
As a kid there was this boy in town that we called Baltha Dorch. Baltha means "stupid" and it was easy to tell that he had some mental difficulties....
When the Body Speaks {The Grove: Body}
In therapy a few months ago, while I was re-telling a traumatic story, my therapist asked me if I had feeling in my feet. Taking a deep breath, I...
Loneliness My Old Friend
Loneliness and I are old friends. The kind of friends that, no matter the time spent apart, when we meet again it’s as if no time has passed....
