This weekend Will and I are stayed at Federal House Inn Bed & Breakfast in Plymouth, New Hampshire. What an amazing place to unwind and remember all that still remains simple.

The magnificence of the mountains, altitudinous Pine and Paper Birch Trees, and teaming streams to settle our souls back to center. For a few precious days, the metronome slowed to a soothing tick, and we let our souls run free. We took notice of the minutiae that we all-too-often miss in our everyday endeavors. More than anything, my sweet husband and I were reminded that I am alive... to write this blog, to hug our beautiful family, and heck, to even hug the trees!

I eagerly take it in. I eagerly take it ALL in. We all should!

The morning air fills my lungs and makes me feel so fortunate. Here I stand, looking out over the most amazing view of God's creations, and I force myself to think of all I would have missed. So many songs I'd never have written, paintings never to grace the walls of our home because they'd have remained a blank canvas alongside unused brushes and unopened tubes of oil paint. Bulbs never planted, flowers never to bloom. More than anything, 5 beautiful children and an incredible husband left to bravely pave their own path...minus a mother and wife to hug and love them through this journey we call life.

I find my mind wandering between my life now, juxtaposed with the alternative- and I am compelled to tell you that if faced with depression, I hope you will remember my story.

By the grace of God, instead of 5 children beside their father placing flowers on their mother's grave, my children and husband buy me perennials to plant in my cottage gardens; every year they come back with even more bountiful blooms! I spend each summer day from dawn till dusk surrounded by that which reaffirms my lust for life. My soul savors every single scent of summer, every living thing that gives proof that there is something so much bigger than all of us. Something that knew I still needed to be here, with lessons to learn, insight to impart, and memories to make. Something so wise and so all-knowing. Something that I want to share and give to you- from my heart to yours.

I want you to know about the passion that remains, albeit dormant, in a soul stuck in winter's icy grip. I want you to know that if you hold on until spring, that passion will bring all it promised-awakening you with a chorus of singing birds, and lulling you asleep with the sound of crickets clicking as they creep through evening's wet grass.

Yes, there is so much I want to tell you and I almost wasn't here to tell you. But I am here...and so are you. And we have so much to share as we celebrate that we have so much left... So much life, laughter, love...to give and receive... All because we are so much bigger than our troubles that seemed insurmountable.

So here we are. Surviving, persevering, and showing the way for those who need us. We are the light that shows lost souls where hope can be found. It never was lost. It was within us the whole time!