When Celebration Becomes Worship
On Sacred Ground has been writing itself in my life over the past 46 years. I began typing its pages almost three years ago. On the evening of June 14th, 2025 in a sacred place called House of Bread, I gathered with family and friends to launch this book. We did that by worshipping the God who rescues, redeems, comforts and loves lavishly. I am exceedingly grateful and blessed by the support of my dearest people and thrilled to trust Jesus with a ministry of truth and comfort.
I offer the warmest thank you to my generous and gifted friends, Jessica Crawford ( Worship Director and Event Planner) Chelsea Anderson (photographer) Katie Swartzendruber (florist) Pearl Hurst (website development) Christine and Jamie Lam (hosts, House of Bread) and Abigail and Chuck Dubbe (event coordinators).
To my husband and siblings, Chris, Kristen, Dave and Melissa, thank you for your words, long-suffering and loving care. I know Him more through each of you.
To all who have wept with me (near and far) and to those who will, I give you my heart and my living hope, Jesus.
When Gifts Come From Grief
I learned early in our grief journey about “gifts of grief.” In fact, it’s what Alicia and I have been saying to each other for years. We are, to each other, gifts of grief. We never would’ve met without sharing the excruciating loss of babies. We connected seventeen years ago over coffee and have been friends of comfort ever since. Over the years, in every season of suffering, the gifts keep appearing. Hellacious loss bringing holy goodness. It’s certainly not a “why” to our grief, but it is a “because of” that soothes the ache and illuminates the dark.
Becca is yet another gift written into my life with His sovereign ink. I can’t type her name without tears of gratitude, though once upon a time, they were tears of sorrow. My first love, Jeff, chose Becca for forever and not me. I had never met her, but knew how worthy and lovely she must be. I was certain I would die of a broken heart. Not long after, true love came bursting into my life like a sunrise. Chris was my forever. The love I had for Jeff changed, but it didn’t go away. We grew up together during those years that matter so, fifteen to twenty-one. The ache in my heart was now replaced with an affectionate curiosity. How is he doing? How are his beautiful wife and three boys? What makes him smile and what struggles does he face?
When we lost our daughter Anna in 2005, our mutual friend Courtney shared that both Jeff and Becca wept and prayed when they heard the news. It was an answer to the pained questions I had. Does he know? Does he care? Learning that Jeff and Becca grieved for us brought significant comfort. Ten years later, I was astounded with news that brought me to my knees for Jeff and Becca. His cancer diagnosis was brutal and aggressive. I wept thinking of his family and wanted so badly to love and serve them, but it wasn’t my place. Nine months later, in his childhood home, Jeff died. I went to the funeral and hid in the back with my effusive grief. It didn’t feel right to introduce myself on such a day. That evening, Becca saw my name in the guest book and she messaged me. She was living with Jeff’s mom and needed help. She had questions about how to navigate life in this new town and hoped I could offer answers. Where do I get haircuts for the boys? Where do I enroll them in school? What counselor can I trust to help me wade through the grief? How can I make safe friends? Where do I work and where do I live? I was shocked that she wanted to connect with me, but so unbelievably grateful. We cried and hugged when we met, and I knew, the grace to be sisters was present.
It’s been nine years since we first met, and now we live side by side on a sleepy little cul-de-sac in Mennonite country. I wince to think about why we began, and yet, revel in the abundant gift that is us. Becca is a profound and sovereign gift of grief to me and to Alicia.
Becca, Kate, Alicia
Are you in a season of sorrow? Is the darkness consuming? Look for the gifts. By naming them, you light candles in the dark. This is the way to illuminate the handprints of the God who “works all things together for the good of those who love Him” (Romans 8:28). This is the way to look for greater gifts of grief.
When Panic Gives Way To Peace
It all started with Ann Voskamp, 1000 gifts and a journal. Now it’s a song, one I force myself to sing when I wake to the cacophony of demands in my life. Anxiety is a summons to panic and pain, where as gratitude, is an invitation to provision and peace. Iv’e heard again and again over the last few years, the brain cannot be anxious and grateful at the same time. Morning gratitude positions me in perspective before one foot is placed on the floor and the first “mama” is uttered. First, I ask for a song. The Spirit, my Comforter and Counselor, always extends a tune from His perfect knowledge of me. He knows what I need. This is what He gave me today:
“ Jesus we love you. Oh how we love. You are the one our hearts adore.”
I found this song on spotify and let the words wash over me, fill me and then tumble out of me. The words built a ramp on which to begin the day- the truth that no matter what happens, I have One, (and only One) to whom all of my affection can run to, be eagerly received by, and perfectly reciprocated.
Then I open my eyes and look at the gallery wall in front of me- beautiful framed pictures of meadow, flowers, mountain and stream. I am captivated by beauty, by creation and the Creator and gratitude fills me like a pitcher of water. I tip and pour-
“Thank you God for the beauty of the earth. Thank you that I am fearfully and wonderfully made though I struggle to even know what that means. Thank you for this bed, these white cotton sheets and this safe home. Thank you for the five children who sleep upstairs, for everything that makes them uniquely precious and that which makes them needy for Your sufficient grace. Thank you for the dog who drives us crazy and loves unconditionally and for the coffee waiting to be brewed and the last bit of creamer in the fridge. Thank you for the man lying next to me and everything that causes us to argue and to come repeatedly, humbly to you. Thank you for the beautiful gift of autism to this family and the ways our son is teaching us to search for hidden truths, to love mystery and the gracious art of patience and understanding. Thank you for the manna that is already lying in wait and for the bread of life that begs to be consumed on my night stand. Thank you for feet that walk and hands that move and for every hard and holy place in my life that waits expectantly for You. Thank you for this new day, come rain or come shine, and that I do not face it alone. Thank you for the food in my kitchen, the clean water in my faucets and shower and for the laughs and tears that will flow from me today. Thank you that I’ve been made me with the capacity to feel and heal and that you gaze upon me this morning, and every morning, with delight. In this place of gratitude fill me with love, joy, peace and every sacred fruit to feast on and to extend to others today.”
Now I’m ready. Ready to pull back the covers, to hold the hand of Jesus and to step onto the uncertain floor of circumstance. I don’t know what the day holds, but I know the One who holds me.
Are you living in a season where panic accompanies you into sleep and into waking? Are you consumed with worry and doubt? Is the fog so thick that you can’t even begin to see the path before you? Ask for a song! Ask the all-knowing spirit, to usher you into the peace only He has access to. Listen to the words, sing them, even if they feel untrue. Let gratitude open your eyes to the treasure you already have and the treasure soon to be enjoyed.
When Joy Feels Impossible
Weeping days turned to thunderous nights and my heart was both struck and flooded. This was not the first storm of the season. I coached my weakness; “Hold it together Kate. Your family needs you.” But as panic filled my body, my ability to function collapsed and feelings consumed. I could no longer override my nervous system. The rapid, stabbing pain in my chest was like the beat of a drum setting me to a toxic speed. I knew what I had to do. I opened my calendar, canceled my day and made my way to the cemetery.
When I arrived at my tree, my heart sank. Dead branches extended from the trunk. This oak and its plot of earth at the edge of the graveyard had been sacred ground to me for many years. I sighed with relief when glorious shade came into sight. I laid down under the full branches that reached high and commended hope to the others. My eyes followed the limbs from trunk to tip, green leaves spreading wide like open palms in thanksgiving and praise. Their message to me was clear, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice.” (Phil 4:4, ESV) Like many other seasons in my life, this instruction didn’t feel possible. Why would the Lord ask me to give Him something, when I was so desperate for something from Him? An argument passed between the tree and me. As I looked up at the canopy of branches, living and dying parts, it felt like a mirror, my own reflection staring back. That’s when my tears and words came tumbling-
“Jesus, it’s too much. The pain is too great. Jesus, I need you.”
The heaving started and I knew the eruption of anguish was more than just my own. I shook for my children who sat at home broken and bewildered. I wept for my husband and the ache this season of life was causing him. I let myself name every dying branch that extended from our lives. I wept so hard, I knew, the holy and compassionate One was weeping within me too. I felt His terrific sadness partner with my own. I cried so long and so hard I wondered how I would ever stop. I placed my phone on my chest and selected a song that articulated the depths of my pain. It was a brutal melody of lament, suffering and surrender. It was the same song I listened to three years before when this tree invited me to its shade for the first time. The day I dug a grave just deep enough to bury a ripped corner from my journal with the words…Violet Mae Katherine. Today was no different, just miscarried hopes and dreams.
“I knew from years of grieving that “Lord, here’s my life” was the only raft to carry me to a safe shore”
The space on the ground under the tree was now a tomb and an altar. I knew from years of grieving that “Lord, here’s my life” was the only raft to carry me to a safe shore. I had to lay on the alter and offer all of me to be consumed and saved by all of Him. Slowly as I emptied myself, as I renewed my trust in God, peace arrived. At first it was a break from crying and then it was a white flag waved over me. I suddenly felt like I was bubbling. I stood up and walked out from under my tree. Before I could even think about what I was doing, I found myself spinning in light. I twirled under the rays of The Great I AM. I smiled a smile that never crossed my lips before and laughed in an entirely new way. There is no way to make sense of it but to say that in the same way I cried the tears of Jesus moments before, I now laughed His joy. I danced beside a sea of graves, dying branches and a burning bush in the sky. In the stretch of a moment, everything changed. In the stretch of a moment, I was, joy-full and strong. The leaves waved, worshipped and beckoned once again, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”
Without fully understanding how, my heart and hands were now open like the leaves, and I rejoiced fully in the grace and goodness of God.
I felt entirely different from thirty minutes before and not a single circumstance in my life had changed. Every grievous thing that led me to the cemetery still lay dead or raging in the world. How could grief be followed so quickly by life? The answer came swift. A new wave of joy and gratitude engulfed me and I folded my outstretched arms in to wrap around myself, to tighten around the resurrected God who lived inside. The indwelling Savior who is Himself, joy. The One who endured the cross for one reason, the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2). That joy is not only the moment of my salvation, but every moment of resurrection in my life since. Jesus was the first one to rise from the ground with joy as strength. Have you ever wondered over His joy the moment breath filled His lungs and power surged through His veins? Can you imagine the grave clothes falling from His face and the smile which was revealed. What had been planned before the beginning of time with Father, Son and Spirit, had just been accomplished in the one and only miraculous way it could. I would say a celebration we can barely begin to fathom shook heaven wide open, and Jesus exulted in every firework of reconciliation joy bursting all around. Can you imagine Jesus, crouching down, laughing, extending His arms to permanently receive you? This is His joy and He desires for us to know it as a force of power in every crushing season of our lives.
There is a very strong temptation to blame the One who allows the dying branches in our lives. Isn’t He the God who withheld His sun and His light? How easily we forget that our enemy is on a rampage to steal, kill, destroy, and to sever our trust in the perfect love of our Father. The command to rejoice, is the compassion of Jesus inviting our suffering and weakness onto the ramp that leads to the strengthening power of joy. When nothing in our lives seems fair or good, we can always remember and rejoice at what Jesus has done, is doing and will do for us.
Friend, as you breathe fast and weep hard in the cemeteries of your life, please know, Jesus endured the curse of death because of the JOY of being your Father, most intimate friend and Redeemer. We can know that same joy as we hold fast and rejoice in the truth that we are His beloved! The command to rejoice in our suffering is in fact a compassionate response to our pain. In praise, we open our grieving hearts to be flooded by the glory of God. The enemy would have us believe that the presence of pain means He is against us, when in fact, He lived the worst pain because He is for us! I invite you today to rest in the intimate embrace of God as He holds you secure in the fiercest storm. There Will Be Joy!
When Rest Is Necessary
The admitting nurse came to take my vitals and asked what felt like a thousand jagged questions. I gave answers the best I could through humiliated sobs. I told her what I could: who I was and how I’d gotten there, but I was so shocked and confused. Was this really happening to me? Was I really failing as a wife and mother to my family? As an answer to my pained bewilderment, she said, “I know why you’re here.” I stared and she continued:
“This is your Holy Pause. God is giving you a safe space to rest and receive what you need from Him and from us. You’ve been lighting yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm. You can’t do that and not end up in the hospital. You need to rest and learn how to take care of yourself. You need to breathe.”
Her words blessed and broke me. She was right. I was charred to a crisp from years of heating our home with my very life, but I didn’t know another way. I didn’t know how to care or help my son with autism, nor his scared and hurting siblings. I had never felt more like a failure, never more pathetic or worthless than this very moment. Shouldn’t I know what they all need? Isn’t love enough? The nurse placed a very small, very strong pill in my hand and told me it would give my brain and body rest. The first three days, all I did was weep and sleep. I was catching up on both. By the fourth day, I had finally purged enough tears and slept enough hours that I could hold a conversation. I welcomed the hospital chaplain that afternoon.
“Kate, have you heard of Lectio Divina?””
She explained that it was a divine monastic practice of Scripture reading intended to promote communion with God. She asked if I had a favorite passage. I asked her to choose her favorite for me. She encouraged me to picture myself in the story, to let the Spirit speak to and guide me. I was ready to receive whatever I could from the Lord. She opened her Bible and read:
“Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!’ He replied, ‘You of little faith, why are you so afraid?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, ‘What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!’”(Matthew 8:23–27, NIV)
Her voice was melodic. The verses were a near lullaby on her lips, and I felt rocked by the words. By the end of the third reading, I was fully curled up with Jesus on the boat. I could nearly smell the salty air and hear the creak of wooden boards moved by turbulent water beneath me. I was able to feel myself in the story. I was safe in the arms of Almighty Jesus, and His peace enveloped me. It was the first time I’d felt peace in months. I began to cry because this beautiful encounter wasn’t the reality of my life experience, and I didn’t know how not to be afraid within my unrelenting, raging reality. Don’t you care that we are going to drown? Wake up, Jesus! Do something, please? I was frantically trying to scoop water out of the boat to keep from drowning when what I really needed to do was curl up with the only One who could save me. This is what made my tears fall repeatedly as I rested in that hospital bed for several more days. I wasn’t safe because of the absence of the storm, I was safe because of the gentle and great God who was present in it.
After seven days of holy pausing, I was discharged from the hospital. I reentered my life with no answers as to how to rescue our children, but I held a permanent invitation to rest with the One who could. The most essential thing I could do for our children was to model desperation and dependence. They had to see and believe that Mama trusted in almighty Jesus, even as our boat was tossed to and fro. This wasn’t (and isn’t) easy. It wasn’t instinctual. This was faith and the hardest trust I’d ever fought for. I would have to learn to recline with Jesus and fight against my human urge to figure it all out, fix things, and be our family savior. I would have to repeatedly pull back the blankets and climb into His invitation to come and rest.
It’s been several years since my Holy Pause and I can still attest to the same simple practices of self-care and faith. I still feel drawn to over-function for a love I already have. But as I curl up on the boat with Jesus and imagine myself resting as waves fall, I know I am safe and provided for in a way that hurry and panic cannot provide. Are you exhausted my friend? Are the high winds and waves throwing you from side to side? There’s a spot on the floor of the boat for you. It’s right next to the gentle God who knows what you need. Come unto Him and rest.
When Promises Hurt
“As sure as there is sand in the sea.”
These are the words I heard as I begged God for the millionth time for a daughter. Not to replace our first child Anna, no never! But to know the sweetness of loving and nurturing a little girl. I knew how healing it would be, for many reasons. One morning, with a near intolerable ache, I pleaded once again and this time I heard the Lord whisper, “Ask Me.”
It felt too bold, too demanding an inquiry of God, and yet before I even had a chance to decide, my spirit eagerly spoke for me. On rocking knees with a rapid pulse I prayed, “Lord do you have…”
Before I could complete the sentence, “a daughter for us” the answer came, “As sure as there is sand in the sea.”
I was confused at the Spirit’s words and yet a tangible power filled the room. It was nothing I could hold, but rather joy, strength and certainty that held me. It was a promise, I knew it, spoken with delight and I held it tight in my heart for twelve long years. Over those years the Lord blessed us immensely with four precious sons. Hear me when I say, they are each a complete and irreplacable treasure. Yet still, the ache for a daughter beat strong, right next to the place where I had tucked His promise. In June of 2017, we learned our sixth growing child was a baby girl. Just a couple weeks later, in the glow of promises fulfilled, my niece Beth took these pictures of me:
I am consumed with joy all over again as I write, thinking about the grace of sinking my toes into the sand and into the goodness and faithfulness of God.
On December 7th, 2017 we joyfully received, Vivian Joy Noelle. There are no words to describe the healing and the love that spread over us from God and through us to Vivi. There are also no words for the slap and sting of the next time God answered this same promise with a girl. In July of 2020, just a day after watching and worshipping God for a vibrant, wiggling baby girl, Violet Mae joined her big sister in eternity. Our book end daughters belonged to us only in longing. Anna and Violet were not ours to know or nurture and the grief was visceral and consuming. The day after my surgery, we drove to the beach with our five broken hearted children. I could barely emerge from my room, the emotional, spiritual and physical pain warring. My sister Kristen made her way to the oceans edge. There in the sand she “marked the moment” and brought this treasure back to me:
Tears flooded my eyes as the promise came rushing back on a wave, “As sure as there is sand in the sea.”
Aren’t promises fulfilled supposed to be good and kind? The God I praised for giving Vivian, I now wrestled with for taking Violet. How do we make sense of this God? How can we proclaim, “He gives and He takes away may the name of the Lord be praised.” I spent years giving this scripture the side eye, and now, it has my devoted gaze. What made the difference? What ushered me from prosecution to praise?
What I have learned over the years is that suffering stretches the soul like nothing else can, expanding the room in which God can fill us with Himself. In our agony, this might seem like a consolation prize, not a blessing. But when we know Him, truly and thoroughly, that means, the deepest part of us, the part that wants, is filled to overflowing with hope. (Romans 15:13). That hope is the only anchor powerful enough to hold us steady even as suffering beats upon us. This hope has a direct line to the throne room of God where every ounce of our pain has already been washed away, and more than that, has been redeemed. It’s the recorded and certain part of our story where praise, pleasure and satisfaction go on forever. It’s the exquisite answer to everything our souls beg for on this earth, both in and out of suffering. In heaven, pain will be exchanged for praise, and in ways we can’t presently conceive, we will eagerly require it and be shocked we didn’t harness its power and purpose every chance we could on the earth...especially in suffering.
Friend, are you hurting? Has your life known the depths of sorrow? Are you shaking a fist at the sky? Do you want to call Him Savior and yet feel He has betrayed you? Dropped you without thought into your current mess and misery? Right now, your anguish can be spiritually translated into the intrinsic need and want to know God and to worship Him. It’s the nucleus of who we are. Our very cells are thirsty for the Living Water. And joy of all joy, He suffered first, and the most, so we would never have to suffer without Him. Listen to His urgent and tender plea given to His beloved friends just hours before His death; “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace; in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, (have courage to live with expectation even as you suffer) I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, NIV, emphasis added). Our champion, Jesus, has demolished every hurtful, hateful and hellish reason we moan and mourn in this world. This is why we can praise even as He gives and takes like the tide. The question is how? How do we worship Him even as we weep. For me grieving praise looks like this:
“God, I am doubting your perfection and love, but I praise you for giving me a faith deeper than my questions and accusations. You Lord, even in this horror, are perfect in all of your ways.”
“I praise you risen Jesus that you are present with me, even though I can see nothing but darkness. I praise you for the promise that You are close to the broken hearted and save the crushed in spirit. That means whether I see you or not, You are here saving me.”
“Father, I am angrier and more sad than I knew was humanly possible to experience and still live. But, I praise You God, for you do exceedingly, abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine. May your spirit imagine within me and may your peace and love come quickly.”
Praise is powerful. Praise is a weapon. Praise is petitioning the promises of God. Our Savior will answer…just as sure as there is sand in the sea.