grief – Page 3 – Melissa Schlies

Common Place Friends: Why Some of Our Friendships Don’t Last

A little over eight years ago, Tony and I left our church. It happens all the time. People leaving their church. A person, couple, or family decides they don’t fit, realizes they aren’t growing spiritually, or they get hurt by the leaders or other congregants, and they leave. Sometimes it’s messy, all the time it’s sad. For Tony and me, it was both. The fact that I’d worked at our church for over seven years, meant it came with its fair share of hurt and messiness. But then add in the fact that we each came to the church as [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-02-24T11:57:19+00:00February 24th, 2020|Categories: Acceptance, Adulting, Change, Friendship, grief, Habit Making, Relationships|2 Comments

Looking Back at 2019

About a month ago, on social media, people were posting photo’s of themselves from 2009 next to photos of themselves from this year. It was called “The Decade Challenge,” as we are all heading into a whole new decade. For a variety of reasons, I didn’t participate. But this “challenge” did make me compare my 2009 to my 2019. For me, 2009, was one of the best years of my life. With my job, I went to both Chile and India. I climbed a mountain for the first time. I finally felt like I had a life and friendships outside [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-12-19T21:48:32+00:00December 30th, 2019|Categories: comparison, grief, Uncategorized|Comments Off

The Stump of a Redwood

Other than the sound of gravel crunching beneath our hiking shoes, it was quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you hesitant to speak. And when you do, it makes you whisper. All around us giant redwood trees towered above our heads. Tony and I were in California. But rather than visiting Muir Woods, we settled for Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. Longer to say, but not as overrun with tourists, as our online research had told us. And as it was early on a Sunday morning, All was still. There wasn’t even a breeze moving through the trees. The [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-10-03T16:06:11+00:00October 7th, 2019|Categories: Acceptance, Beauty, Change, Failure, grief, Uncategorized|Comments Off

What if I Make the Wrong Choice?

This wasn’t supposed to be my story. These words found their way into my thoughts as I pulled towels out of the dryer and began folding them. A year and half into being married, at thirty years of age, I was home without a job. Each day, my most pressing responsibilities were doing laundry and making dinner. I was a stay at home wife. I never thought I’d be a stay at home wife. Even if we decided to have kids, I always pictured myself as the working mom. But now, I was what I had judged other women so [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-07-15T19:43:02+00:00July 15th, 2019|Categories: Change, Courage, Failure, Fear, grief, Hope, Making Decisions, Success, Uncategorized|Comments Off

What Holds Us Back In Friendships

Friendships are never easy. In middle school they’re all about safety, and having people to sit with in the cafeteria so you aren’t labeled an outcast. In high school, the social groups are pretty well established. But there is still the possibility of fall outs, decimating entire groups with one betrayal. Then in college, the whole deck is shuffled and we start again. The good news about college is that if you didn’t meet your BFF in high school, you get another chance. And this time, any friends you make, may share more of your values and be headed on [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-04-24T14:09:52+00:00April 29th, 2019|Categories: Courage, Friendship, grief, Rejection, Relationships, Uncategorized|2 Comments

Slow Goodbyes

Some goodbyes are fast. They blindside you and in their wake leave a painful, gaping hole in your life. But this goodbye was different. This goodbye was slow. When I moved in with my grandparents, a few months after graduation, I didn’t know my grandfather—Grampa, as I always called him—wasn’t quite himself. Looking back, there were signs that should have tipped me off. All the same, when you’re twenty-two and feel like you yourself are grasping at straws trying to figure out life, you miss things. I missed things. Until, Grampa became a part of my everyday. After I moved [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-03-06T20:50:29+00:00March 18th, 2019|Categories: Adulting, grief, Uncategorized|1 Comment

When Old Stories Become New

Have you ever heard a story so many times that you almost stopped listening whenever it was told? You knew the story, so why listen? You had it all figured out, so why pay attention? For me, I think there are many stories like that, and one of them is the Christmas story. I have heard and told the story of Mary and Joseph in the stable so many times that there’s been seasons where it almost lost it’s meaning. But interestingly, there has been other times, where the story came alive to me all over again. Surprisingly, for me, [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-17T23:58:31+00:00December 18th, 2017|Categories: Christmas, Faith, grief, Hope, Waiting|Comments Off

The Changes We Don’t Want

There are the changes in life that make our hearts feel like a firework soaring into the sky on the Forth of July, about to burst into flame. Tangibly, they look like acceptance letters, job promotions, marriage proposals, or even simply being asked out over text by that person you can’t get off your mind. These changes are the simple, sometimes long-awaited moments that send our lives into new and wonderful directions. But then, there are those other changes. The ones anxiety plagues us over. The ones we pray will never happen. Yet the ones that at some point in [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-18T19:24:30+00:00October 16th, 2017|Categories: Change, Courage, Faith, grief, Hope|Comments Off

Learn: How I Survived the Death of a Dream

When a dream dies, we can feel like failures. In some situations, there is a sting of rejection that is paralyzing. Add all of this to our broken hearts, and it can feel as if the world is ending. Only, it isn’t. And though everything seems to be screaming to us otherwise, our lives aren’t ending either. We must keep going in the midst of sometimes, unimaginable pain. We need to figure out a way to keep on living that involves more than binging on Netflix and eating carbs—but how? A little over five years ago, one of my dreams [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-19T15:51:58+00:00June 1st, 2017|Categories: Failure, grief, Hope, Identity, Learn, Love Learn Lead, perseverance|Comments Off

Between Me And You

I was just waking up. I had fallen a sleep as my husband drove us out of Connemara National Park, just north of Galway, Ireland. We now were on a narrow road, shadowed by leafy green trees. My husband had his music playing (I say his because I hadn’t heard of the artist before), and when he saw I was up he asked me if I was feeling better. I had felt a little car sick earlier. I groggily told him that I thought I was better, and then this song came on. It was what I now know as [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-19T15:53:30+00:00May 29th, 2017|Categories: Failure, grief, Hope, perseverance|Comments Off

Common Place Friends: Why Some of Our Friendships Don’t Last

Looking Back at 2019

The Stump of a Redwood

What if I Make the Wrong Choice?

What Holds Us Back In Friendships

Slow Goodbyes

When Old Stories Become New

The Changes We Don’t Want

Learn: How I Survived the Death of a Dream

Between Me And You

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