A Place at the Table

Some weekends fill your camera roll.

Others fill your heart.

As we traveled home from Zanesville, Ohio, I realized this weekend had done both.

Nearly forty women gathered for Made Together, each arriving with excitement, friends, and creative dreams tucked into bags and totes. But somewhere between the first cup of coffee and the last goodbye, it became about so much more than creating art.

It became about creating connection.

As I unpacked my things, I found myself thinking less about what I had made and more about what I had experienced. My mind returned to the conversations, the shared meals, the laughter echoing around the tables, the tears that quietly appeared as stories were told, and the hugs that lingered just a little longer because no one was quite ready to say goodbye.

Those were the things I carried home.

The fabulous Marlene Steele, of Marlene Steele Art

There is something sacred that happens when women gather. Not to compete or impress one another, but simply to come as they are. There is a quiet permission that settles over the room, an understanding that we do not have to perform. We only have to be present.

Throughout the weekend, stories unfolded almost as naturally as the paint flowed across our canvases. There were stories of dreams that had waited years for permission to bloom, businesses taking shape, losses that changed lives forever, healing, hope, and second chances.

Brunch with Abby and Stephanie

There were also stories of courage that did not always look loud or dramatic. Sometimes courage looked like showing up. Sometimes it looked like trying something new, sitting beside someone you did not know, sharing a part of your story, or believing in yourself one more time.

Patience and Dionne

Every story mattered. Every woman mattered. Every conversation left its mark.

It reminded me how deeply we need one another.

We live in a culture that celebrates independence. We are taught to figure it out ourselves, build it ourselves, heal ourselves, and somehow become the best version of ourselves on our own.

But I do not believe that is how we were created.

I think we were made for community. Made for encouragement. Made to remind one another of who we are when we have forgotten. Sometimes another person’s belief becomes the bridge that carries us until we can believe in ourselves again.

I have often noticed that transformation rarely begins with some grand, life-changing moment. More often, it begins quietly.

A few of us from the leadership team

With an invitation.

A conversation over lunch.

Someone saying, “You can do this.”

Someone sharing her own journey honestly enough that another person begins to believe healing is possible.

Someone making room at the table.

Those small moments rarely seem extraordinary while we are living them, yet somehow they become the turning points we remember years later.

This weekend reminded me that creativity has always been about more than making beautiful things. It gives us a reason to gather, a reason to slow down, and a reason to tell our stories.

Sometimes a paintbrush becomes permission.

Sometimes a shared meal becomes the beginning of a friendship.

A few of the ladies from our Monday night prayer group

Sometimes sitting beside someone you have just met opens the door to a conversation your heart did not know it needed.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, we begin becoming.

Not because someone tells us who we should be, but because we are seen, encouraged, loved, and reminded that we are not walking this journey alone.

As we traveled home, I realized I had not simply brought home artwork. I had carried home pieces of nearly forty stories, and in some small way, each woman had carried a piece of mine.

Perhaps that is what community has always been.

We do not leave with less of ourselves. We leave carrying a little of one another.

As we pulled into our driveway, I realized the greatest thing I brought home was not tucked inside a tote bag. It was not a painting or a new technique.

It was gratitude.

Gratitude for every conversation, every laugh, every tear, every shared meal, every hug, and every woman who so generously shared a piece of her story, my own included.

Another Made Together in the books!

Those are the things I carried home.

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion…” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, NKJV).

This weekend reminded me that we were never meant to walk this life alone.

Sometimes what we need most is not another class, another book, or another technique.

Sometimes we simply need a place at the table.

Our last evening together.

A shared meal.

A heartfelt conversation.

A listening ear.

A warm embrace.

The reminder that someone else has walked a similar road and is willing to walk a little farther beside us.

May we be the people who lift one another.

May we make room at our tables and in our hearts.

May we celebrate one another’s beginnings as joyfully as we celebrate each other’s successes.

And may we never underestimate what can happen when ordinary people gather with open hearts, willing hands, shared stories, and the courage to become.

Because sometimes the most beautiful masterpiece created is not the one hanging on the wall.

It is the community we build around the table.

The Yes I Would Choose Again

There are choices in life we make with confidence. Some arrive with spreadsheets and pros-and-cons lists, practical plans, and neat little timelines.

And then there are choices that arrive more like weather. They sweep in unexpectedly. They rearrange furniture in your soul. They alter landscapes you didn't know existed.

Love has always felt more like weather to me.

Lately, as I continue reflecting on the stories within Tattered & Mended: Soulful Stories of Life, Love and Legacy, I found myself sitting with Brian's chapter again. The chapter The Tattering and Mending I Didn't Choose. Even the title still catches in my throat a little.

Because if I'm being truthful, there were many things in that story I would never have chosen. I would not have chosen illness. I would not have chosen fear. I would not have chosen hospital rooms, hard conversations, or watching someone I loved walk a road I could not walk for him.

No one stands in line asking for heartbreak.

No one says, "Give me the chapter that will split me wide open."

But here's what I keep coming back to:

I chose Brian.

And if given the chance... I still would.

Every time.

Life has a funny way of asking us questions long after a season has passed.

Would you do it again?

Would you choose the person if you knew the ending?

Would you step toward love if you knew it would one day ask everything of you? Those questions feel easy when life is light. Harder when you've lived enough years to understand the cost of loving deeply. Because love always costs something.

Time.

Presence.

Pieces of yourself.

The willingness to be changed.

I think when we're young, we imagine love as arrival. We imagine the wedding photographs, anniversaries, family vacations, and growing old together with matching rocking chairs and inside jokes. But real love? Real love turns out to be built in ordinary Tuesdays.

In showing up.

In staying.

In learning a person's laugh.

In understanding their silences.

In memorizing the shape of their joy and the geography of their pain.

Love becomes thousands of tiny yeses.

Not one.

Thousands.

And looking back now, I realize Brian gave me things that never disappeared when he did. He changed the trajectory of my life. Not all at once. Not with grand speeches. But in small ways that became mountain-sized over time. There are people who enter our lives carrying gifts they don't even realize they hold.

Some hand us courage.

Some hand us perspective.

Some hand us healing.

Some hand us a mirror and quietly show us parts of ourselves we hadn't met yet.

Some leave fingerprints on your soul that no amount of time can erase.

Brian was one of those people.

His story inside Tattered & Mended is, of course, his own. And I won't give away all the pages here because some stories deserve to unfold in their own timing.

But I will say this: The chapter isn't only about loss.

It isn't only about grief.

It isn't only about the mending I never wanted.

It's also about choosing.

And choosing again.

About discovering that some loves become woven into us so deeply they stop feeling separate from who we are. Years later, I can still trace the threads.

I see them in my work.

I see them in the way I care for people.

I see them in the way I sit beside pain rather than run from it.

I see them in my understanding that life is fragile and sacred and wildly beautiful all at once.

The story changed me. But then again, maybe love always does. Perhaps that's the risk we quietly agree to when we say yes to people. We allow ourselves to be altered.

We hand another human being a needle and thread and say:

Here.

Help stitch yourself into my story. And maybe that is what I understand now that I couldn't have understood then. The tattering wasn't the whole story. The mending wasn't either.

Love was.

Still is.

If I had known every twist. Every ache. Every impossible moment. Every goodbye. I still would have said yes.

I would still choose him.

And perhaps that is one of the bravest things our hearts do. Not that we love. But that after being broken open by love, we remain willing to say yes again. Maybe that's where healing begins.

Not in forgetting.

Not in undoing.

But in honoring what was beautiful enough to choose twice. Or a thousand times over.

Some stories leave scars. Some leave gifts. Sometimes they leave both.

And if you're carrying a love that changed you, perhaps today is a good day to ask yourself:

Knowing all you know now...

Would you choose them again?

And perhaps, somewhere in the answer, you'll discover something about who you've become.

If you feel inclined, and have not purchased your copy you can find it here. If you have read this, I would love to hear your take on it. Possibly share if you have had a similar experience?