Especially Heather
About the Author

Heather is a brain cancer survivor who lives life on the edge. She loves her family, her bald head and, most of all, her Savior’s grace. She lives in the sunny yet very humid state of Florida with her husband, three children and 2 dogs, a miniature schnauzer named Bailey...

(in)side DaySpring: things we love
& you will too!
Find more at DaySpring.com
(in)side DaySpring:
things we love
& you will too!
Find more at
DaySpring.com
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  1. Hi Heather. What a beautifully, honest yet Christ centered post! Lately I have been blogging around similar lines so your message really touched my heart. Just wanted to thank you for your words of wisdom and tell you that you are “especially” special! Much love, Janine

  2. …I’m sitting in a coffee shop with tears streaming down my cheeks. This post hit that deep place in my heart. Thank you.

  3. You have just described me and my life.

    God is using so many things to reach me the past month or so and this post is just one more thing. I have been wearing a mask for many many years so that people who do not know me beyond the surface and even those who know me very well cannot see how truly messed up I am. BUT God has been doing a lot of work inside of me and the past 6 weeks he turned up the fire a bit to get me to do some of the work also. I have faced things that I had hidden in that dark cage inside of my heart 20 years or longer. As Angela Thomas said during our Women’s Retreat -When Wallflowers Dance-this weekend for my church–the key is sitting at my feet and I am inside that cage with all the stuff. I’m not on the outside like I think I am, I’ve locked myself in there also. The lock is on the inside, no one can unlock the door for me. I have to choose to pick up the key at my feet and open the lock to get out.

    God put me at this retreat and God put me with my friends I can trust completely and He spoke some incredibly powerful words to me in a 22 hour time span! I was utterly wiped out when we were done and went home. We were asked to leave one thing behind at the retreat. One thing we were not going to hold onto any longer but give it to God. What I left behind was huge for me. And I really meant it, it wasn’t another ‘mask’- you know, I didnt do the task because I was supposed to. I really wanted to leave this issue behind and step out of my cage. I can’t explain how I feel now. I do not know the words to use because they seem so foreign to me, but I love the feeling!

  4. Oh, Heather…how I hear the cry of your heart! There’s a certain encouragement in YOUR knowing, that authenticates (?? is that the right word??) what you have to say. Your life has been challenged in places I haven’t known, and your strength and testimony is blessing to me.

    Sometimes we need to hear a strong, grace-filled, truth-covered word…like this one.

    🙂

  5. Thank you for sharing the samew struggle i face…

    “I want to be restless for Him. I want to know Him, really deeply know Him. I want to praise Him with a song that is so beautiful to His ears. I want Him to speak, whisper in my very darkness. I want Him to be the keeper of my heart.”

    This is so my desire….thank you for your encouragement!

  6. The quote at the top reminds me of one I ran across recently. “You’ll never know that God is all you need until God is all you have.” Blessings to you for sharing your beautiful spirit.

  7. I loved this. Beautiful words beautifully written. 2010 has been a very difficult year for our family and I’ve asked God so many times why things are so hard all the time. But yet I know He’s growing me and the ones I love.

  8. “Strong faith is not built on perfection.” Thank you for those words of grace, for reminding us the only firm foundation in our lives is Jesus. You are beautiful, my friend, through and through…and always through your words too. XOXO

  9. ” I look all around and see people with normal lives, normal families…and I long for that normalcy.”

    So often I have thought that. You see, I don’t have any children and even though I feel like I do want kids, it’s not in the cards for me. But I know God created me for something else, to not necessarily be a mother to human children but maybe to animals who need someone to speak for them. I look at people who have kids and wish for their lives but I know that isn’t what God wants for me. All too often we look at what other people have and wish for that, whether it be a family or a new computer and that isn’t right. We should be content with what we have because it’s what we’re supposed to have. There’s a time for everything, God makes sure of it.

  10. I love, love, love this post. It was exactly what I needed to hear today! I have been in the fire, on my knees, and desperately seeking. Exactly where HE wants me!

    Thanks for your honesty and for sharing your heart with us!
    Denise

  11. Dear Heather,

    Thank you so much for your encouraging words. I am working real hard on taking the mask off but it seems like when I do people don’t like to see me with my struggles. People who know me always wants to see me LAUGHING ALL THE TIME. I can’t do it anymore. I am on a healing Journey and if I have to pretend that everything is alright all the time then it’s not going to work. God has been talking to me about showing all the sides of me not just the all happy sides.

    i believe that I am on my way to what he wants me to be . but i also have to accept that he will use me along the way of my healing before I get to the big destination.

    I’m sorry that I haven’t shared this with you before, but you are a great inspiration to me! God Bless You!

    In Christ’s Love & prayers
    Tina

  12. Heather, My mother lost her hair due to cancer treatments when I was a child. I found out later that it was a tremendous relief for her when I had no reaction upon first seeing her without hair. Little did I know that would come back to haunt me. Whenever my brother or I would get into a fuss with her she would take off her wig and throw it at us. You know what? You can’t argue with a bald mom. It was a source of fun for her and us. She got cancer in the beginning days of research and we got 8 years we probably wouldn’t have due to the treatments. Things have improved so much since then. Although the flying wig is still a potent weapon when aimed and used correctly.
    Blessings to you …Gbump

  13. What a great and timely post! I think I needed to hear that today.

    I am writing my story in a journal-like book and some of the memories take me a wee bit into darkness and some into light. It’s facing what I conquered again and again. I find I am emotionally spent after a day of writing it.

    Still, God is in it.

  14. Thank you for your honesty. I’ve not walked where you have, but I am walking a road with my middle son that we didn’t want to go down. But He led us here and I KNOW that it is for His purpose and He will lead us down the road. We just have to take His hand and walk with Him…thanks again 🙂

  15. Heather, you are my hero. I am speechless at your life of trials. My perfectionious personality wants to fix things for you, give answers to you, yada, yada…. but, here you are–giving answers to me. Thank.you.

    xo
    Reese

  16. Did I leave a comment already? Because even if I had, I will again. I’ve been carrying this blog around on my itouch, reading it again and again and sharing with friends. Heather, bless you for your honesty. I have been through three of the most difficult years of my life and often feel the way you explained. Enough already. When God? Am I really this strong? We can get so beat down by our circumstances that some days we just need a reminder of God’s grace. We just need to know that we’re not alone out here in this world, that others feel what we feel, to know we have human companionship and that God is ALWAYS with us. Thank you for your servant’s heart.

  17. I love your beautiful heart. I love how you communicate openly, honestly and with much courage what you are walking through. I appreciate you so much!

  18. excellent! right on the mark! so true for me. Thank you for this wonderul honest and much needed to read devotional. God Bless you! 🙂