March reminds us that winter does have an end and that warm weather is oh, so close. In North Carolina we have perfect warm, sunny days followed by cool nights, still waking up with frost on our windshields. We have the promise of spring, of blooms exploding to life around us very very soon. If we will just hold on and wait a hot minute, the trees will sigh a deep breath of waking and burst into life. Not that they haven’t been alive, it’s just all been going on underground and on the inside. 

That’s how I feel about the last 20 years. All this growth and life has been going on inside and underground and there hasn’t been much to show for how hard the work has been, or that there has been growth in me at all. Not much that I can point to anyway. But I believe this is a season for all those inside things coming to the outside – finally. All of those perspectives that have shifted, all of the self doubt and codependency that was killed, all the trauma healing that has happened from living in a world with such hard edges, it is time to begin to see the blossoms and the sweet nourishing fruit hang heavy on the branches. 

This month I celebrate coming out of the long winter. Marching forward into the beauty and deep aliveness we have ached and longed for, the goodness that we have held out hope we would see. What I do know is that it doesn’t often look like we thought it would when we were in the dead of the dark night of our souls. I am holding out for it to be so much better than we could have dreamed. 

So in the month of March, I am holding a contest of sorts – I want to hear your Stories of overcoming. I want to hear what struggle or hopeless moment you courageously overcame, and I’m going to choose one to feature in my blog. The story of overcoming I choose will be featured with portraits from a photoshoot – gifted from me to you. I am in the mood to celebrate courage, to celebrate marching forward in the face of difficulty and pain, I want to celebrate your story, even if you’re still in the middle of it, even if you have no idea how it will end, or even if you feel like you somehow failed in moving through it perfectly… maybe especially then, because we need to be able to look at our darkest, inside winter seasons and see the beauty in the imperfection. I want to hear it even if you think – oh it wasn’t that big of a deal, or no one wants to hear that, or but it didn’t work out the way I wanted. 

I say, let’s take a look at your story, at all the angles and see it through a different lens, and learn to see our struggles as what they are – pathways to beauty. 

Submit your story to [email protected]. Be sure to put how you would like to be contacted. If you know of someone with an inspiring story, please share this with them and be sure to tell them how valuable their story is and how much we all need to hear it. 

I can’t wait to hear your stories. In the meantime friends, march on into beauty. 

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