Judson's Legacy

Heartache and Hope

The Modest Details

The Modest Details

It was just a tiny, insignificant fastener-screw. I had purchased a new watch band and was unscrewing some pieces for the replacement when one of the minuscule fasteners went flying through the air. I had no idea where it landed. So I put down the screwdriver, and my now-deficient watch, and began methodically scouring…

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Risking Love

Risking Love

I didn’t know how to tell her. I knew Jessie would be devastated. How do you share with an eight-year-old girl that another one of her friends has died? Gina Rugari, a fourteen-year-old girl from Ohio with Krabbe Disease, had clearly carved out a very special place in Jessie’s heart. Jessie would…

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The Cracked Code

The Cracked Code

The pinnacle pursuit of our culture is to be happy. The meaning of life is frequently described as achieving a state of happiness and oftentimes the parental role has been reduced to a means of simply guiding our children into happiness. The pursuit of happiness is even written into the fabric of American government as an inalienable right to be protected. We’re a people who want to be happy. But what does it mean to be happy? And what happens when life’s circumstances are anything but happy? …

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When You Show Up

When You Show Up

I’ve heard people describe how much days like these can be a blur with an existential feeling of hovering above the experience rather than being central to it—I encountered this at our son’s memorial service; much of the day felt illusory and impossible to fathom, as if reality had been suspended. But there is something etched in my memory…

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Lauren’s Song

Lauren's Song

A window of opportunity had opened, so I tentatively asked, “Can I hold her?”

“Well, you can sure try, but she doesn’t always take well to strangers,” Amanda cautioned. This is a phrase commonly expressed by moms of infants or toddlers when someone asks to hold their baby, but in this circumstance, it was unusual…

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Never Get Used To It

Never Get Used To It

I never get used to it…that moment when death, the death of another leukodystrophy child, stops me cold in my tracks. Even as the world around me keeps spinning — little girls running through my home, laundry churning in the machine and neighbors talking outside my door — I suddenly find myself…

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Not Our Usual

Not Our Usual

Today is Easter. In our family, Easter is usually set aside as a day to gather with loved ones in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus and the hope therein. Drake and I are not home today. We are not…

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United with Him

United with Him

Jesus Christ rose from the dead. This is the foundation of the Christian faith. Without the resurrection of Jesus, our faith is impotent and futile. But because Jesus is alive, having conquered death, we are invited into life-giving relationship with him…now…

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