Some good reads this week:

A few on the topic of loss – first, this essay from Paul Kalanithi, a young doctor who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2013 and passed away at the beginning of this month. His writing is poignant and beautiful, but if you don’t have time for the entire thing, at least read the last two paragraphs. They brought tears to my eyes.

And this one from Billy Coffey, about what makes us who we are, and what happens to us and to our loved ones when our memories go. Read the entire thing, because otherwise they lose their punch, but the last two paragraphs got me on this one, too.

I felt that I could have written this post about messy consciences, except that I don’t have the skill with words nor the personal insight that she does. Still, I felt as though she had climbed inside my head as she talked about our own ridiculous attempts to justify ourselves by works.

Another essay that expresses just what I often think – this one, from Kristen Welch over at (in)courage, about being brave. I haven’t done as many brave things in response to God as I would like, but when I have, I have been terrified. As she says, “We don’t need more courage to live out our faith. We don’t need more bravery, we simply need peace to look fear in the face and discover that love is the cure for what scares us.”

Finally, I’ve said in other posts that Addie Zierman is one of my favorite writers. Still true. Her post this week about transitions is very good. “We can’t always ease each other’s transitions,” she writes, “but we can enter in to that lonely, gray space. We can stand under the sagging roof. Smile and listen and see and do our very best to understand. And in doing so, we bestow worth and beauty and honor. In doing so we say, You are worth seeing. And in doing so, we remind one another that there is something to hang on to. Something to believe in. Something to hope for.”

That’s what I have this week. How about you? Read anything good lately?