First Place Winner, Poetry Contest Luke 1:25 Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men. He wrote, “My prayer was heard!” I thought, Which one? Can faithless prayer be answered? Or do old prayers carry old faith’s fervency, like remnant [...]
Contest Honorees, Poetry, Summer 2008
Reproach
by Elizabeth Cranford
Fall/Winter 2007, Focus Column
A Living Sacrifice
by Kathryn Lynard Soper
I SHIFTED MY WEIGHT on the pew and sighed as the sacrament meeting speaker stood to begin his talk. Seven months pregnant, I was swollen and sore, big-bellied, and exhausted from the constant demands of my five young children who were crawling on and off my nearly nonexistent lap, whispering (or not) in my ear, [...]
Grafting
by Brecken Chinn Swartz
I HAVE BEEN FEELING UNFRUITFUL. For a long time. My marriage has gone on for over twelve years with no children, despite many repeated, varied fertility treatments with their various levels of physical and emotional trauma. The monthly ups and downs of hope and despair have just about worn me out. My late-thirties feeling of autumn [...]
Infertility and Fulfillment
by Courtney Kendrick
TO SAY THAT I HAVE BEEN acquainted with infertility for two years now doesn’t sound like a lot of time. Many go for double and triple that amount. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, longed for a baby for almost a lifetime. But to those of us whose sorrows seem to be intimately tied to our monthly [...]