The truth is, the world has changed a lot since the 90’s. Ironically, many cultural messages that romanticize past generations are paired with constant warnings of danger, strangers, and people who are different than us.

We are caught in the middle of a world that longs for “90s summers” while also teaching us to fear our actual neighbors.

We tell ourselves we’re protecting our children when we teach them to “be careful” around strangers, unfamiliar places, risk.

As a parent, I get it.

We also emphasize caution in healthcare, when attention to detail and discernment can literally mean life or death for our patients.

As a healthcare professional, I get it.

Sometimes having caution is wise.

But as I’m writing my book, Doses of Humanity, I keep coming back to this thought: how easily a lifetime narrative of “be careful” can quietly shape the way we move through the world. It can make us guarded instead of curious, suspicious instead of connected.

So much of our country’s current political climate is fear-based “othering” of people who don’t follow the “norms” established by people in power. This narrative shapes real policies that affect real people.

I don’t want my daughters to grow up naively believing everyone around them is a safe person. But I also don’t want fear to be the loudest voice guiding how they see other humans.

I want them to ask questions. To notice people. To be curious about the lived experiences of people who don’t look like them. To understand that meaningful connection begins when we move beyond assumptions and toward curiosity.

The world needs discernment. But it also desperately needs humanity. 🤍

You know the ones I’m talking about. The bright, rubber ducks that adorn the dashboard of a Jeep Wrangler that is parked next to you in a parking lot. Rubber ducks that you might find in your child’s bath toy collection, sitting on the dashboard of a rugged vehicle known for off-roading? It honestly just seemed absurd. I have wanted a Jeep for as long as I can remember, and I finally bought my dream version the year I turned 40. But ducks on my dashboard?! I would never.

Then one day, someone ducked my Jeep.

I hadn’t been a Jeep owner for very long, when I came out of a restaurant to find a yellow rubber duck tucked into the driver’s side door handle of my previously un-ducked Jeep. A small note accompanied the duck, wishing me a great day.

My girls were delighted.

I was…conflicted.

I didn’t expect it to matter. But somehow, it felt unexpectedly personal and kind. A stranger, somewhere in the parking lot, had seen my [duck-less] Jeep and taken a second to acknowledge me. They would never know if I gave the duck to my children for their bath toy collection or whether it would end up on my dashboard. They simply recognized a small thing we had in common, no matter how different our actual lives may be.

That night, I went home and started reading more about this odd tradition.

The more I learned, the more my perspective changed.

In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a Jeep owner in Canada started the trend as a random act of kindness to make someone smile. It went viral. In a time when the world was socially distancing and desperate for human connection, the simple act of leaving a rubber duck on another Jeep became a symbol of acknowledgement. A moment that said, “I see you. I appreciate our shared interest. I like your Jeep.” The practice, now known as “Duck, Duck Jeep,” is a widespread phenomenon among Jeep owners (especially Jeep Wranglers), and a note sometimes accompanies the gifted duck.

Suddenly, what had looked silly from the outside felt deeply human from the inside.

I started noticing ducks everywhere. While in NYC on a girls’ trip later that year, I saw a special edition Lady Liberty duck at a souvenir counter. It caught my eye, but I didn’t buy it. (That one surprised me by showing up under my Christmas tree, a gift from my sister... my 2nd duck.)

At first, it was a novelty. But month after month, random rubber ducks would show up on my dashboard, on my windshield wipers, stuck in my door handle, at a random gas station, at a restaurant, and even at a ski resort where I vacationed with my family. Eventually, it became symbolic. Each randomly discovered duck communicated, “I see you. We share something in common.”

There’s simply something about feeling seen by a stranger, especially one who doesn’t ask anything of you. Humans crave recognition and connection, and it turns out that we don’t actually need to know the whole story about another person to feel connected. In fact, we only need to recognize our shared humanity. And shared humanity often begins with one small point of common connection.

Another fun thing about the Jeep community is the signature “wave.” This wave is a long-standing tradition of camaraderie, where passing Jeep drivers acknowledge each other with a simple hand gesture that looks like a peace sign. 2 fingers lifted from the steering wheel is all it takes to display mutual respect and community.

I no longer live in a very small town, but driving around in my Jeep now reminds me of the days back in my hometown, where everyone waved to everyone. I once had a college roommate accompany me back home to visit my family. She was from a large city, and she was confused by my wave to every passing car while we cruised Fir Avenue, the main street passing through my hometown. “Do you actually know every car we pass? I know it’s a small town, but….” I explained that it wasn’t deep familiarity (although I probably did know most of the people passing by); it was simple acknowledgement, part of the culture in the town where I grew up.

I find that I see Jeeps everywhere…because now I’m looking for them. I have more Jeep “friends” around this world than I know what to do with. But I wave at every single one.

This makes me wonder about life outside of the road.

What if we looked for shared humanity everywhere, the way my mind subconsciously searches for fellow Jeeps?

What if we intentionally looked for people to acknowledge? What if we stopped waiting to decide whether we knew enough “facts” to agree with someone, before extending kindness?

In our workplace. In parenting. In politics. In neighboring. Online.

What if shared humanity doesn’t require agreement or details? Maybe it simply begins with acknowledgement.

A rubber duck on a dashboard may seem insignificant, until you realize what it represents: one human reminding another human, “You’re not invisible. I see you.” The older I get, the more I think people are desperately searching for that simple message: “I see you.”

Maybe the world doesn’t change only through major acts of influence. Maybe it changes through small moments of recognition in everyday encounters — a wave from a passing driver, a rubber duck on a windshield, a pharmacist learning a patient’s story, a neighbor choosing curiosity over assumption.

Maybe that’s where shared humanity begins.

-Dr. Peek

Challenge: Look for one opportunity this week to acknowledge someone who may feel unseen. Bonus points if it’s someone who isn’t already a friend. Maybe it’s a neighbor you’ve avoided due to political differences. Maybe it’s the cashier in the checkout line. Maybe it’s a patient in clinic who is often difficult. Maybe it’s a coworker who you don’t know well. The point is that you don’t need more information or more time… shared humanity doesn’t require it. Ask a followup question about their life. Find a shared point of connection, and point it out. No matter how small it may be. (No ducks required.)

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But how often do we actually teach them how to do that in the small, everyday moments?

The world our kids are growing up in emphasizes independence: figuring things out on your own, becoming self-sufficient, not needing help. And while there’s value in that, we don’t talk nearly enough about interdependence —the ability to engage, communicate, and connect with other people.

In raising my three daughters, I’ve found that the most meaningful teaching moments aren’t the big ones. They’re the ordinary, often overlooked moments of everyday life. Those small moments are the ones where connection is practiced.

Here are three simple ways I’m helping my kids build real, human connection skills.

1. Let Them Order for Themselves

One summer, our family started a simple rhythm: eating at the same restaurant one Sunday a month after church.

It became more than just a meal. It became practice.

We would sit with our girls and look over the menu together. We’d help them decide what they wanted, and then we’d practice how they would say it. Simple things: making eye contact, speaking clearly, saying “please” and “thank you.”

And then came the moment.

When the server walked up, they looked to my husband and me… but instead, they were met with a tiny, confident voice from across the table:

“May I please have fettuccine Alfredo with chicken? And a side of grapes and French fries, please?”

Every time, the reaction from our server was the same: surprise, followed by delight.

Because it’s rare. (But it doesn’t have to be.)

Whether it’s a sit-down restaurant, a fast-food counter, or even practicing at home, the goal is simple:

Help your kids make a decision, practice what to say, and then give them the opportunity to speak for themselves.

Teaching connection in the small, safe moments can lead to courageous connection in the bigger human moments.

2. Teach Them How to Use a Phone (the Old-Fashioned Way)

Not texting. Not apps. Not FaceTime. (They probably already have those mastered!)

Teach them how to have an actual conversation, using their voice, when they can’t see the person on the other end of the line.

There was a time when calling a friend meant not knowing who would answer. A parent? A sibling? A grandparent? You had to be ready to introduce yourself, explain why you were calling, and ask for what you needed.

That skill is quietly disappearing.

Recently, my daughter left her glasses at her dance studio one evening after rehearsal. When she realized it the next day, she asked if I could call to check for them.

I didn’t.

Instead, I walked her through it. We looked up the number together. She dialed. She spoke.

A week later, an instructor from the studio pulled me aside to say how impressed they were that my daughter had called on her own. In all their years working there, it was rare even for older kids to make that kind of call themselves.

It struck me again:
Something so simple…is actually something significant.

Teaching our kids to use their voice to initiate, to ask, to communicate, builds confidence and connection in ways screens never will.

3. Help Them Connect with Neighbors

There was a time when borrowing a cup of sugar or an egg from a neighbor wasn’t unusual. It was normal.

You knocked on the door. You asked. You said thank you. And next time, you returned the favor.

Now in the age of convenience, you can pick up your phone and have the needed item on your doorstep in no time.

For many families today, the kind of interaction that requires asking for a favor feels rare or even uncomfortable. But when we remove those opportunities, we also remove a powerful space for connection. If you have a neighbor you know and trust, invite your kids into that relationship.

We have a neighbor who’s a rancher. Sometimes he brings home baby lambs to bottle feed, and over time, our girls have grown comfortable asking if they can come help.

Sometimes I’ll send them next door to borrow a tool or return something we’ve used. Instead of ordering a tool online to be delivered the next day, or even a random cooking ingredient I could grab from the store, we’ve gotten into the habit of asking our neighbor. Funny enough, it opens the door for them to do the same.

It’s simple. It’s old-fashioned. And it’s incredibly formative.

Learning to engage with people outside of our immediate circle—people of different ages, backgrounds, and experiences—is how kids begin to understand the world beyond themselves. (It’s also a reminder for grownups that we don’t need to have all the answers ourselves…)

The world our kids are growing up in looks very different than the one I grew up in… on so many levels. I am amazed at the tools they have right at their fingertips, ones I could have never imagined if you would have told me about them wayyyy back in the 1900s.

I also notice that with the advancements in technology and convenience, we are losing the art of human connection. We may be more connected with the world through technology, but we are also disconnected from the humans around us, more than ever.

The good news is, it doesn’t have to be either/or. We just have to be more intentional about teaching connection in the small everyday moments.

What are some practical ways you teach your kids about human connection? I would love to hear your tips in the comments!

Small moments build connected kids. Connected kids become compassionate adults.

Cheering you on in the small moments of connection,

Leigh

It’s a joyful day for people who follow Jesus, as we celebrate the Good News.

It’s also a complicated day for many people. If that’s you, I see you too.

Humans have made a mess of things, as we often do. We draw battle lines where Jesus intends peace. We create idols of the very things He rejected.

And yet He came.

Jesus entered into our messed up, polarized, confusing world. He entered in the midst of division, power struggles, an authoritarian rule.

Then, and now.

He came not in a boastful display of power but in a posture of humility. Not on a war horse but on a donkey. Not to prop up those in power, but to lift up those in need.

Then, and now.

We can refuse the twisted use of Holy scripture in our culture, used to justify violence over peace, power over humility, division over unity.

At the same time, we can live out Jesus’s call to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and to care for the poor and sick. Without asking who “deserves” it.

We can live in the tension of the both/and.

God is still good. And humans are still imperfect.

We can reject the performative efforts to use our faith as a weapon that harms others. And we can choose love for our neighbors instead.

Easter doesn’t ask us to ignore the mess. It meets us right here, in the messy middle.

It’s an invitation to lay down our need to be right, to acknowledge we don’t have all the answers, and to notice the beauty in spite of the brokenness.

Easter doesn’t belong to any political party, country, or church denomination. Jesus didn’t come to show preference for a certain nationality, ethnicity, or gender.

He came to be Love in a world that needs it more than ever.

Then, and now.

So if you find yourself questioning where you belong or caught in the both/and of today, maybe you’re not losing your faith. Maybe you’re finding it right where it was always meant to be.

Digging beneath the political noise, the performative platforms, and the distorted layers of culture… to find a story of love that refuses to stay buried.

Happy Easter, friends.

Wherever you find yourself today— full of faith, full of questions, or somewhere in between— may you know and feel the depth of a Love that doesn’t require having all the answers.

By now, you’ve raised the money. You’ve packed your bags. You are off to someplace far from here, someplace you feel called to serve.

Some of your friends are going snow skiing or to the beach with their families, but not you. You are preparing to ride hours in a crowded church van, sleep on a gym floor, and spend the next week painting houses, and building things you’ve never built before. You may even be flying hours on a plane to set up a makeshift medical clinic in the jungles of a faraway place. You will most likely be serving and talking to people who don’t look or sound like you.

You feel excited and ready for the work ahead. You want to make a difference in the world this week.

But I want to offer you a challenge, one that may feel a little uncomfortable to hear:

Your job is not to be a HERO in someone else’s story.
Your job is to be a LEARNER in the story of the people you’re visiting.

Christians love a good hero story. Even more, we sometimes love to BE the hero in someone else’s story. But when we do that, even our best “love your neighbor” efforts quietly become about us. When that happens, we end up reducing people to projects and dehumanizing the very communities we are going to serve.

So, this week stay curious.

Let curiosity shape how you see, listen, and learn.

• Be curious about your own assumptions.

  • What are the stereotypes you may have adopted?

  • What are your expectations of your role on this trip?

  • What quiet judgements might you already have?

• Be curious about what already exists. The community you are going to serve has a rich history long before you arrived. So often, we focus on the poverty and the needs; challenge yourself to highlight the strength and beauty also.

  • What is already beautiful about this place?

  • Who are the leaders already serving here?

  • What strengths does the community already have?

• Be curious about the people. Listen before you help.

  • Ask someone what they love about their community.

  • Ask what they wish people understood about where they live.

  • Ask people’s names. Pronounce them carefully. Remember them.

• Be curious about what you might learn.

  • What can this community teach you about resilience?

  • What can this community teach you about faith?

  • What can this community teach you about hospitality?

• Be curious about what happens after you leave.

  • Who continues the work?

  • What does sustainable support for this community look like?

  • How will your experience change the way you love and advocate for people in your community back home?

Your week matters. But the real story started long before you came and will continue long after you return home. Turn “the people we served” into neighbors with names. Not numbers and statistics.

Stay curious.
Listen well.
Be the learner, not the hero.

You may leave for your trip thinking you are going to change lives.
I hope that you return as one whose life has been changed. ❤️

Noticing the flowers that have once again pushed their way up through the dirt, seemingly against all odds.

Noticing the laughter of my kids on a simple Sunday afternoon at the park. Their giggles turned into squeals when they heard the unmistakable music from an ice cream truck. I let them choose a frozen treat from the endless menu, and it felt like a little burst of summer peeking through on an early March day.

Noticing the brilliant colors of a sunset through my window, the light now lingering long after dinner time.

The practice of noticing has a way of slowing us down, beckoning us to linger a while longer before rushing off to the next thing.

Noticing is like a gentle resistance to the rush of everyday life.

I’m realizing it does something else too.

It softens us.

When we practice noticing beauty in the small things, we begin to notice people more too. We become a little more curious. A little less certain. A little more open to wonder and a little less captive to our assumptions.

This week, though the world may be on fire, I want to keep noticing.

Noticing not to pretend the darkness isn’t there… but to remember that the light is too.

This difference in perspectives reminds me of an adventure my husband and I shared years ago while visiting Greece. We strolled through the open market, newlyweds hand in hand. His eyes sparkled as he looked around and saw incredible culinary potential. The most pure, fresh, fine ingredients surrounded us. He was like a kid in a candy store, all senses firing as he could practically taste the gourmet recipes that awaited him.

My senses were also on overdrive, but not in the best way. My stomach churned at the smells. My eyes cringed at the sight of fresh animal carcasses hanging behind the meat counters, blood still splattered on the butchers’ white aprons. The sounds of the market humming around me were suddenly deafening. My heart pounded, the world around me spinning, and suddenly I sprinted. I ran as fast as I could, without warning, not even knowing which direction my legs were carrying me. All I knew is I had to get out of there before the walls closed in on me (or before my growing nausea became a visible display for those around me.)

As I zig zagged through the crowded market and emerged suddenly out into the open air, my lungs felt like they could burst. I stumbled across the cobblestone street and flung myself to my knees, in a green patch of grass, willing my body to cooperate.

We were on our honeymoon, a dreamy Grecian getaway, and I’d happily agreed to an afternoon stroll through the Athens marketplace. I’d romanticized the authentic experience of shopping for the freshest ingredients, but I hadn’t expected THAT. Now, here I was, in the middle of a foreign city, surrounded by thousands of people, with no idea where my new husband was or how he might react to my bolting.

I’m happy to report that he did eventually wander outside into the open air and found me happily surrounded by mounds of Kalamata olives, barrels of fresh feta cheese, and baskets overflowing with colorful produce. He asked about my experience. He listened to my perspective. And then, without making me feel like I had overreacted, he sat with me. We had the most delightful spontaneous picnic right there on the grass.

But how on earth had we both been walking through the EXACT same environment and had such completely different experiences?! Was he right for delighting in the finest cuts of meat as he imagined what he could cook with them? Was I wrong for having a panic attack and full body reaction to the sights and smells of that same place?

Nearly 15 years from that incident, I still sometimes think about it. I think about how he, with a love of cooking and creating culinary masterpieces, looked at the best cuts of meat and only saw their potential. I think about how I, with a predisposed cringe factor for raw meat, could only see the makings of a horror film in that maze of butcher stands.

If two people can walk through the same marketplace and have vastly different experiences, it should come as no surprise that the same can be true in our homes, our churches, our group texts, and our social feeds.

Social media is like a modern day town square or marketplace. Everyone is milling about, and there is a lot of noise. It’s really not earth shattering if your social media feed does not contain the same lymphatic draining videos as your friend Amy or the same dog videos as your friend Liz… but it might be relevant that we are all forming opinions about each other based on our algorithms in this “marketplace” of our modern world. We may be assuming a shared perspective where there is none. We may be dividing over experiences that we don’t even recognize are different.

We are not all seeing the same things. We are not all responding from the same lived experiences. However, we can choose what kind of people we want to be in the marketplace.

We can be people who run away from the hard things…or people who find our way back to each other in the midst of chaos.

We can assume the worst about each other…or we can learn to ask better questions.

We can defend our own perspective… or we can stay long enough to be curious about someone else’s.

When we assume someone should be reacting the exact same way we are, we quietly build walls. We find ourselves in an echo chamber where we are surrounded by walls of judgement, superiority, or dismissal.

Maybe the goal isn’t to curate a social feed that proves we are right. Maybe the goal isn’t to sprint away from each other when the noise of our differences overwhelms us.

Fifteen years later, I’m still grateful that my husband came looking for me in that Greek marketplace, without assuming that I was being irrational. We found each other in the middle of the chaos, and we shared a meal on the grass.

Maybe that’s what love looks like in the midst of this modern marketplace we find ourselves in. Not controlling the noise. Not assuming each other’s experiences. Instead, what if we just keep finding each other - and making room?

What if we are simply brave enough to stay, curious enough to listen?

It’s simply Sunday,

-Dr. Peek

My last post was a little heavy, but necessary. I have welcomed several new subscribers over the past week, and I’m so glad you’re here. At Peek Perspectives you can expect to find a lot of grace-filled content with a healthy dose of humanity. Being a kind, grace-filled, hopeful human does not always mean staying silent and complying, hence my previous post, The Price of Silence. Often, the kindest thing we can do is to speak up for our most vulnerable neighbors, especially when it is unpopular or even controversial. Here, you will always find truth spoken in love… from a lifetime rule-follower who is learning more and more that sometimes “just following the rules” actually builds a wall between us and the very people we are meant to love.

Today, I am writing to you from a cozy AirBnB in the snowy hills of North Carolina, in the town where I last lived solo before getting married 15 years and 3 children ago. The town of Winston-Salem is so special to me. It is where I started my career as a pharmacist and the very first place I ever lived truly by myself, moving here without knowing another soul. It was a brave move away from my Oklahoma comfort zone, and one of the best decisions of my entire life. At the time, my then-fiance (now husband) was completing his pharmacy residency in Asheville, and we burned up the highway between us every weekend chance we got. After getting married, he joined me in Winston-Salem, where we rented a 900 square foot historic home in the heart of town.

We had the best years in that little house. No television, no dishwasher, and a washer and dryer that were actually in the kitchen as extensions of the small countertop. Those years spent washing dishes side by side, playing tennis at the park across the street, and running long training miles in the early morning hours before work, side by side… those were such formative years for our marriage. We launched our careers here, took weekend motorcycle trips up the Blue Ridge parkway into Virginia, and road tripped out to the coast where we ran a marathon at the Outer Banks. We played in adult coed kickball and softball leagues and mentored a group of troubled youth at our church. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was beautifully ours.

Fast forward 15 years, and life looks just as beautiful - but very different than the years we lived in that tiny house on Magnolia Street. Now, back in Oklahoma our life is brimming with the constant energy of 3 kids, 2 dogs, and our home on a couple acres on the outskirts of our college town. So, what am I doing back here in Winston-Salem, all these years later, snowed in at an AirBnB in the same neighborhood where I first lived here?

My trip down literal memory lane started with a writer’s conference in Charlotte, a trip that had been planned for many months. I had hoped to make a quick trip up to Winston-Salem after the conference ended before flying out, to possibly see some old friends. But when the forecast showed a snowstorm of the decade moving in (on top of the snow and ice this region had gotten the week before), the conference got cut short, and everyone scrambled to get flights out quickly. I debated following their lead and heading to the airport.

Instead, (with the encouragement of my family back home) I made a last minute AirBnB reservation in my favorite old town and made a beeline up here. I got settled in just hours before 11 inches of snow began to pile.

Ironically, I have so many old friends I would love to see while I am literally here in their town…but so far, the roads are preventing travel for anyone. So instead, I sit at a window in my cozy little space, in my old neighborhood, watching the snow fall as I write. I can’t recall the last time I was in a space all by myself, with no one needing me, expecting anything from me, or feeling the pressure of needing to “get things done".”

I am currently in the space that one of our conference speakers (Ann Voskamp) referred to as “non-time.” It’s the time when the world seems to stop, and your thoughts can flow freely. It’s the time when you are set aside, often in early morning hours before the world wakes up, and you can have uninterrupted space to think.

Sometimes, our perfect plans don’t pan out… but the moment we are willing to pivot, we open ourselves to the possibility of an even bigger gift.

I want to keep today’s post light, in contrast to the heaviness of the world that continues to surround us. I want to invite us to consider that in the midst of the [snow]storm, we can still find peace. It is definitely a privilege to be able to choose to step aside, and exist outside of the chaos for a while. But truly, we don’t have to choose “either/or.” We don’t have to choose whether to speak up for our vulnerable neighbors -or- to rest in the stillness of a snowy day. We don’t have to choose whether to call out the weight of the world -or- to choose to see beauty amidst the chaos. We can use our voices and speak boldly, and we can also sit in stillness so that we can return to the place where we discern our own thoughts, where we can hear God’s voice, and where we can consider our role in the greater story happening around us.

It’s simply Sunday…a pause, not an escape.

May we make room for both rest and resolve…
not an escape from responsibility, but the place where clarity is restored.

May we choose both peace and courage…
and the grace to pivot without panic when a plan (or the world) falls apart.

And may the stillness we choose today shape how we show up tomorrow…
more attentive, more compassionate, and more awake to the story that God is inviting us into.

Just for today, let that be enough.

-Dr. Peek

Boy, was I ever wrong.

The committee leadership not only told me this change was not needed, “because this error would never happen here,” - they actually ridiculed me for bringing this to the committee. They appeared insulted that I would possibly question the current procedures that had worked for decades. Nothing like this “would ever happen here.”They cited cost barriers, operational barriers, and many other “reasons” to not implement my recommended change. They rationalized their way out of doing the right thing. And then they actually laughed at me.

I’m well-versed in dealing with professional disagreements among medical teams I’ve been a part of over the years; it’s normal for healthcare professionals to have healthy disagreements during discussions about a diagnosis or treatment approach, because everyone has a unique perspective and has the patient’s best interest in mind. I’ve never taken it personally when a physician didn’t accept my recommendation.

But that day, I was devastated. I could not believe that a committee dedicated to the safety of children - seasoned medical providers - would ridicule me for bringing their attention to such an important subject. This was literally life or death, here. And what seemed like a common sense approach had been turned into a completely different narrative by those in power.

It felt like I was being told to disregard all truth and reason, and the facts I saw with my own eyes - in the spirit of not questioning the powers that be. I felt completely gaslit.

I went back to my director, appropriately up my chain of command, and reported the events that unfolded. The solution that was offered? Document it. Write down the date and the recommendation you made, along with the committee’s decision. And then? Pray that the error never happens.

I did what I was told. I followed the rules. I played nice around those committee members who I interacted with regularly. I was new here, after all, and I wanted to do a good job. I kept my head down and took good care of my patients. I occasionally mentioned my ongoing concern with some of my colleagues who bore witness to the ridicule I had experienced, and who were also in disbelief. But we continued on in our jobs, because “nothing like this would ever happen here.” For the most part, I stayed quiet and complied.

You can probably guess where this story is going.

About 2 years after that first meeting, during a routine chemotherapy-related procedure, it happened. The potential error I had called out years before, the one that “would never happen here,” the one that was too expensive to consider safeguards for, happened. By the grace of God, at the very last second, an attending physician questioned the chemo that was being handed to him to administer during the procedure. He hesitated, with the wrong chemo literally in his hands, and in that moment the error was recognized. Somehow the thing that would never happen here had made it past all the safety checks and balances that were part of our standard operating procedures, and it was seconds away from being given in a way that would cause absolute devastation.

The price of silence and ultimate compliance had nearly cost everything.

Guess what happened next? Policies changed overnight. That recommendation I had brought to the committee years before immediately went into place. Suddenly there were no barriers. Because this child’s LIFE had nearly been compromised over an avoidable error that had narrowly escaped the certain devastation it would have caused. The system we had in place had not kept this child safe, and all of a sudden no one was willing to be on the wrong side of history. Everyone agreed that something had to change.

The thing that would never happen here? It happened. And it’s happening now in our country.

I am being told once again what my eyes did not actually see, this time by our government. I am told to comply, to be silent, and to not question the powers that be. I’m told that “nothing like this will ever happen here,” in our beloved United States of America.

And this time… I am not staying silent. My eyes have seen what they have seen. I will not be gaslit again. Because once again, actual people’s lives depend on it.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think you would be okay sitting around that hospital committee table either, waiting until the thing that “would never happen” to happen in your community, to your friends, or to your family. I don’t think you’re okay with just praying that the harmful situation never takes place but then never making changes to a broken system. (And I truly hope you’re not the committee members who are sitting around laughing at the people who are concerned about the current system.)

I believe you and I care about that kid with cancer who is trusting the system to deliver the correct chemotherapy, the one that won’t kill them.

I also believe you and I care about the lives of people in our country, who are trusting the system not to kill them.

I believe some of you are staying silent because you’re just trying to, “protect your peace,” or stay on good terms with those around you. You might mean no harm by staying silent, you’re just trying to keep doing your job and “not getting distracted.” Some of you are even using your faith as an excuse to remain silent.

But we cannot afford the price of silence any longer. It is time to speak up.

Friends, we are living through more than a chemotherapy error nightmare. We are living through consolidated power that dehumanizes and ridicules anyone who questions it. We are watching as a masked army terrorizes cities, killing bystanders, separating families. We are seeing the denying of due process rights for immigrants, ICE agents entering homes without a warrant, and subjecting detained immigrants to all types of abuse. We are seeing people who have followed the rules be punished for doing exactly what they were told. We are seeing US citizens being murdered by ICE (with video evidence you can watch with your own eyes, instead of waiting for your government to tell you what you see). And then we are being gaslit and lied to regularly by the powers that be, telling us what to believe about what we just watched. Telling us that what we know to be true, isn’t actually true.

You don’t have to change your political affiliation, your conservative views, or your faith beliefs. You can want true immigration reform and for the actual “worst of the worst” to be handled accordingly. It’s does not need to be either/or. You can want all those things AND speak up to say that what is happening right now in America is not okay.

Are you willing to stand up and say that the system has to change? We need each voice, rising together… including yours.

A practical prescription: This week, the U.S. Senate will vote to give MORE funding to ICE. Call or write your elected officials to tell them to oppose any bill that maintains ICE funding. There must be major reform to this lawless broken system.

You can download the app “5 Calls” which provides talking points on important issues, and a direct link to your specific elected officials.

-or-

You can go to https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm to find your senators and their contact information.

Then make the actual call. Write the email.

If you voted for this administration? Your voice is needed now more than ever, to tell your elected officials that this abuse of power and dehumanization is NOT what you had in mind.

And if you “aren’t political” or didn’t even vote? You’re still affected by politics that determine polices in our country, that affect people…including you.

Let’s not wait until the “thing that will never happen here…” actually happens.

We truly cannot afford the price of silence any longer.

Dr. Peek

Here we stand (or perhaps slump in exhaustion) at the end of another year of time that we have been gifted in this life.

Some of you have been along for the ride of my somewhat sporadic blog posts this year, when inspiration and capacity to write have collided. Others may be here because you received my family’s Christmas card in the mail and noted this website at the bottom (and maybe you didn’t even know that I have spent years documenting my perspectives here on this corner of the internet). Either way, I am so glad you stopped by to sit and read for a moment and to offer me one of your most precious gifts…time.

Time with my family continues to be my life’s greatest joy. Four years ago, my husband and I made some career decisions that gave us more of our most precious gift: time together. Some of those decisions came unexpectedly, as pandemic-era remote work opportunities suddenly became possible. His work commute changed from 2 hours round-trip to 2 minutes across the house. My flexible work opportunities blossomed outside of the hospital where I had clocked in and out for many years. Two years ago, we bought a home on a few acres just outside the hustle of our bustling little college town. This year, we transferred our kids to a rural school in the nearby neighboring town. Our school drop-off involves the sunrise over cow pastures and not a single stoplight - and our kids have 4-day school weeks for the Spring semester, which makes space for more upcoming family adventures.

Despite our slower life rhythm, we still have very full lives. Our girls (7, 9, and 11) are very much into softball, flag football, and dance. My husband and I have coached their teams and also played in a league of our own. We still have work deadlines and house projects and never-ending laundry...and a yard that takes 10 times longer to mow than our previous one. But we have slowly and steadily built a life where we aren’t constantly counting the hours until the end of the workday or the number of days until the weekend.

Time is such a gift, and it is one we will never get back.

In 2025, I said yes to time that mattered, and it gave me more joy than expected.

That included hours in the pool this summer, where I rediscovered a love for lap swimming, my very first childhood sport. The time spent in the water not only improved my strength, but it provided mental clarity and brought much-needed peace in the midst of a chaotic world. Slowly, I worked my way up from nothing to a 41-lap swim on my 41st birthday. Time invested in your health is time well spent.

2025 also included building a relationship with a new immigrant in our community…a relationship that led to the extraordinary moment of holding her newborn baby, whom she named after me. We spent time navigating the healthcare system during her pregnancy, learning about each other’s cultures, and growing a genuine friendship. Time invested in your neighbors is time well spent.

Another meaningful investment came through a new volunteer role, where I help connect community resources with children in foster care and families in crisis. In a world that often feels overwhelming (and where it’s hard to know how to make a real difference) this work has quietly restored my faith in humanity. Time invested in your community is time well spent.

Time is, after all, how we spend our days…and therefore, how we spend our lives. In 2025, it became impossible to ignore that the way we spend our lives is never just personal; it is deeply connected to those around us.

This year, we spent a lot of time collectively in grief and shock and horror as we watched our country’s leaders dehumanize entire groups of people. We spent too much time watching strangers argue on the internet. We spent time on the phone with our elected officials, time advocating for the preservation of history and education and science. We spent time demanding to treat humans with dignity and time loving our neighbors. We spent time in meaningful conversations around tables and time in constant prayer.

And now, as we celebrate this holiday season, it is time.

It is time to be the people who use our greatest resources for the greatest good. It is time to see the people around us as humans who are worthy of dignity, respect, and love, no matter our differences.

It is time to not only speak of the peace, love, and joy of Christmas, but to let the wonders of His love truly transform the way we see each other and the way we move in the world.

Thank you for sharing your time with me. May we finish 2025 and enter into the new year in ways that are truly time(less),

Leigh

This time, it wasn’t me counseling a patient about the effects of a medication they were about to receive in the hospital. This time, I was the patient.

Before we get too far into this story, there are a few things you should know about me.

1. Up until this exact moment above, I had never undergone any type of surgery (well, besides a wisdom tooth extraction as a teenager and then laser eye surgery last summer… neither of which required general anesthesia).

2. As a clinical pharmacist who spent the first decade of my career working in hospitals, I have witnessed a multitude of surgeries, procedures, and life-altering events. From an intricate open heart surgery on a tiny infant to a laproscopic hysterectomy…from bone marrow biopsies and spinal taps to rapid sequence intubation and resuscitation events, I’ve witnessed a lot of intense medical situations. I have been in the room when a brand new human takes their very first inhale…and also in the room when a final, sacred exhale exits the body.

But none of those facts or experiences mattered as I laid there on the OR table last week, because this time I was the patient. There I was, feeling completely vulnerable - naked under a flimsy hospital gown, about to count backwards from 10 before I would literally be cut open. I only needed 10 seconds of insane courage. But for the first few seconds, sheer panic set in and my mind started rushing … 9. I know how this works…but…what if this doesn’t actually WORK? …8. I am still fully conscious, and everyone around me seems oblivious that I’m still awake. Breathe, Leigh. 7. Still here, alert and aware. Breathe. Ok, but what if… 6…. *walls closing in* 5. … … … …

Mere moments before, I had been joking with my nurse, who asked if I have ever experienced a reaction to anesthesia. “Well, it looks like we are about to find out…First timer here!” I proudly proclaimed. When my medical providers had asked me to confirm the procedure I would be undergoing, I said [jokingly] with a straight face, “tummy tuck and breast lift.” While my nurse giggled, my surgeon hadn't skipped a beat when he fired right back, “Oh, well I have you down for an appendectomy.”

Healthcare providers are human, too. And laughter is medicine. (Especially when you are nervous).

But why was I actually here on that OR table, counting down from 10? Well, HIPAA says I don’t have to tell you. But it’s my own story, so I will. I was having a benign tumor removed from my neck. Suffice it to say, my friendly little tumor needed to go; however, my main medical team wouldn’t touch it, due to the location and complex nerves involved. So, they sent me to a surgeon who knew my neck anatomy like the back of his… hand?

That day, I knew what I was getting myself into. I even chatted in detail with my anesthesiologist during pre-op about the specific medications in my anesthesia cocktail. So why was I suddenly SO anxious, laying there on that OR table?!

I was anxious because of this fact:

Knowing ABOUT something is not the same as experiencing something.

Of course, knowledge can be empowering. However, we can know all about a topic, and even witness other people experiencing it - but when it affects us personally? Different ballgame.

When it is me laying on that operating table, with medications being pumped into my veins, it doesn’t really matter what I know about as a pharmacist in that moment. When it is me in the hospital, I am no longer in control (but are we ever, really?!) I am not the one double checking the medication doses, verifying the infusion rates, or screening for drug interactions. I am vulnerable and at the mercy of the people who are in control.

That shift in power - from being knowledgeable to being completely vulnerable, left me thinking…

Just like there are a lot of things we know about in our jobs, there are also a lot of things we know about our neighbors in this world. We know the statistics. We’ve heard the stories. We can cite the issues surrounding poverty, healthcare, immigration, and injustice. We may even be actively involved in the causes we support. But until we have been on the other side of that equation, it’s hard to know what it actually feels like to be vulnerable, overlooked, or at the mercy of those in power.

Enter, the crucial role of empathy and compassion. Knowledge can inform, but connection and experience transforms. Loving our neighbors in this big, wide world means more than knowing about them. It means letting their experiences and stories and vulnerability transform us enough that it changes the way we see them - and the way we act.

Maybe the point isn't actually to know everything about the surgery ahead - or about the stranger, the foreigner, the neighbor next door. Maybe cutting through the surface to remove the underlying tumor (or underlying assumption) is just the beginning of seeing the humanity in our neighbor’s journey… and letting it call out the humanity in our own.

Deep breaths and counting down from 10,

Dr. Peek

P.S. Are you or someone you know a healthcare professional who found themselves on the “other side of the equation?” If you’re willing to share your story, I’d love to hear from you and include you in a future project. Shoot me an email at peekperspectives@gmail.com!

Yes, it’s also true that actions speak louder than words. But those words… they truly matter.

It’s a principle I emphasize to my own children, but I find that we as adults may need this reminder even more during these days of division and political unrest.

I’m so tired of being told to blame my neighbors, to blame a political party, to blame people who “don’t belong,” for the tragedies and acts of violence that unfold daily in our country. And if you are completely honest, I am guessing you might be tired of it too.

These tragic events are horrific enough. Precious children being murdered (or traumatized bystanders) while attending school. Masked men kidnapping people off the streets based on nothing but their skin color and language. Political violence that ends lives and threatens our freedom of speech. A genocide occurring right before our eyes, as the entire world watches. Just to name a few…

But the words that follow these tragic events amplify the division even further. The words that are spewed online and on the news and from political leaders become weapons that divide people far beyond the actual tragic event. The words become weapons that initiate a war of their own.

The weaponized words dehumanize people who are completely unrelated to the tragic incident of the week, people who are equally as horrified that violence is a regular part of headlines in the country that we love.

This week, I watched in horror as innocent lives were taken. And then I watched the ripple effect of that horror become amplified, as another war unfolded online. People I know in real life, arguing about how to grieve/respond/process the assassination of a well known political influencer, followed closely by another school shooting. Some people claimed the influencer had the status of a martyr, while others grieved the damaging effects this same person had on their own life.

It seemed impossible for people to simply sit collectively in their grief, or even united in anger. It was a constant game of blame and speculation and refusal to consider that other people may have entirely different lived experiences.

I watched as political leaders all the way to the top immediately speculated and pointed fingers at “the other party,” for these tragedies. I watched as a news commentator made insensitive and inaccurate remarks on air, and promptly was fired. I watched our state superintendent threaten to revoke the license of any teacher who made dissenting remarks online about the late influencer. I watched old high school friends call each other “mentally ill” as they shouted through their screens, unwilling to accept that someone might have a different view point than them.

The weaponized words widen the divides and deepen the wounds that already existed.

My daughter came home from school this week, after sharing words of a different kind with a classmate. They were words that connected, words that honored, words that held humanity. They were words of Spanish conversation she shared with a classmate from Venezuela. This classmate reminds my daughter of her former teachers at her previous language immersion school, and she is excited to keep practicing her Spanish at her new school (in the middle of rural Oklahoma).

While she was speaking with her new friend, another classmate approached them and demanded they STOP speaking in “Mexican.” To be fair, perhaps this classmate simply felt left out, not understanding the conversation. Or, perhaps, they have been taught to believe that only English should be spoken in this country… My daughter responded with laughter and gentle correction, telling them the language is SPANISH, not Mexican. The Venezuelan friend chimed in, “yeah, we aren’t even from Mexico.”

When yet another classmate accused my daughter, “Well you’re not even SPANISH…why do YOU talk like that?!” She shared that, “you don’t have to be “Spanish” to speak Spanish… in fact, you can be from Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela…or America.”

In a single exchange, we can see both the harm and healing that words can carry. They can divide our differences or deepen our understanding.

Words matter.

Let’s choose words of life, humanity, and honor - no matter our differences.

We can have our own opinions, vastly different perspectives, and even be angry with the state of our country. We don’t have to agree on everything. But let’s dispense words that hold actual solutions, find common ground, and promote healing… not weaponized words that become their own war.

- Dr. Peek

They could have never imagined being here, in this moment, in this place. They also could have never imagined that this same country who extended an invitation to them, is now turning its back on so many other families who have also come here (yes, even legally) seeking refuge and the promise of a new life. They could have never imagined they would be caught in the cross fires of debates over whether their American-born baby would be recognized as a U.S. citizen. They have no agenda, other than working hard to give their own family the best opportunity they can in this strange new land.

And yet. They sat on this blanket, with light in their eyes and hope in their hearts. They faced the night sky knowing that the darkness of future unknowns is heavy… but that it only takes a few sparks to illuminate the darkness with light.

I sat on that blanket too, holding that precious baby. I felt the weight of his little body in my arms - and the weight of my responsibility as an American, to both celebrate this land I love… and also to insist that liberty and justice for all, literally means for ALL.

I saw the light reflecting in those sweet baby’s eyes as each new burst of fireworks lit up the sky above us. “Welcome to America,” I whispered… “you belong here.”

You see, I met his mother only weeks after her arrival to the U.S., and while she was still pregnant. We became fast friends, as I was drawn to her courage, humor, and beautiful family. We navigated months of establishing medical care for her during this pregnancy, and we spent hours together in various waiting rooms. We shared countless stories, laughter, and tears. Although we came from very different places in this world, we connected as two women just trying to raise our families well, navigating the chaos in the world around us, and recognizing God’s hand in it all. We remained curious about each other’s perspectives on the world and our lived experiences. Then, she blessed me in a way I could have never imagined… by giving this baby a name that honored mine.

My privilege to be born in this country was not a result of my efforts. Her journey to this country was a direct result of her own efforts. And both of us were here in this place together only by the grace of God. There we were, families surrounding us on this blanket, watching the same fireworks illuminate the sky above us on this 4th of July.

It all felt like too much to comprehend in that moment.

As the fire made a brilliant display in the sky, I thought about the irony of it all. When the power of fire is controlled and harnessed for good, it can be used to light a path, illuminate the sky, provide warmth, and so many other ways that benefit the good of all. But when it is allowed to burn out of control, it can destroy everything around it in an instant.

This year, no matter where you found yourself on July 4th- whether boycotting the celebrations due to your frustrations with the state of our country, or whether you proudly sported red white and blue…

May we be people who are aware of the responsibility that comes with living in a free country.

May we recognize that liberty and justice for all, truly means ALL.

May we be people who hold the flames high to illuminate a path for others around us.

May we be persistent in our efforts to keep the fire from burning out of control, and to say something when we see something that threatens the safety and humanity of those around us.

May we recognize that true freedom means living in a way that makes others around us more free, too. Extending more grace, more love, and more compassion for our neighbors will not dampen our own light… it will only brighten the path we share. When we lift others up, we rise together- stronger, kinder, and more free than we could ever be on our own. ❤️

With liberty and justice for ALL,

Dr. Peek

How often do we make assumptions about the people around us, instead of pausing to learn their story? I used to believe my role as a healthcare professional was to share knowledge and solve problems. Now I know that what people need the most isn’t more information- it’s more connection. Connection that leads to compassion can change the way we view someone.

Sometimes it even changes the treatment plan.

I was in my final year of pharmacy school, completing a month long clinical hospital rotation. I met each morning with a multidisciplinary healthcare team to discuss each patient’s medical plan. My job was to assess medications they were taking, ensure we were checking the appropriate labs, and to recommend dose or medication changes if needed. As a student I was one of the least experienced members on the team, but this was a teaching hospital where learners were a welcome part of the daily hospital operations, alongside licensed healthcare professionals. I was trying to soak up every bit of a fast-paced, challenging learning experience.

But more than the medical knowledge I gained, there is one particular patient I will never forget. He was a man in his mid-fifties, but he looked at least a decade older. Part of his treatment in the hospital included an opioid pain medication that was given through a vein (IV). After many days he was improving, and our team began discussing a plan to send him home. My job was to assess his current IV medication regimen, recommend an equivalent medication he could take by mouth, and to counsel the patient on his new prescription before going home the next day.

IV medications are not equal to medications taken by mouth, so the dose must be carefully adjusted to ensure that it is safe and works well. Further, for patients who have been on an opioid pain medication for a long time, the treatment cannot be stopped suddenly. The medication dose must be reduced gradually over several days to prevent withdrawal.

For this patient, I carefully wrote out the calculations to convert his IV medication to a similar medication that he could take by mouth at home. Since he had been in the hospital for many days on this opioid medication, I wrote out a detailed taper schedule to ensure his body was slowly weaned off of it. I even made a calendar the patient could use to keep track of his medication schedule. I discussed the proposed plan with my supervising pharmacist and made my final recommendation to the medical team. The physician agreed with my plan, wrote the prescription, and asked me to deliver to the patient and provide education for him.

This was a complex patient, and I was proud of my work. I had used my knowledge to create a plan, and the people way above my pay grade (and experience) had agreed with it! As a student, this was an especially good feeling.

To be honest, I did not really want to go into this man’s room. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed a little “rough around the edges.” Or maybe it was the fact that older male patients sometimes dismissed me as a young girl who couldn’t possibly know what she was talking about. They couldn’t fathom that I would be graduating with my doctorate degree in a matter of months.

Nevertheless, I entered the patient’s room, prescription in hand. I introduced myself as the student pharmacist and began to discuss the medication plan I had so carefully designed. But as soon as I mentioned the prescription, the patient shifted in his bed and a shadow seemed to overtake his face. Had I said something wrong already? No… it wasn’t a look of doubt; it was a look of shame. He suddenly interrupted me and through nervous jitters explained that he had just graduated from a rehab program to overcome a recent drug addiction. He was terrified that he would relapse and did not want to take home the prescription that I was about to eagerly offer.

I was stunned. I had spent so much time carefully calculating, converting, and communicating a medication regimen that I was certain of, but I had missed the most important thing. How was our medical team not aware of this? Why did we not ask more questions? We were so caught up in the standard treatment plan that we had completely failed to get to know this man beyond his rough appearance and current medical diagnosis. We had seen this man as another patient who should fit into our plan, but we hadn’t truly seen him.

I acknowledged his concerns and assured him that our medical team would work together with him to make a better plan. I then lingered for a few minutes as he shared about his life, his struggles, and his fight to keep his faith. By the end of his story, tears filled his eyes. It wasn’t my pharmacy knowledge or my carefully written medication plan that he needed most at all; it was compassion.

How easy would it have been for me to hand this man the prescription, tell him my perfectly made plan, and walk away? How many other times had I done that for other patients?

How often do we do that with the people around us? We make an assumption, are quick to share our carefully curated facts or opinions, and then rarely stop to learn more.

Think of people in your life who may need compassion more than information. Is it a group of people you’ve labeled as “other” or “strange”? Or maybe someone you know well, a coworker or family member? Compassion is not just about being kind. It is about leading with curiosity.

Let’s be people who listen to the whole story before jumping to our own conclusions. Let’s dispense compassion in a world that prescribes assumptions.

Dr. Peek

I just got home from a weekend of camping at a state park with my family. My crew of 2 adults, 3 kids, and 2 dogs make my life feel like a wild adventure, anywhere… but especially when we all share a tent.

No “glamping” here (but if that’s your style, I totally get it!); instead, we all shared one very large tent, in the name of family adventure. Some of you are wondering how in the actual world that idea could possibly sound like fun, I know… but there we were, welcoming summer with arms wide open to outdoor adventures.

The evening weather was perfect, and the kids (and dogs) delighted in a sunset lake swim before we settled in with hotdogs and marshmallows roasting over a fire. The stars were brilliant, and I kept noticing all the fellow camping neighbors around us… they ranged from older couples in fancy campers with all the bells and whistles to young college kids who were there to party. Were these people here to connect with each other and nature, or to escape the noise of the world back home? Maybe both. There’s always something that draws people out into nature, though the reasons vary. No matter the differences between our camping neighbors and their journeys, there we all were - out there under the same big sky, depending on the lights of glowing fires to pierce through the darkness.

The weather forecast had showed a slight chance of rain, so we pulled our rain cover over the tent before the campfire died down for the night… but we instead got a full blown, Oklahoma summer thunderstorm as our 3am wake up call. (That was only after some campsite neighbors decided to blast their music until midnight… but who says you’re supposed to actually get a full night of sleep when you tent camp?!) 🏕️

We awoke to claps of thunder, flashes of lightning, and gratitude that we had put the rain cover over the tent. This was no calm summer rain; it was a torrential downpour. The wind whipped through the tent, but the stakes were solidly in the ground (well done, Mr. Peek!) At one point he and I looked at each other wide-eyed across our shared air mattress, silently questioning what our threshold was for staying vs. sprinting to the Jeep, loading our crew up, and heading out to safer structures. In the end, we decided to ride it out. The stakes held, and we remained dry inside our tent despite the storm around us.

It was a wild night, but we stayed.

Eventually, the thunder faded and just before dawn a calm rain lulled us all to sleep. As the sun rose, we were greeted by a flock of wild geese gleefully announcing the arrival of a new day as they set out on the lake, unbothered by the chaos of the storm. We emerged from the tent to find our swimsuits and towels strewn about the campsite… because we had left them out overnight to “dry”… tell me you’re an optimist without telling me?!

There is something about weathering a storm together that brings deeper connection. I overheard other campers in passing exchanging greetings and saying, “hey, we made it!!” as they looked around at the aftermath of the storm. My own kids, clearly sleep deprived, asked if we could “do it again.” I found myself laughing uncontrollably at one point… of course, we had planned our first summer camp out on the night it stormed. Of course, we had decided to bring our dogs who have storm anxiety. Of course, I had left our things out to “dry” overnight. Of course that slight chance of rain had turned into a full blown storm that my family will remember forever. Of course.

Not all storms in life leave us devastated, though some certainly do. All storms eventually pass through, and if we are anchored in solid ground next to our closest support people, we can sometimes remain until they pass. Other times, we have to move to safer ground. No two storms are the same, and many storms don’t leave us laughing and able to say, “let’s do it again.” But some do.

We all camp in this world in very different ways, but we are all out here together… just trying to make the most of each beautiful sunset. We are all just out here trying to survive in the wild. The more we can remember that about our neighbors too, the better we can weather the storms alongside them.

Next week, I will resume my neighbor stories in my series, “Dispensing Welcome in a World that Prescribes Walls.” But for today, I’ll just be recovering from our wild family adventure.

I hope you take a moment today too, to rest and camp with your thoughts wherever you are… to look up at the moon and marvel at the stars. To breathe gratitude to our Creator, and to anchor your stakes.

The storms will come, that is a guarantee. But if we can hold fast to our divine anchor, and link arms with the people around us, we just might be able to emerge together and say, “hey, we made it!”

Camped out,

Dr. Peek

P.S. Who would like to loan me their fancy camper for my next family adventure? ; )

In this series, I am sharing about several real life encounters with people who have crossed my path in life, and how leaning into our differences with curiosity (instead of putting up a wall and walking away) have enriched my life beyond measure. Not only that, but these encounters have allowed me to continue seeing the people behind the “issues” and feeling a sense of connection to the world far beyond my little bubble.

Allow me to share a story about my friend Shannon…

Years ago, my newlywed husband and I had just returned from the vacation of our dreams in beautiful Santorini, Greece. It was a Monday morning, and I was still jet lagged, as I shuffled out the door on my way to work. I was still dreaming of the iconic whitewashed buildings against that brilliant blue sky on Santorini, still savoring the fresh Greek food we had eaten overlooking the breathtaking Mediterranean sunsets. But now, it was back to reality and back to work.

Years ago, I made it a personal daily practice to ask God each morning to show me opportunities to love my neighbors that day. On this particular day I mumbled this prayer as a habit, and then trudged through my busy work day. Before I knew it, it was time to go home. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked forward to an early bedtime.

As I pulled up to our house and stepped out of my vehicle onto our gravel drive, I heard a voice, "Excuse me...miss??" I turned towards the park across the street to see a woman who was clearly in distress. She hobbled towards me, wheeling her bicycle which was obviously in need of repair. The look on her face and sweat on her brow told me she had been walking for a long time in the heat of the day. "Could you please help me? My bike is broken, and I am so thirsty. Could you spare a cup of water?"

I immediately felt compassion for her. But something deep inside of me was also a little irritated- I was SO close to that afternoon nap I'd looked forward to all day, and now this. Oh well, the least I can do is get her some water...

She sat in the shade on our front porch while I brought her a glass of cold water. "Now what?" I asked God. Learn her story was the answer I felt in my heart. So, I proceeded to ask about her- where she was from, where she was going. I quickly learned that her name was Shannon, she had been biking around town all day, looking for work. Her bike broke down and she was miles from home now. She was discouraged, tired, and hungry. Okay, I can at least give her something to eat. I went inside and got a granola bar and pack of peanut butter crackers for her, which was all I could offer at this point; I hadn’t yet gone grocery shopping upon return from vacation. She was extremely grateful, but she didn’t leave. She continued to sit there and tell me about her life... how she had been in and out of foster care growing up, had felt abandoned, and now was down on her luck. I wanted to pray for her and send her on her way, but a feeling tugging at my heart told me to do more. You asked for a chance to love your neighbors today…Here she is, I felt God saying.

She hadn't asked for money. She was too tired to work, after spending a long day out in the heat. But she had mentioned she needed food. So, with the grocery store only a few blocks away, I offered to take her to get some groceries. We walked to the store, wheeling her broken bike, and she continued to tell me about her life. She walked up and down each aisle of the store, carefully picking out food items, each time asking, "Is this too much? Can I get this too?" I certainly got some funny looks from other shoppers, as this woman and I clearly didn't look like we naturally would be hanging out together; I, still in my professional work clothes, and she, in a baggy t-shirt and ill-fitting shoes. Shannon's face was so full of joy though, with her full sacks of groceries, and I ignored the cashier's questioning look and checked out quickly.

The sun was setting, and I decided it would be safest to call her a taxi to take she and her groceries home. But when the taxi driver arrived, he refused to take her bicycle, and she refused to leave it at the store; it was her only means of transportation. What am I going to do now?! I prayed. You asked me to share Your love in a tangible way with this woman, and I have. Now, I have no way to get her home with all these groceries and a bike...and it's getting dark outside. I scanned the parking lot and saw a woman getting into her van, and again I felt a tug at my heart. Ask her to help. This woman will surely think I'm crazy or that this is some sort of scam. How can I possibly ask her to go out of her way for someone she doesn't know, someone I barely know... But, I reluctantly approached the woman getting into her van and explained my situation. Much to my dismay, she said she would be happy to help, and she offered to help me take Shannon, her bike, and her groceries home.

I thought that was the last I would see of Shannon. But over the next year, Shannon continued to show up at our house from time to time. She never asked for money, but occasionally asked if we had any work she could do. The funny thing is, I began to look forward to her visits. I no longer saw her as a stranger on the streets who was inconveniencing my day; she had become my neighbor.

Shannon called me bubbling with excitement on the day she got a puppy from the local rescue. I checked in on her weekly and advised her on job searching and basic lessons in professionalism. We even worked together to come up with a new voicemail message that she could record on her phone, one that would showcase her bright personality. What began as an unexpected answer to my prayer turned into an unlikely friendship - Shannon, who was born into a world of poverty and abuse, and whose journey had included addiction and mental illness and even prostitution… and me, a young married healthcare professional who was born into a world of privilege. Both of us broken humans in the same world, but each of us from seemingly very different worlds too.

Over the months that followed, God used each encounter with Shannon to teach me about life and His love for people. I confronted my own assumptions about people experiencing homelessness, mental illness, and cycles of poverty and abuse. I learned what it means to truly walk with someone, instead of throwing money at a “problem” and calling it “charity.”

One year after meeting Shannon, we moved across town to another house. We hadn't seen or heard from her in a few months, and I thought about her often. I wondered why I hadn't heard from her or why she no longer answered my calls. Had she fallen back into old habits? Had she moved? Was she even still alive?

Then one Saturday afternoon, there was a knock on the door of our new house. When I opened the door to find Shannon standing there, she looked as shocked to see me as I did to see her! She had been going door to door, looking for work and had somehow ended up on this side of town. She had no idea that we had moved (nor any way to find out) and had landed yet again on our doorstep. We chatted for a while and then gave her a ride home. She seemed a little uneasy as we asked her questions about life, and so we tried to encourage her and remind her of her capability to overcome her past.

I haven't seen Shannon since that day, and I often wonder where life has taken her. Is she back on the streets? Did she ever find steady work? What was God's purpose for our paths crossing? I may never know the answer to these questions, but I do know that through this experience I have been forever changed.

Each time I see someone on the streets who seems to be struggling, I think of Shannon. Instead of fearing individuals who are homeless, I think of Shannon’s bright spirit and her uphill battle to break generational cycles. I think of my own life, and how it was simply my good fortune to be born into a stable family with the resources to provide opportunities for success. I think of how I did nothing to deserve this…and how Shannon also did nothing to deserve her life’s rough beginnings, which catapulted her into cycles of poverty and lack of opportunities for success.

When we get curious about people who are very different than us, we begin to see the humanity behind the headlines. When we stop alienating people and building walls to protect our own precious life, we gain deeper compassion and a richer life. It takes a lot more time to build an actual relationship with a neighbor experiencing poverty than it does to donate money or a box of old items to a charity and think we are “helping the poor…” but the lasting impact is always worth it.

We don’t have to look far to find these opportunities. Sometimes, the opportunity to choose welcome is literally right on our doorstep.

Keeping an open door policy,
Dr. Peek

When I was in high school, I had the choice to take one of two foreign language classes: Spanish or German. While learning Spanish surely would have been more useful in the region where I live, I opted for German simply because I could earn concurrent college credit through this class. Frau Carothers was a wonderful teacher, and I earned enough credit that I tested out of all required college level foreign language courses. I went on to use my German a handful of times while traveling through Germany years ago, but please don’t ask me at this point to speak it. I learned it, barely used it, and then promptly forgot it. Hoppla.

The problem? I simply wanted to know about another culture and language; I didn’t truly engage with it. I didn’t know anyone in my daily life with whom I could practice the language or engage in the culture. So, it simply became a box to check, a task to accomplish. To be fair, my family did host a German foreign exchange student during my Junior year of high school, and I did gain an appreciation for the culture through our interactions… but ultimately, I saw it as a cool opportunity and then simply moved on. I wish we would’ve kept in touch after her return home.

Fast forward 20+ years, and I have 3 daughters who have been enrolled at a Spanish immersion school since they were in PreK. For them, language learning is not a box to check; it is a useful tool for connecting with the world around them. By the time they reach 2nd grade, their classroom teacher speaks only Spanish. Because their brains are so wired to learn and engage at this point, it is not a problem for them. While it does challenge them, they ultimately thrive under the constant exposure to language, and it becomes a part of them.

Last week, we attended a community event at our school. My daughter who is in 2nd grade was talking to her Venezuelan teacher, who predominantly speaks Spanish. Nearby, our friend from Iran was speaking to her elderly mother in Farsi. The Iranian grandmother wanted to communicate with the Venezuelan teacher, but neither spoke a common language. There could have been a missed opportunity for them to communicate and express their appreciation for one another.

Instead, our friend pulled my daughter into the circle, where she asked her to help translate. The Venezuelan teacher spoke to my daughter in Spanish. My daughter then turned and spoke to the Iranian friend in English. The Iranian friend turned to her elderly mother and spoke to her in Farsi. And the circle reversed, as the grandmother expressed her gratitude for the teacher, through Farsi to English to Spanish.

It was such an ordinary moment at our international school, and yet I stood there, stuck by how profound it was. Here was my 8 year old, getting to connect with people from all over the world through 3 languages, and she didn’t think twice about it. In her world, diversity is normal, and interconnectedness is key.

When I asked her later how that experience felt she said, “Mom, I’m just a little frustrated…I couldn’t understand Farsi.”

The world my girls are growing up in is much different than the world I grew up in (and doesn’t every parent/grandparent say that?! Ok, I feel old). But, instead of romanticizing my own childhood memories and lamenting the difficult parts of this current world, I’m truly amazed by the opportunities they now have. Technology has made it possible to actually communicate with people all over the globe. Travel is much more accessible. They are speaking with people who come from places I didn’t know anything about at their age. I am confident in their generation’s ability to build bridges where there are currently walls.

The reality is that we can’t all spend our days immersed in a new language as our full-time job. Of course we have actual resources at our fingertips to learn new languages (Rosetta Stone, Duo Lingo, etc.) - and I highly recommend using those! But what can we do otherwise, on a regular basis, to connect with people whose lives look and sound different from our own?

Get curious.

There are people all around you who have different beliefs, cultures, languages. Instead of seeing them as “foreign” or speaking of them with terms that make them feel “othered”… what if, instead, you asked questions about their life, out of genuine curiousity? What if you got really intentional about forming a real relationship with a family from another country, with no agenda other than to learn from them?

We can study and read and think that we are “culturally aware” all we want. But until we take the time to build relationships with the people around us, that knowledge is like checking a box.

Relationship changes everything.

Let’s dispense welcome in a world that prescribes walls,

Dr. Peek

It’s been a while, but I am still here and I’m glad you are, too! The world has felt like…a LOT… lately. Not only globally, but for anyone who is navigating the final weeks of school with kids, you get it. It is a sprint to the finish line of the school year over here, and we aren’t slowing down until that summer break hits. But, unlike the end of school year sprint, life is better run as a marathon, intentionally and slow + steady. So grab your coffee, and let’s have a little Simply Sunday chat about things that truly matter, now and in the future.

If you skimmed the headlines this week (or any week), you would have run across a number of “issues” that you probably scrolled on by. They may have involved news related to people from Cameroon and Iran, Venezuela and Ecuador, Russia and Ukraine. Did it all feel “far away” to you? Are you exhausted (or even indifferent) by news that involves “other people",” whom you may feel disconnected from in your daily life? While you may feel a tinge of sadness for “their” situation, you keep going on with your own life, because life is hard enough… and you have places to be and your own people to take care of. (Not to mention, plenty of other headlines that actually apply to your very own personal life, and issues that feel very close to you.)

Those feelings are very real. In these days, we are overrun with a fire hydrant stream of news, and we can’t possibly process all of it. Our brains and bodies are not wired to carry the weight of the actual world, and all of the issues and people in it. Not only would we be emotionally burned out, but we risk even being crippled by fear, worry, or worse… complacency.

I think about the movie Bruce Almighty… you know, the one where Bruce (played by Jim Carrey) is a news reporter who is fed up with God for all the problems in the world and in his life? In the movie, he rants so much that God decides to give him divine powers for a week, to see if he can do a better job at running things. But, spoiler alert, you know what happens… he can’t handle it. There is simply too much noise- the literal noise of every prayer that he can now physically hear, from everyone around the world - and the weight of his responsibility to do something about it all.

We weren’t meant to carry every burden, spend time processing every headline, or invest in every issue that comes our way. It’s not possible, and it’s not even healthy to try and do so.

But.

We can also risk falling too far on the other side of that scenario… where we mentally check out every time we hear or read something that involves someone “other” than us. We can risk seeing the news stories and social media posts that discuss the “issues” … and forget that there are actual people - real lives - underneath those “issues.” We can easily surround ourselves with people who only look, think, and live like we do (like a dear friend of mine, who humbly confessed to me that she actually did not personally know any non-Christians with whom she could connect and share the love of Jesus… because her social circle was entirely filled with people from her church and her chosen friends of similar beliefs.)

Do you only surround yourself with people like you? If you live in an echo chamber, it’s hard to care about those “issues” in the headlines when you don’t know anything about the people behind them.

An author and speaker, Carlos Whitaker, says something I love… “Don’t stand on issues. Walk with people.”

So, how do we do that? In our busy lives, with a nonstop stream of noise from the world around us? How do we learn enough about people so that we can walk with them, and yet keep healthy boundaries so that we don’t invest in every issue that comes our way?

I definitely don’t have all the answers. But I am on an intentional journey of learning about people who aren’t like me, and I would like to share some stories over the next several weeks in a series I’m going to call, “Dispensing Welcome in a Culture that Prescribes Walls.”

Yes, I’m a pharmacist, and although I am not currently in a dispensing role professionally, I often think about what I’m “dispensing” in my life… and what our culture “prescribes.”

I will be sharing about several real life encounters with people who have crossed my path in life, and how leaning into our differences with curiosity (instead of putting up a wall and walking away) have enriched my life beyond measure. Not only that, but these encounters have allowed me to continue seeing the people behind the “issues” and feeling a sense of connection to the world far beyond my little bubble.

As a white, Christian, upper-middle class Mom and healthcare professional who lives in the midwestern U.S., it continues to be incredibly important for me personally to make sure I am intentionally being curious about, connecting with, and engaging in the lives of people who are different than me. It’s important for me to learn from those who have different viewpoints, backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences than me. It’s too easy to stay inside my comfort zone, like so many Americans choose to do … but it’s also too dangerous there.

Let’s learn to walk with the people behind the issues…

It’s Simply Sunday,

Dr. Peek

I’ll be honest. I’ve been fluctuating between devastation prompted by current events to a deep determination to choose joy, and then back to anger and disbelief and sadness and then joyful determination all over again. Can you relate at all?

Two weeks ago, our family of 5 loaded up in the Jeep with 2 storage bins full of ski gear, a couple overnight bags, and enough snacks and backseat fidgets to make an 8 hour road trip to the mountains. It truly felt like an act of joyful resistance, to hit the road with people I love to do one of our favorite things together. We are a mountain-loving family, and somehow, this year I needed those mountains and this road trip more than ever.

I needed to drive past the wide open plains of west Texas and feel the fierce wind tugging at my steering wheel, reminding me of God’s powerful presence in nature.

I needed to see the giant, gnarled tumble weeds cart-wheeling across the road ahead of me, mimicking the way my emotions have been feeling tossed and thrown about… and then lifting my gaze to powerful windmills dancing like ballerinas on the horizon, reminding me of beauty in the midst of chaos. That same wind was responsible for both effects.

I needed to feel incredibly small in the midst of the majestic mountains, reminding me of God’s all-consuming presence.

I think I even needed to hear my kids asking, “Are we there YET?! Why is this taking so long?!” from the backseat, over and over again… because I’ve been asking God the same thing lately. Over and over again.

We arrived in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico, which literally translates to “Blood of Christ,” apparently named after the reddish glow of the sunset and sunrise. Truly, God’s presence was everywhere.

Our girls have been snow skiing for a few years now, and they could hardly wait to get to the mountains. It brings my husband and I so much joy to share one of our favorite adventures with our kids; needless to say, we had been looking forward to this getaway for weeks on end.

The first morning, we woke up early, ate a hearty breakfast, and piled into layers of snow gear to head up to the ski resort. The map had consistently shown a 30-minute drive from our accommodations to the base of the ski lift; however, as we pulled onto the road it suddenly changed to 1.5 HOURS. Wait, surely that couldn’t be right….?! There was much groaning from the backseat as we verified that yes, because of the road conditions and traffic, it would indeed take 1.5 hours up the mountain.

When we finally arrived, we unloaded into a parking lot deep with freshly fallen powder. I breathed a prayer of thanks for 4-wheel drive, even as I muttered under my breath about how it felt exhausting even just to get here. We loaded up into what appeared to be an open-air cattle trailer, pulled by a massive pickup truck… the resort’s parking lot shuttle. The girls squealed with delight and excitement.

Finally. We made it…right?!

Not quite. Despite reserving our rental gear online, we had to wait in an hour+ line to get all of our gear, fill out more paper waivers, and secure a locker for our extra belongings.

At last, we found ourselves loading up on the ski lift to head up the mountain with half a day remaining. Shortly after, the sky opened up and a blizzard-like snowfall stung us in the face, obstructing our view of the trail right in front of us. After a quick lunch break, we decided to try again. We got a couple more runs in when suddenly one of our daughters began vomiting. She had mentioned a headache all day, and the adjustment to the altitude turned out to affect her more than we had realized.

All too soon, the lifts were closing and we were trudging back through the snowy lot to our Jeep to head back down the mountain. By the time we arrived at our home away from home, a second daughter had vomited too.

We ended Day 1 feeling defeated and hesitant towards the next day’s adventures.

Now I was the one asking, “are we there YET?!” Are we ever going to actually get there? This is not the vacation scenario I had in mind.

We headed to bed early, cutting our losses instead of venturing out to eat (as previously planned), and we slept hard. The sun rose against a clear blue sky the next day, and the altitude sickness had finally run it’s course. We were ready to give it another go.

The remainder of our trip turned out to be incredible. Our 2 youngest skiers flew down each mountain trail ahead of us, delighted with the thrill of adventure. Our oldest daughter caught onto snowboarding quickly, as she carved her own path alongside my husband and I on our boards.

During one ride up the lift, my middle daughter looked out at the mountain and said, “Just think, Mom. We could have missed all of this if we had given up after yesterday.”

How true is that, in life?! How often do we endure a hard season, an exhausting situation, a seemingly impossible obstacle, and feel like things might not actually get better. Are we ever going to “get there yet?” Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.

Right now, I’m looking around at the world (outside of our vacation), and still asking when we will get there. When will politicians choose principle over party? When will the Church take a stand for loving our neighbors, and become more passionate about the actual words of Jesus than the image of upholding “our values.” When will we care more about the value of life than the price of gas and eggs?

“Are we there yet?! Why is this taking so long?!”

If you’re asking yourself those same questions, know that you’re not alone.

As you feel the winds of change and the chaos of the world threatening to pull you off the road, you might feel like a tumbleweed, careening out of control. But can you also feel the power of that same wind churning those windmills, creating new energy?

As you find out the journey up the mountain takes 3 times as long as planned, can you also trust in the power of our Creator, who never promised it would be easy?

And as you feel like you want to give up, bury your head in the sand, or throw in the towel, can you trust that better days are ahead and just.keep.going.?

Can you consider each day an act of joyful resistance, as you look for beauty in the midst of the journey? Load up the car and hit the road. Or simply cross the street and visit your neighbor. Either way, connection with people around you - and taking time to literally breathe fresh air- is key to keeping our sanity these days.

Are we there yet….

Dr. Peek

P.S. If you just read this and cannot relate to sensing the chaos in the world around you, I have both envy and concern for you. Ignorance is only bliss for so long. Even if you don’t feel personally stressed by recent changes in our country’s leadership… I urge you to look around and find a neighbor who is scared for their family’s future or a friend who is terrified of losing their job. You don’t have to fully understand their situation to have compassion and to acknowledge that a lot of things feel very hard for a lot of people right now. And no, we aren’t quite “there yet.”

One Spring evening, when our three young daughters were tucked into bed and my husband sat in the finally quiet house, soaking in the stillness, I made a typical trip to Target to pick up a few groceries. As much as I enjoy perusing the aisles from time to time, this night I was taking advantage of the Drive Up pickup option (can you say lifechanging service?!) and I didn’t plan to go inside. Thankfully, I wasn’t in my pajamas just yet though, because my otherwise calm moments in the parking lot quickly escalated when I started to drive away and heard a woman screaming loudly.  The parking lot was dark but as I looked towards the entrance to the store I saw a woman being dragged inside the store by 3 men, clearly against her will. Something rose up in me, and I knew I couldn’t simply keep driving. Call it adrenaline, craziness, boldness, or maybe divine intervention, but the feeling that rose within me caused me to immediately throw my car in park right there at the store entrance and jump out to follow them in. With no idea what was happening, but recognizing that this woman was being dragged against her will, I couldn't not stop and find out. On my way into the store, I had to step over a puddle on the sidewalk, just as I heard the woman screaming for help because her water had broken. 

I followed the moving cluster of commotion over to a red door, where a visibly pregnant woman was being dragged into what appeared to be a break room. I quickly learned she had been accused of shoplifting, and the security guard told me she just needed to "calm down” while they investigated. He described to me all the things they believed she had taken, listing them off in detail and value.  I was stunned…not because of this woman’s accused wrongdoing, but because those involved seemed so focused on her accusation that no one appeared to be as concerned about her medical status.

Nearby, the woman's partner was standing by in a daze, and he reported that this was her 4th baby. All I could think about was how my 3rd baby catapulted into this world a mere four minutes after my own water broke... As a mother who has gone through labor safely in a hospital three times before, I could not fathom being here, surrounded by the neon lights and rough hands of store security guards, while my contractions threatened to bring forth a new baby onto the cold tile floor of this store at any moment.

Suppose this woman was in a desperate situation and actually had shoplifted, as accused. Maybe the stress and adrenaline rush of nearly escaping with stolen goods had triggered her body to go into labor. Or perhaps, this woman wasn’t really in labor at all. Maybe she had stolen some items, gotten caught, and used her obvious pregnancy as an escape card, hoping desperately that she would be released and set free. Could she maybe have spilled some water on the ground, a quick-thinking actress in a moment of panic? Or what if it was all a misunderstanding, and this woman was innocently and honestly in labor, right there in the middle of the store?

The good news is that we don’t actually need to know all the details of someone’s situation to choose to love them where they are.

We don’t even have to agree with their lifestyle, their choices, or their circumstances to show compassion, kindness, and grace.  How often has someone extended grace to you when you didn’t deserve it? I could fill pages of another book with the stories – the daily stories of the ways God has shown up in my life when I least deserved it, didn’t expect it, and couldn’t explain it, all to meet me in the middle of my mess and love me where I am.

It is easy to extend grace to someone who appears to be following the rules, choosing a pathway similar to our own, or at least shares our own deep rooted beliefs. But when we are faced with an uncomfortable situation or person, how does that change our response?

If this woman wasn’t truly in labor, she would certainly have some explaining to do when she reached the hospital. The legal matters could be sorted out at that point. But if she truly was in labor, the three men detaining her risked the liability of a newborn life quite literally in their hands. As a bystander, it was not my place to speculate her legal fate; as a fellow human/mother/female/healthcare provider, it was my place to advocate for her health and safety.

Just calm down. Those words from the security guard ricocheted inside my ears and rattled my nerves. I'll be damned if I am going to let a woman - accused shoplifter or not - be detained without medical care while in labor right in front of me.  One deep breath later, I looked him square in the eye and said, "Sir, she is in LABOR. Have you ever been in labor? There is no calming down right now. This woman doesn't need to calm down, she needs medical care."

As the woman saw me through the glass window of the break room, she screamed and begged me to capture the events on video and to help her and her baby. Instead, I used my phone to call 911.

I remained right outside that door where she was taken around a corner and out of sight. I requested to speak with a manager immediately, and demanded to know that this woman would be given humane treatment in the midst of this situation. The legal issues could be sorted out later; the medical issues couldn't wait, especially if these security guards didn't want to have a delivery and newborn liability on their hands.

Minutes later the police, followed shortly by the ambulance, arrived. I lingered to make sure she was taken to the hospital. I briefly recounted the events to a police officer who then told me there was a warrant for this woman's arrest in a neighboring state, but he assured me that she was being transported to the hospital for care.

As I drove home, my heart was so heavy with sadness. Sadness for this woman, who appeared to make some really poor choices during a desperate time in her life. Sadness for this baby, who would likely enter this world already swept into devastating social instability. And sadness for a broken world, where stones are cast one after another, despite the deeper issues that lay far below the surface.

I am not one to judge this woman for the actions she has been accused of, her motives for doing them, or her apparent criminal record. Rather, it has taken everything in me to not want to drive to the hospital and request to be by her side during labor. I wanted to hold her hand and tell her she has so much more to live for than the life she appears to have been living. I wanted to swaddle that baby, to whisper identity over them, to tell them that they have a great purpose in this world. I want them both to know that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who loves them more than they could ever fathom - and that His love for them can not be bought (or stolen)... it's a free gift.

Each of us has a story. Some are wrought with devastation, both self-imposed and as byproducts of the broken society we live in. But may we never assume we know the whole story. May we be slow to judge and quick to advocate for others. And may we never be the one to suggest that a woman in labor should "just calm down."

It’s Simply Sunday,

Leigh

P.S. Fast forward a month later, and I was stepping onto a crowded elevator at the Children’s Hospital where I worked. I stopped short and could barely catch my breath… right before me stood a very familiar looking couple. She was wearing a maternity hospital wrist band, commonly used to identify the parent of a hospitalized infant, but she didn’t look at me. He locked eyes with me, and I knew in that moment who they were. The couple from Target, clearly now in the hospital after their baby had been born, and appeared to still be receiving care.

A million thoughts, questions, and conversation starters ran through my mind. But as the elevator doors opened, and the couple stepped off towards the hospital cafeteria, I stood speechless. I said nothing, and simply walked the other way.

What were the odds that I would run into this couple again? My hospital is in a different city than my hometown, where I first met them at our local Target. Of all the hospitals in this region, this was the one where they were. The one where I worked. And yet, I said nothing.

Sometimes, I think God reveals things to us for no clear reason. Sometimes it brings closure; other times, confusion. We don’t always have to know the answer or the rationale to recognize the profundity of it all.

But one thing is true…We are all connected in this world; we all belong to each other in some way or another, and if we are lucky enough, we get to experience this in the most unexpected times.