Thank you for stopping by for a visit. It means a great deal to me, especially because I know there are thousands and thousands of websites out there and somehow you found mine.  It’s nothing short of a miracle really.  Welcome!  I hope you find yourself at home here and take the time to share your story with me and drop me an email.

 

I believe we are invited to share all of our dimensions—our messy, gritty, less than ideal bits along with our intimate moments of connection and beauty.  In our transparency others find a safe harbor to rest and feel OK even when their lives are twisting and twirling out of control. If you’re messy and frazzled and hanging onto life by a thread then you and I have a lot in common.

 

I am Dana Goodman.  I’m highly sensitive and most days I feel like life is overwhelming.  Sometimes going to the store for milk feels like the last straw. Life is hard, unpredictable and sometimes very disappointing.  But it is breathtakingly beautiful at the same time.  Most days we live in this tension—beautiful and ugly mixing together like paint—pain and joy kissing each other. 

 

My greatest joy was when my two boys Carter and Zach were born. My greatest heartache when my oldest, sensitive, full of love boy died at age 13 of an aggressive brain tumour. It was the darkest night I’ve ever experienced. My husband and mother-in-law also died of cancer.  Pain has been relentless, yet somehow seeds of love have spread far and wide because of our story. I never would have imagined this would be possible, but it’s happening like a tsunami of love seeds. Pain has a way of being a lighthouse for others to find their way back to the shores of hope. 

 

During the year I wrote In the Cleft, it felt like I didn’t sleep and when I did it was in fits and starts.  The emotional upheaval was so intense there were days I wanted to drive myself down to the psychiatric hospital. Writing In the Cleft was the hardest endeavor I’ve ever undertaken. It was so raw and I chose to expose my ache to the world in the hopes of putting a face on grief. Our story is messy and beautiful, sad and hopeful, draining and uplifting, heartbreaking and heart restorative, yet, in the middle of the storm it is drenched in love and redemption. 

 

In the Cleft is a moving, inspirational and intensely personal account of grief, hope and love. Readers will grieve, laugh and celebrate as I lead them into the private places of my heart. Everyone has a pain story, and I pray my family's story will be salve for the wounded places in your hearts. 

In the Cleft Joy Comes in the Mourning

• Helps you process your own pain stories 

• Invites you to move beyond the wounded places of your heart to find joy once again 

• Revives and refreshes those who are weary from the day-to-day struggle 

• Helps you understand how pain can increase your capacity to love and have deeper compassion