Edenland

http://www.edenriley.com/

If you look up happiness in the dictionary you will see my face in this photo. I'm smiling so hard that my face is about to turn inside out.

Ladies and gentlemen I'd like to introduce you to Eden Riley. For those of you who don't know, Eden writes all the words of all the feelings ever in the world at Edenland. Her blogs are some of the most favourite things I have read in my life and her vulnerability is one of the most powerful expressions of strength that I have seen.

Sometimes reading her stuff is liking taking a round house kick to the guts and other times it's like I'm up the back of the classroom suppressing giggles while we throw rolled up bits of paper at the back of our teachers head and sometimes it's like looking into a mirror but it's never ordinary. When she publishes something new I have to put aside time to read it. Just in case it's one of those ones that makes all the water in my body leak out of my eyes.

Reading Edenland is not for the faint hearted. With raw honesty she shares her scars and the innermost corners of the dark places of her heart. Her posts of her brother Cam who the world lost to suicide have often been the undoing of my day... sometimes my week. Her love and pain is so palpable that I feel like I have loved and lost him myself.

But she's more than that. Through her, at times, debilitating grief she still manages to give something back to the world. Her work with World Vision is so important and the voice she gives them is inspiring. Her heart is generous even though it is crippled.

And if that's not reason enough for me to worship love her, wait until you see her crusade against the sexist bastards who run Wicked Campers.

Am I gushing? Maybe a little bit. But here's the thing. I've got a blog-crush on Eden. She is beautiful and her soul leaps across her words and her heart and shines out of her face. The seven minutes that we chatted (and hugged!) was the highlight of Problogger for me. I don't think it's because I'm star struck 'cause I met lots of other blogging idols of mine while I was there. I think it's because as you get older and wiser you understand the value of honesty and vulnerability and authenticity. 

And Eden, with a capital E, is all of those things all of the time.