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Weakness is Strength
I used to think that when I prayed for God to give me strength in my weakness that He would somehow infuse me with a kind of strength magic, and I would feel my spiritual muscles cartoonishly growing, like Popeye after eating a can of spinach. Now I know. I know that when I pray for strength it means: When I am hurting I can have the guts to admit it. I can cry instead of getting angry and lashing out. Instead of denying my feelings I can admit them. Instead of pretending I can tell the truth. When I have a need I tend to it, and I don’t…
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No Clue
Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10, NLT) I’m going out on a limb here to make an earth-shattering confession: I have no idea what I am doing. I am staring at 40 years old. I’ve been married for almost 17 years. I’ve been raising children for almost…
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A Song of Advent
Advent – The juxtaposition of the longing of the ancients with the unforeseen coming of our Christ. Longing for home. Sick. Eager. Expectant. Fighting nagging feelings that once again things are not as they ought. Restless souls, Weary travelers. Parched and perplexed. Sick and tired of waiting – For our luck to change. For our earth to give way. For wrongs to be made right. For circumstance to have mercy. For that bend in the road. That crest of the hill. Ready to coast, Ready to reap. Tired of ceaseless striving and sowing. Arms and muscles ache from our work. Weary for rest. Ready for harvest. Longing for favor, opportunity,…
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Jesus Isn’t Toothpaste
I grew up afraid to fail. Therefore, I grew up afraid of trying anything new. Afraid of what others would think of me. Afraid of the whispers behind closed doors. Afraid. Afraid. Always Afraid. Fast forward to adulthood. I got pretty good at covering up all that fear and doing everything right. I hid behind an impenetrable shield of righteousness of my own fashioning. Or so I thought. I became a Christian at 19. In 20 years of church attendance, I have missed maybe 10 Sundays. 4 of those were because I had just given birth. Check. I’ve served. I’ve led worship. I’ve preached. Helped in children’s church. I gave.…
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Olive
You know things are getting sad and desperate when you start writing about your cat. For all you cat haters out there, I apologize. Bear with me. First let me just say that I am a dog person, through and through. I have always hated cats since I was a kid. Well, I wanted to like cats, they just never liked me. As a young, spasmodic child, I would try to pick them up, hold them, squeeze them, and kiss their cute furry faces. Turns out cats hate that, and now I have the scars to prove it. True story. Then one day, 15 years ago, I adopted two, young,…
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Throw Me a Bone!
In my previous post, I referenced the rich young ruler and his interaction with Jesus. Today I want to contrast that scenario with another we find in the gospels and one of my personal favorite stories: the faith of the Canaanite woman. But first, a little history. Because I love history. We find this story in two of the four gospels of the New Testament – Matthew 15:21-28 and Mark 7:24-30. Matthew’s account refers to her as the Canaanite woman, and in Mark’s she is called a Syrophonecian. What might seem at first as a conflict between the two stories reveals, with just a little digging, an interesting and astonishingly…
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Prepare to Be Assimilated
As Christians we talk about the love of God, how it’s so amazing and wonderful and unlike any human love we have ever experienced. We are drawn in as unbelievers with stories of God’s unchanging, limitless love; how crazy He is about us. We hear, “Come as you are,” but then when we do come, the Bible is handed to us like a prescription, and we come face to face with all the thousands of ways we need to change and be better people, i.e. different. Nothing like ourselves. This results in a schizophrenic dichotomy and a bit of a bait and switch – on one hand we know Jesus…
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Some Thoughts on Hope
I used to think that hope was based on circumstances. One day the tide will turn. My prince will come. My luck will change. Superman will arrive. I’ll win the golden ticket. It’s all in the luck of the draw. But this mentality puts you in a passive, codependent role, helplessly waiting for your moment in the sun. That somehow your future and your destiny are up to chance, or the right people to come along, or the planets to align, etc. Not only does this type of thinking actually discourage hope, our anxieties increase. Setting our hopes on unfixed and fluctuating events threatens our feelings of security. We have…
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It’s Been a Year
Dear Lauren, It’s been a year since you left this world, and we miss you still the same. Our hearts ache when we long to pick up the phone and hear your voice on the other end. It’s been a year of holidays, birthdays, and special days without you to celebrate them. Life has proven that it does indeed go on for those of us still on this temporal soil, but it sure would be much better with you in it. So much happens in one year; we hustle about in a maniacal flurry of activity. And yet it feels like just yesterday that we found out your health took…
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The 10 Most Overrated Things About Fall
Well, it’s that time of year again, folks. When all of social media is abuzz with the passing of summer and the approaching autumn equinox. I wish I could join in the excitement, but I am a summer gal – give me perpetual summer break, beach vacations, swimming pools, sun tans, flip flops, peaches, blueberries, watermelons, ice cream, sun dresses, and running through sprinklers. I get it, you all really hate the heat. But the heat isn’t a problem if you are righteously prepared with the proper clothing, a cool drink, and a refreshing body of water in close proximity. And I recently discovered after a family trip to Providence…
