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This Garden
Two images keep popping up in my mind recently, reminding me of truth. One is a a flourishing garden with a picket fence around it. The dirt is dark and rich. The plants are healthy and green. I kneel in the garden between rows of vegetables and pull weeds, water plants, and care for the Continue reading
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The Way Home
“Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”John 14:6 CSB “You know what I think of now when I read this passage?” I asked my kids one morning. “That time it rained a lot and all the roads were too flooded to Continue reading
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Joy of My Creator
The kind of life that makes one feel empty and shallow and superficial, that makes one dread to read and dread to think, can’t be good for one, can it? It can’t be the kind of life one was meant to live.” – Willa Cather I pulled my copy of Humble Roots by Hannah Anderson Continue reading
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Creating
God created things in time, though He didn’t need to. God rested after creatinv, though He didn’t need to. God created relational beings, though he didn’t need to. God created good and beautiful things, though He didn’t need to. God saw and evaluated what He had created, though He didn’t need to. God shared the Continue reading
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Gazing on the Beauty
“Beauty is not an escape from despair. It is the evidence that despair does not get the final word. It is the first act of resistance against the void. And this is the work of our time: Not to shout at the darkness, but to stand still enough for light to touch us again.” -Timothy Continue reading
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peace
I feel like I’m tossing in unpredictable waves, but that’s not where I turn my attention. I close my eyes. In my minds eye I see him there, sleeping peacefully in the stern. During other stormy seasons I’ve cried out, “Don’t you care?” as the disciples did. Or “How can you, a pure God, let Continue reading
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thoughts on sanctification
knee jerk resistance the painful reality “I can’t” feeling like the new anthem, but this realization turning me deeper and closer to the truth: “He can; He is.” bowing, kneeling humbling progress quiet, hidden beneath the normal and noticed natural weakening uncovering an unnatural power at work the end so close and so far new Continue reading
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Bind Us Together: Christian Unity and Politics
I don’t want to be a Christian liberal or conservative or nationalist or any of it. I just want to be Christ’s. I know, that’s so vague and general. I just don’t want to believe the lie that it’s me vs. the other Christians. I don’t want to tear the body of Christ. The war Continue reading
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Does empathy lead to compromising truth?
The idea of empathy being a sin or toxic is an idea that has been growing within the more conservative and/or Christian sphere for the last couple years. I’ve recently noticed a growing trend to attach “toxic empathy” to the liberal or progressive approach to addressing those who are suffering. The concern seems to be Continue reading
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The one thing I talked to my kids about after the inauguration
My kids loved watching the presidential inauguration. I wasn’t with them to witness their reactions, but I heard they were particularly enthusiastic about President Trump’s speech. When I came home the first thing my daughter said was “We saw the new president!” She’s a bit too young to remember his first term 🙂 After they Continue reading
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This is my father’s world
There’s something about the entire northeast being covered in a blanket of snow, everything frozen, everyone shoveling their way out, everyone subject to subfreezing conditions, everyone maneuvering through snow and ice, and everyone being exposed to the way the sun makes the snow sparkle and the ice sickles glisten – it gives me peace. This Continue reading
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My Place: when making Christmas “magical” feels too difficult
December seems to alway remind me of my human limits. Sickness or job loss or depression or grief or boring old exhaustion … it finds our family like it does many. Despite these things, I’m supposed to make the Christmas season “magical” for my family. Each year it hits me in a slightly different way: Continue reading
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Living Room Gods
we argue in our living rooms which lives are worth defendinglives of people we never met as if we’re godswe discuss genocide promised by one peopleand the mass murder committed by another peoplejudging which sin is worseas if we’re gods.we weigh the horrors some people experienceagainst the horrors another people experiencehorrors we’ve never experiencedO Lord, Continue reading
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Christian and Depressed
Depression is, I think, is hard for two reasons – it makes present life feel overwhelmingly impossible (thanks, exhaustion and lowered executive functioning) and it takes away our ability to hope or imagine a better future. It’s feeling stuck in a dark hole and incapable of doing anything about it. Put Christianity into that function Continue reading
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highly sensitive: how it feels right now
Feeling other’s feelings as your own. Struggling to find where you and those you love begin and end. Coping with disappointment from yourself and others when you come to terms with how low your capacity to do actually is. Being embarrassed by how deeply you love. Simple nostalgia making you feel like you’re on holy Continue reading
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when giving thanks feels like the health and wealth gospel – and the alternative
I was sitting at a table in our church’s youth group room. We had a bag of jelly beans in front of us and were instructed to drop one into a styrofoam bowl as we shared something we were thankful for. I watched the jelly beans begin to pile up as my friends thanked God Continue reading
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seams tearing: being loved vs. being needed
I was thinking the other day about the first time I knew I loved Jesse. I liked him on and off for a long time. Before we started dating we messaged each other often and I remember being wary, but also curious. When I mentioned to him that the frequency of our messages was as Continue reading
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A Drop
You are a drop. Refreshing, cool, and safe. God’s an ocean. His waves crash against my body. The edge of His glory forcing me to dive in, submitting to His might, or otherwise be hurled to the shore to grovel among broken shells. You are a drop. You wet my mouth and leave me thirsty. Continue reading
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forward
“Would you rather go forward or back in time?” they asked with their mouths half full of PB&J. “Oh, go back in time for sure,” I said. “But why?” “Because,” I paused wanting to be sensitive to both the truth and to their tender hearts, “There’s things I might want to do differently.” But I’d Continue reading
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somehow, this is good
Ten years ago my counselor looked at me gently and said, “Jen, anxiety is probably something you will wrestle with on and off for the rest of your life.” Ten years ago I sat in my car on my way to work and realized that for me at that time swallowing anxiety medication was an Continue reading
The Worth Of Knowing 