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do not be surprised
Beloved, we are walking through a time in history that is rife with fear, confusion, division, and hostility. When we wake each morning, the uncertainty of what kind of world will greet us messes with our equilibrium. The weight of dealing with this imbalance day after day wears down our resolve. The unrest in our government, workplaces, social circles, and even in the last place we’d think to find it—our churches—is exacerbated by our seeming powerlessness, and we are tempted toward despair. Far from seeing the beauty in the mystery, it can feel dark and distressing. We long for those days in which we could take a free breath, unhindered…
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the fellowship of suffering
What if life is not about trying to be better? What if what matters is becoming present in the midst of it? I’m mulling over the introductory chapters of my preordered copy of K.J. Ramsey’s new book, This Too Shall Last. It is a raw account of learning to sit with pain and suffering so that grace has room to well up in our weakness and speak louder than our shame. It is a message that has arrived in my life at the odd juxtaposition of facing the pain of perfectionism, the shame of singleness, and the inescapable reality of my identity as a writer. In this book, K.J. weaves…
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walking upside down
Grace gifts. Some of them are easy to identify, like a snow day descending in early November. Others take a little more digging to uncover, wrapped as they are in uncomfortable packaging, or even seeming disaster. But in this upside down Kingdom, they can be the very things to shake us from our precarious perch on the familiar and catapult us into the terrifying freedom that waits beyond. a case of mistaken identity A few weeks ago, I read the modern classic Stellaluna to my students, a picture book by Janell Canon. It’s a sweet story about a lost baby fruit bat who is taken in by a family of…
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solid rock
Few lives in Scripture have been painted in such vivid strokes as that of Simon Peter. A faithful reader can trace his character arc from rough fisherman to zealous disciple, fearful turncoat to bold apostle. More than once recently, I’ve had cause to remember the final interactions Jesus had with Peter surrounding His crucifixion. Etched deeply in all our Sunday school memories is the story of Peter’s three denials of His professed Messiah. Following closely on its heels is his parallel restoration, when the resurrected Christ offers Peter three chances to reaffirm his love. But the episode that has long been dear to me, and the one which has captured…
