ENCOURAGE - EQUIP - EMPOWER
IT STARTS HERE.
On the outside my childhood looked like a slice of Americana. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood outside of Washington D.C. with single family homes, plenty of open space, lots of friends and good schools. We had a home like everyone else. (Literally! There were only four kinds of houses in our community!) Unfortunately, my home was dysfunctional on the inside.
The summer after my senior year of college, I walked into a flower shop and walked out with a succulent. Like most of my plant purchases, it was an impulse buy. I’ve never had much of a green thumb, but succulents were trendy at the time and they’re supposed to be one of the easier plants to keep alive. I took it home, stuck it in a mason jar, and posted a photo of it on Instagram so my friends could see what a good plant mom I was.
I have a love-hate relationship with September. I hate the fact that summer is coming to a close (goodbye long days, endless sunshine, slower pace), but I love the fact that September tends to bring routine and often new beginnings. This is the time of year when many of us join or rejoin groups for Bible Study.
For as long as I can remember, I have always found comfort in nature. The crash of the ocean waves, a good thunderstorm, and the sun shining through the clouds are a few of my favorite things. There is an indescribable beauty found in these pieces of the earth that surrounds us. I never thought much of it; I figured it was simply something beautiful so naturally I would cherish it and find peace in it. It wasn’t until recently, when a woman from my bible study group mentioned it, that I even considered this being a form of God revealing Himself to me.
Upon reading Jesus’s question to the disciples in Matthew 16:15, “But who do you say I am?”, the response seems obvious. Peter declares in verse 16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and Jesus is pleased. For us, over 2,000 years later this declaration feels anticlimactic since we hold the whole story in our hands. However, the importance of who Jesus is and how that impacts our daily life can be easy to miss. This is true for Peter just a few verses further in the text and can be for us today as well. Until we understand who He is, we cannot truly understand what his death and resurrection mean for us.
I do not doubt that God exists or that He loves me. The doubt I struggle with is the doubt that niggles its way into my mind in the quiet moments of life. It’s not even a doubt that God CAN do the impossible, it’s just that I doubt that He will. I go to God with my prayer requests and lay them at his feet but I sometimes doubt that his answer is best. When I pray, I hate to admit it, but I sometimes assume the outcome I least desire is what will happen -- kind of a “Murphy’s law” of prayer.
Sometimes I just feel lonely. I can be in a room surrounded by a lot of people, but I long for something deeper. Our souls crave to be in community with others. Coming out of the pandemic after spending that year in isolation felt so refreshing. We could get out of our yoga pants and put on some fancy clothes, and the goal was to connect with our people.
Are you asking questions about Christianity? Or are there questions others ask you and you cannot find the right words? Questions like “If God is so great, why does he allow bad things to happen?” Or maybe it’s the hypocrisy you find in some Christian followers. Or maybe you’re logical, like me and question the reality of what is written in the Bible and search for the evidence. I mean, I’d personally like to see more water turned into wine!
“The needs of the one, outweigh those of the ninety-nine”
Murphy “Murph” Shepherd is a priest who lives in isolation in a church on the coast of Florida near Jacksonville. He has planned to board his boat Gone Fiction to spread the ashes of his recently deceased mentor and best friend. However, Murph meets a daughter and mother caught up in the horrifying reality of human trafficking who quickly derail his plans.
Ready for a mental vacation and a departure from reality?
Whether your summer plans include lounging poolside, lakeside, oceanside or bedside, plan to take a trip into a good book.
Thursday Next, a war veteran with her share of scars, is the protagonist in this reality bending introduction to the series by British author Jasper Fforde. Having a penchant for the ridiculous, Fforde manages to stuff all sorts of references and a few genres into his novels.
Are you looking for a summer read that will be easy to follow and change your life? I believe that “Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life” by Tish Harrison Warren is a must read for you!
She sets up the book looking at the various routines we each have in our lives. For example: waking, making the bed, and brushing our teeth. These are all routines that we easily go through without putting any thought into the task. What I love about the book is how the author shows you where God is alive and active in those moments and how we can connect with Him through these simple acts.
Did you know we’re exposed to an estimated 6,000-10,000 ads per day? Pile on top of that music, news stories, opinions, and conversations and it can add up to a lot of noise in our lives.
How do we cut through the noise and find the truth?
