Are We Good Enough?

Are We Good Enough?

A message I’ve repeatedly heard on social media, in written commentary pieces, and even in talks from Christian leaders is that “you are enough”, while some even take it further to say “you are good enough.” 

When taken with a grain of salt, I understand the message that we don’t have to perform up to someone else’s standard to be worthy of love – we are “enough” just as we are. But, even as I type that it still doesn’t sit right with me, because I see the sin in my heart, thoughts, and actions and I don’t see them as a qualifier or disqualifier for me to be loved.

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How I Found Wholeness After My Mental Health Diagnosis

How I Found Wholeness After My Mental Health Diagnosis

For almost 30 years, I’ve lived with a clinical diagnosis of a mental health condition. For the first half of my life after hearing the words “bipolar disorder,”  I hid under an umbrella of shame not wanting anyone to know. It felt like a shadow looming over me …

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Glory in the Humdrum: A Prayer for the Bored, Weary, or Wilting

Glory in the Humdrum: A Prayer for the Bored, Weary, or Wilting

Heavenly Father,

You know my heart, so you know I am struggling to find joy in this current season of life. I feel stuck, crawling through this wilderness with no end in sight. I look desperately for meaning and purpose in days that feel long and mundane. I have dreams for my life that seem bigger than the place where I wake up. I wrestle with the disappointment of both what is and what has not yet come.

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How to Help Those Who are Hurting Emotionally

How to Help Those Who are Hurting Emotionally

Having lived through the trauma of a verbally and emotionally abusive marriage and the ensuing chaos that extricating myself created, I’ve tended to avoid similar situations in other’s lives at all costs.  Just the recovery from that time in my life was one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do. But I vowed to the Lord that I would obey Him in His promise to turn the broken and dirty ashes of my life into something beautiful that honors Him. 

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Broken and Bleeding

Broken and Bleeding

The woman is not named, but her beautiful story is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. It has connected with me like few others. She is known as the woman with a bleeding issue. This is not a pretty topic. It also might be hard to discuss candidly in a sermon. But we as women can certainly relate…and her story is worth a closer look.

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When More of Jesus Means More Difficulty

When More of Jesus Means More Difficulty

My focus during Lent this year has been to seek more of Jesus in my daily life. In my moving around the house, driving in my car, in my conversations, as I discipline my children, as I listen to my friends. I felt a need not to give something up but to make more room for why we even recognize this time of year. 

In the Meantime

In the Meantime

I’m in a season of waiting. I’ve been here for a while. And I’m getting impatient.

Actually, I think I’ve passed impatience. Impatience was a spreadsheet with over one hundred job applications. Impatience was attending my twenty-third wedding without a plus one. Impatience was sobbing to my mom over the phone while sitting in my car in the dark because I was just so tired of the word no.

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Lessons From a Creek

Lessons From a Creek

Over the past few years I have strived to explore a great majority of the White Clay Creek Preserve. The trails are vast and branch farther than I ever realized.  I am thankful for this space that is so close to where we live; not only for the amazing trails, beauty, and peace it provides, but the lessons it has taught me as I have explored the winding water in the creek. It never ceases to amaze me. Each visit there is something different and new. Take for instance a lesson I learned from these pictures. 

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Lent: How to Cultivate a Season of Preparation

Lent: How to Cultivate a Season of Preparation

Are you the person who prepares for an upcoming event or are you the person that just lets it happen? When it comes to vacations, once I have made a reservation, I forget about it until it's time to show up. I am not the person who plans all the things to do and see in the new place until I get there.

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I’ll Go First: When Sexual Shame Meets the Love of Jesus

I’ll Go First: When Sexual Shame Meets the Love of Jesus

This is a hard blog post for me to write. The hardest, probably.

The words aren’t hard to find. They’ve been locked up inside of me for about twenty years, waiting patiently for this day to come. They’ve made their way out here and there, in one-on-one conversations or with small groups of trusted friends.

But still there are days when it feels much safer to keep those words quiet, stashed under my bed or in the corner of a dark closet where they belong. At least, that’s where he told me they belonged.

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What being a friend at all times can look like

What being a friend at all times can look like

Friendships haven’t always been easy for me. In high school I really struggled with not fitting in and not having close friends. I had low self-esteem and was so self-conscious. The harder I tried to get others to like me, the more I pushed them away. It was painful and there were many tearful drives to school as I contemplated another day of feeling insecure amidst my peers, wanting nothing more than to belong. I wondered if I would ever make friends or be accepted for who I was. 

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A Prayer For My Friend, Pat

A Prayer For My Friend, Pat

Several years ago, I walked into Willowdale Chapel on a Wednesday morning for my first experience with women’s Bible study. At the time, I was not yet a believer in Jesus Christ and not sure what I was getting into. As I aimlessly walked around looking for the woman who had invited me to Bible study…

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What if I want to be a better person?

What if I want to be a better person?

I keep expecting to wake up a different person.  As if by some instant divine transference I’ll be a better woman: I won’t be too forceful. I will no longer be impatient with people when they don’t understand what I’m trying to say. I’d no longer be angry when they make stupid decisions, especially after I gave them sound advice. I would no longer feel like I need to justify everything to everyone all the time! What a beautiful fantasy!

Begin with Prayer

Begin with Prayer

In the musical Les Miserables a prayer is sung by the main character Jean Valjean who prays for the life of young Marius. The song is “Bring Him Home,” and it begins with the words, “God on high, hear my prayer, in my need, You have always been there.” The words capture perfectly the position we are all in when we come to God in prayer. It is a place of need.

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