I gathered up my sharps containers yesterday so I could dispose of them to make room for new ones. No matter how often I tell the specialty pharmacy that I don’t need a new sharps container, they send a new one with each shipment of medication. Every month, I unpack the Styrofoam container, pull out…
Jesus
Borrowing a Death
When I was fourteen, I attended the funeral of an acquaintance who had died in a car accident. She was just sixteen, and it was the first funeral I’d ever attended for someone close to my age. I remember how much I cried, how wrong it felt to bury a teenage girl, how unfair it…
When Hope is a Distant Shore
“Hope” was our word. The friend who discipled me during my early twenties reminded me of hope often. We traded it back and forth like a sweater that fit us both perfectly. I borrowed hope when the pregnancy tests kept coming up negative. She took it back when loneliness and singleness chafed. Back and forth,…
Are You a Flaky Christian?
During my first few months as a pastor’s wife, I signed up to make and take dinner to a family who had lost a grandparent to a prolonged illness. I wasn’t a great cook at the time. Twenty-four years old and married barely two years, I was still regularly burning chicken and under-cooking eggs. I…
Women, Don’t Be Weak-Minded: A Call for Discernment
I was a junior in college when I realized she was a universalist. My favorite author, whose lyrical style and captivating storytelling filled my bookshelves, had finally shown her cards in one of her non-fiction works. I had to read the paragraph three times to realize that she had departed from the gospel of Jesus…
Can I Trust God with My Child’s Suffering?
He was eating a waffle. Just sitting across the café table from me, all gangly arms and legs, eating a waffle that he’d covered in maple syrup. He’s just turned ten, and I’m increasingly aware of the mere three inches between our heights. I picked at my salad, trying to decide if a cup of…
Look at Jesus Until You See Him
We were sitting in a circle on a Wednesday night in the part of the church building called the parlor. If you grew up in a Southern Baptist church there’s a good chance you know which room it is. It’s got mauve wallpaper and darker mauve carpet and chairs made to appear Victorian but that…
What is a Praying Life?
It was summertime when it happened. I remember that because my grandmother’s second story bedroom had a big window where warm summer sun poured into her room, making her collection of succulent plants happy, I’m sure. I used to break off a tiny piece of her aloe plant to squeeze out some of the sticky…
Ours is an Every Day Gospel
I tried to ignore the gospel this morning. My alarm sounded rudely at 5 am, and I spent fifteen minutes trying to convince myself that the world might look a little brighter if I turned my back on it for another two hours. But the discouragement that weighed down my heart, my bones, my eyes…
Good Friday’s Torn Curtain
“Suddenly, the curtain of the sanctuary was split in two from top to bottom; the earth quakes and the rocks were split.” Matthew 27:51 “Then the curtain of the sanctuary was split in two from top to bottom.” Mark 15:38 “…The curtain of the sanctuary was split down the middle.” Luke 23:45 I remember the…