I remember the first time I stood up in front of a group of women to teach the Bible. My shirt was damp with sweat, and my voice wobbled into the microphone. My knees might actually have knocked together in fear. But it wasn’t fear of failure or of public speaking. It was fear that…
the Church
Yes, You Do Need the Church
I was sitting with my back to them, the two young women sipping iced coffees and talking loudly in the quiet coffee shop. I couldn’t see their faces, but I could hear nearly every word of their discussion. Anyone in the shop could hear their discussion. I tried to absorb myself with my open laptop…
Gather Around the Word
It was awkward at first. A good kind of awkward, but still. We felt the oddness of forced intimacy while the four of us sat at our local small-town coffee shop, carefully offering thoughts on the passage of Scripture we’d studied throughout the week and aggressively sipping our coffee when the gaps of silence got…
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…
I Have Spiritual Amnesia, and So Do You.
Something strange happens in the nighttime hours. Every night, when I go to bed, I know who I am in Christ and what I believe about the gospel. It’s a hard fight, and by the end of the day it’s likely a worn-down version of what’s real. But, I’ve fought all day to believe it,…
She is Broken, and She is Beautiful.
A week ago, the phone rang before dawn. There’s never a good reason for calls so early, and my heart immediately began pounding when I answered the phone. A dear church member was on the other end, her voice thick with tears and panic. Her husband had died unexpectedly in the early morning hours. It…
Keep a Soft Heart
Repeatedly inked on the pages of my journal for the past ten months are the words keep a soft heart. Truly, it has taken all thirty-six years of my life to develop a one-sentence prayer that expresses one of my deepest and most regular needs. Keep a soft heart. I searched for the words to…
What Do You Say to the Suffering?
“It was suicide,” she said. Her eyes swam with tears that leaked down her cheeks while she explained what had happened earlier this year. I whispered, “I’m so, so sorry,” and wrung my hands uselessly the way you do when there is nothing that will make a situation any better and you know it. The…
Future Discipleship Part 2: God’s Part in Our Perseverance
When my husband and I first settled into rural church ministry twelve years ago, I was a little unprepared for the pace of life offered by the farming community where we had made our new home. We had left a much larger college town buzzing with traffic and commutes, a life where I’d had a…