My husband and I process conflict from opposite ends of the spectrum. When I’m angry, I become a hedgehog who curls up in a ball and tries to become invisible. He morphs into a loud, intense rhino with defensive tendencies. Without really being aware of it, we were following the same broken patterns that our…
When I was invited to join an online panel conversation about race, mutuality, and community, I wasn’t sure what to expect. All five panelists and our moderator were at least loosely part of the same Anabaptist blogging community, so we shared some basic understandings about Christian discipleship as following Jesus, the church as a gathered…
It started out like any other day. I worked in a small National Tea Grocery store. It was Friday and the store was pretty full. The time would fly when we were busy, and that was fine with me. Other than a “price check,” it was business as usual. Or so I thought. I remember…
We unthinkingly live the narratives that we are raised with or we rail against them. When you are the parent, you craft the stories. As our children move toward adulthood, we often miss the necessary shift in order to have robust and respectful relationships with these adults we have raised. What does it mean to…
I was 14 when I was first pressured to have sex with my boyfriend. As a young impressionable woman without the moral guidelines of the Bible, I allowed romance movies and novels to provide the lens through which I interpreted the meaning of sex. It was clearly 1) always passionate and 2) the best indicator…
My piano teacher slid onto the piano bench beside me, but neither of us touched the keys. The studio was unnaturally quiet. My weekly lessons were usually filled with simple sonatas and easy etudes as Hallee encouraged me, an adult beginner, to relax my hands and lean into the music. But that fall afternoon in…
Finally, I see you. Weathered black, white shades of brown. I weep from longing. You are eighteen with furrowed brow wearing your Sunday best. It’s Accomack County graduation day 1935. Did you know your arms, legs crossed, could not shield you from past, present, future tense? Did you know your marriage ends…
“He liked BINGO,” Mom told me between bites of lemon oregano chicken. “What’s that?” I asked. Mom’s dysarthria, an unwelcome leftover from her stroke four years ago, sometimes makes it hard for me to understand her. “Can you say it again?” “He liked BINGO,” Mom repeated. “George.” “Oh yeah, I saw him playing BINGO with…
This week, the inside of my church is a shanty town. The narthex is a patchwork of donated refrigerator and Amazon boxes; leaning, lopsided, and beautiful. “It’s a castle!” I grinned, locking eyes with the kindergartner kneeling next to her creation. She returned my smile with one of her own, highlighted with chocolate frosting stains…
Every person has worth and should be treated with dignity. When a person is in need, they sometimes feel like less of a person. And when they receive help, they could feel like a project instead of a person of worth. No matter who you identify as those who are marginalized, you draw a line….
“I don’t want to come to the U.S. Everyone hates us here.” The words stunned me. I was face-to-face with a woman who had just crossed the border from Mexico into Texas, and the only emotion she had was fear; fear that she wasn’t welcome in our country and that people were going to be…
In the compelling book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson, the young lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, gives us an unforgettable look inside this legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of…
My first Christmas in China, my American teammate got sick and asked to be alone. Rather than spend Christmas binge-watching television by myself, I jogged to the outskirts of the city where tarmac turned to orange dust. I ran through dry fields that would grow potatoes, spinach, and sunflowers in the summer, then wandered into…
“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in You” (Isaiah 26:3). Sometimes I write things that surely are not of my own doing. I reread this recently, and it laid over me like Ezekiel’s rain blessing. “Perfect Peace. The only peace that keeps us sane in the midst…