Awkward Christian
When I walk long distances, I pay a price. It’s a relatively minor one: an ache in my hip that sends tentacles down to my knee. It’s an annoyance, mostly. Sometimes it makes it hard to fall asleep. I feel it after I take an hour’s walk on the beach on Sunday mornings, toes sinking …
Move as if the hounds of hell are after you–for SheLoves MagazineRead More
I used to think I was a terrible Christian. Why? I didn’t read the Bible regularly for fifteen years. I told myself I was recovering from legalism. Then I was caring for a newborn, a toddler, another newborn. But when I remembered studying the Word every day, I shriveled with shame. Didn’t good Christians read the …
My sister called on a day that wasn’t working. My three-month old daughter was supposed to nap at noon. Like most nights, I hadn’t slept well, and was exhausted instead of rested in the morning. I was hungry for sleep at 9, yearning by 10:23, biding time anxiously at 11:15 and 11:37. When noon came …
[trigger warning: rape and sexual assault] Let’s not be to quick to dismiss Bill Cosby as an evil person, or shove him, eyes averted, in a box labeled ‘psychopath’. Instead of casting him into the outer darkness, let’s take a deep look in his eyes and see if there’s not a mirror there. Not reflecting …
Bill Cosby, Needles, Haystacks and Why Rape Culture Is Old NewsRead More
“It’s been a lot harder to do my devos lately,” Samantha said. She and I were sitting on the scarlet couch in her living room, along with the other women in our small group. We had split up from our spouses for prayer requests, and Samantha was sharing hers. She shifted her newborn in her …
The seed of this project about the Bible was planted by Preston Yancey, who talked about how important he felt reading the Bible regularly was for discussions of theology. Or something. I am having trouble finding the post. Thanks a lot, Internet. (And Preston, forgive me if I mischaracterize your words…when I read them I was …
Why I don’t think every Christian has to read the BibleRead More
It had been a long, dispiriting day. Week. Month. Season. That night, the air in my bedroom was close and still, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic. I grabbed my Book of Common Prayer and went out onto the patio, even though there’s no furniture out there. I had to get out of the house. The …
When I need a Bible, I reach for my husband’s. It’s leather-bound with his name embossed on the front. His parents gave it to him. Tucked inside is a fabric cross his mom needle-pointed with a few spindly pink irises. Parts of the spine are cracked and peeling off glossy finish, and it has a …
I looked at my monthly calendar and sighed. It was the twenty-fifth, and that meant it was time to write down what had gone well—and not so well—that month for homeschooling. Except I didn’t want to. I knew I was supposed to. I was supposed to be tracking how my children were doing, taking notes …
I’m going to talk about writing for a minute, but bear with me. It’s not really about writing. It’s about God. And faith. And the Bible. So. In “The Getaway Car” Ann Patchett considers, with aplomb, every author’s biggest nightmare. “As far as I’m concerned, writer’s block is a myth,” she said. Here’s her prescription: …
when you make peace with emptiness, you are ready to be filledRead More
The slogan caught my eye as I turned a corner inside the Humanities building: “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.” Later, I’d discover that Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the writer who penned the phrase, had done so almost off-hand, in an obscure work about Puritan funeral services. I’d learn that it became a feminist catchphrase without her …
“Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” Once Shamed MeRead More
A few weeks ago, a young man approached me in church to pass the peace. In the Spanish-language church I attend, this means moving around the room, trying to wish others the peace of Christ and shake hands with as many people as possible. This brother in Christ was ed in a baggy t-shirt, long …
When listening breaks our white hearts: for SheLoves MagazineRead More
I was a junior in college when my Bible study leader, Tina, recommended that I memorize Scripture. She pulled out a card from her pocket to show me. “I write my memory verse on this and carry it in my pocket,” she said. In her neat printing, it read, Blessed is the one …whose delight …
“That’s funny—you don’t look like sisters,” the woman said. My sister Katie and I were facing away from the ocean and making chit-chat with this stranger whose kids played with mine. Behind us, my daughters were digging a hole for themselves, the chilly Pacific saltwater splashing over their chubby legs. I looked at my sister, and …
You don’t look like sisters: for the SheLoves synchroblogRead More
The idea of “controlling metaphors” has been flitting around in my brain lately. For those of you who didn’t get excited about lit classes, a controlling metaphor is sort of an overarching motif that runs through an entire work of literature. For example, a controlling metaphor in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books is Narnia is a version …
Four metaphors for faith I’m putting out of their miseryRead More
I once got a respectful and fraught email from a (now former) subscriber. She said she was unsubscribing because of a swear word I used on a recent post—“shitty”. (And then last week, I didn’t censor that word in an interview…because I thought it was warranted.) My former reader mentioned the verse from Timothy about not having …
D.L. Mayfield’s words about the Kingdom of God blow the lid off my very careful Christianity over and over. I love that she is trying to figure out how to live out her faith out among the poor, and that she’s not pretending the experience is all unicorns and rainbows. She isn’t selling me something–but she does …
“I want to hear what my neighbors say.” Quiet Time Confidential with D.L. MayfieldRead More
I have read the Bible in church and youth group and para-church ministries. I’ve done Bible seminars and one-day trainings and workbooks. I’ve read the Word in another language and culture, read the whole shebang a handful of times. I’ve done word studies and topic studies and inductive studies and Lectio Divina. But the longer …
The twenty-something’s group met at a house, people packed in a small living room, on the floor, couches, chairs, stools at the breakfast bar. I sat sandwiched among these new friends, stomach a little tight. Every week, I wanted the Bible study to be great, to remind me why I’d decided to keep calling myself a Christian. …
About a year ago, Rachel Held Evans wrote “The scandal of the evangelical heart.” She talked about how the tight theological arguments that exalt the genocide and violence of the Bible almost “scared her out of the Church.” Richard Beck calls this “orthodox alexithymia”. We completely uncouple our emotions from our theology. We expect ourselves …
Here’s the moment I stopped reading the Bible. I was on the faded green easy chair in my bedroom. Every night as the light faded from white to yellow to gold, I’d open the Word and read. I’d learned something since college, when reading the Bible was an OCD coping mechanism, a way I proved …
I’m trading my sorrows, trading my shame, Laying them down for the joy of the Lord— My dishrag stopped. I had been wiping down the black granite of my countertop, sweeping up stray ants. Yesterday, I had left a bit of ham on the counter, and I was still reaping the consequences. Now, I listened …
Healing cannot be gotten cheap at the dollar store.Read More
Mary DeMuth asked if she could feature last week’s post about owning our scars on her site. If you don’t follow Mary, she writes about living uncaged each day. Her testimony about surviving and healing after sexual abuse always rocks my world. And I’m so grateful that she uses her platform to champion abuse victims in the …
I’ve been inspired by Natasha Sistrunk Robinson’s thoughts on faith and mentoring for a while now–and am so honored to have had her join me for a week on mentoring at SheLoves. She graciously agreed to share some more about her journey towards mentoring with us here. I’m convinced that our journeys towards each other–intentional, brave, …
