Welcome to small group! You might think being social shouldn’t need its own set of FAQs, but Christian community is a little fraught. For some of us, it’s the closest we ever get to heaven on earth. For the rest of us, it’s the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace. I hate bracing myself for …
The Bible as an Instrument of Self-Harm
In page after page of scripture, laser-focused on my own shortcomings, I had missed God’s relentless, overwhelming grace. Instead, I had taken His powerful Word and used it as a weapon to punish myself. I am still recovering from reading the Bible that way.
I See You, Bully: For SheLoves Magazine
I see you bullying a friend of yours in fourth grade. Your target is wearing white sneakers, and she doesn’t want to get them dirty in the mud. You laugh at her because they’re so glowing white they’re ridiculous against the cut of her not-cool jeans and her squared-off K-Mart t-shirt. This girl you’re trying to …
Prayer: FAQs for the mildly compulsive
Welcome to prayer! You know, you’re always welcome to pray. Of course, that might not be good news, since “pray without ceasing” sounds a little like obsessive hand-washing. THANK YOU for saying that. This is one of those spiritual disciplines that I can’t check off my list. It’s like the dishes. I get thirsty right after washing up, …
Have I Repented Too Much? For the Mudroom
The book I use for daily prayer, The Divine Hours, includes a lot of confessions, like this classic: Almighty God, my heavenly Father: I have sinned against you, through my own fault, in thought, and word, and deed, and in what I have left undone. I wince almost every time I read this prayer. It’s cliché to wince …
The Sabbath: FAQ For Workaholic Christians
Welcome to the Sabbath! … …? …? ….! ………….Wait. Aren’t you going to answer my questions? Well, we are trying to engage with the whole Sabbath spirit and allow a little more white space, you know? But you just left me, like, sitting here. Exactly. &^%$. Sorry, we shouldn’t poke fun at your frustration. Taking …
Communion: FAQ for Doubtful Christians
Nothing says” awkward” like knowing people would be shocked if you touched a cracker unworthily.
Lent: FAQ for Anxious Christians
My FAQ about the Book of Common Prayer is my most-read post ever. So I decided to take the hint and do a whole series of these tongue-in-cheek posts about the spiritual disciplines and practices that give me hives. And what better time to start than Lent, the most-dour holiday? You’re welcome. And now, without further ado: …
What I want you to know about homeschooling: For Rage Against the Minivan
If I tell you I home school, and you don’t, I can guess what you’ll say: “I could never do what you’re doing.” I want you to know something: You’re wrong. You could do what I’m doing. Let’s be clear. I’m not saying this in a judgy, “get with the program already” kind of way. …
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I Insist This Is A Love Story: For SheLoves Magazine
I insist this is a love story. I was twelve or 13, and I was in bed, crying, because earlier that day, I looked down at one of the desks I passed in class, and saw I hate Heather gouged into the wood with a blade. I was hoping my mom would hear my crying that night. …
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When “Career” Is a Messy, Beautiful Chaos
When I was twenty, I got a Rotary scholarship to go study literature at the University of Buenos Aires for a year. At the time, I only knew was that UBA was a public university with an excellent reputation. Later, I’d encounter its chaos: professors who chain-smoked without ashtrays in class, roving political party members soliciting …
How Failure Saved My Soul
One day in grad school, Sandra, my creative writing professor, handed back a draft of one of my stories. “The story has a lot of potential, Heather,” she said. “But I think you could develop more compassion for your characters.” I nodded, but my heart sank. Sandra was my favorite professor, and I’d learned her …
When Studying the Bible Leaves Us Caged
In my very first Bible study, we studied the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians. I was a high school freshman; I’d never really heard of Bible study, much less attended one. Two seniors, Jen and Betsy, led. To me, they were like the best mixture of rock stars and nice older siblings: both blonde, …
Why do you call me good?
The other day I got an email from a reader about a really hard situation with her in-laws. She has been through a financial hell because of them, and they are completely unrepentant and unconcerned about it. In fact, they blame her for everything. She worried that she sounded like “a bad daughter in-law.” Her words …
What Am I Willing To Do For Wholeness? For SheLoves Magazine
When my sister Katie was 22, she took a job as a preschool teacher at a Christian church. She laughed, blithely, as she told me about it in one of our sporadic phone calls. She was in charge of twenty three-year-olds for a full day. Most of her students had not been fully potty trained. …
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The parable of the succulent
Last year for Christmas, our family received a beautiful succulent in a hand-made ceramic pot; three long shoots poking out of the soil. Its sage-tree leaves picked up the color of the glaze of the pot. I thought I followed the directions: let the soil get completely dry before watering again. When I poked my …
Revelation Is Not A Guarantee–for The Mudroom
For a three-month stretch when I was seven or eight, I tried to learn how to pray. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d pull a children’s prayer book down from the shelf and move it to the crack of light that shone in from the hallway. I opened it up to the Lord’s Prayer and read …
Waiting instead of doing: The beauty of the Advent ache
I wrote some Advent reflections back in summer and fall, because I feel too overwhelmed in the holiday. This year, apparently, I decided to write about emotions–the lack of them, or having the kind we don’t want. Also, wow: I am a little melancholic at Christmas. I hope it provides space for you to let …
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The Boldness That Comes With Mutual Submission
I used to think that submission was passive. It’s why, working at the campus bookstore at my university, I ignored the shelves of women’s studies books, sure that picking up even one would mean not submitting to God’s design for me. It’s why, after realizing that women were not allowed to serve communion at my …
Endurance Is Not Cold Tolerance: for The Mudroom
When I was a new mom, I read that children go through periods of equilibrium and disequilibrium that last about six months each. I kept hoping my daughter was nearing the end of a period of disequilibrium. After all, my sweet girl had been pushing all my buttons for months with expert grace, and she was about to have her …
Waiting instead of doing: Feeling something is optional
Dear Heather, It’s July 26th, and here you are, thinking about Christmas. We even beat Walmart for Xmas displays, didn’t we? You were looking through your blog calendar, and came up with ideas for posts up to December, and then you stopped, and sighed. Because every year, you know you should say something about Christmas. Every year, …
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College Can Kill Our Colorblindness (If We Let It): For Her.meneutics
Earlier this month, protests about race erupted at several American colleges. The uproar began at the University of Missouri, where the chancellor and president resigned over their responses to racially charged harassment. Meanwhile at Yale, an official email about avoiding racist Halloween costumes, such as blackface, inspired one faculty member’s response asking for “free speech and the …
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Easy faith is intentional
After my first daughter was born, and I dove into postpartum depression, one of the easiest ways to torment myself was to think about how far I’d slid from God. When I thought about God, I thought this: If I’m not cheerful about God right now, then I’m a terrible Christian. Back then, I thought it meant …
Why I’m Grateful for My Anxiety for SheLoves Magazine
I suffer from anxiety. Early the other morning, I woke before the sun was up, as I sometimes do. I stumbled to the bathroom, hoping that would help me fall back to sleep, but when I got back in bed, my body was on fire. The stomachache that had plagued me for three days came …
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