What really matters...

  I shared this picture a while ago on my Facebook page and said that maybe later I would share the thoughts behind it. So here goes: These words are certainly true on an individual level in our own lives, but that’s not where my heart and mind were when I wrote them. I wrote these words after we discussed the first chapter of T he Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism . This book examines the history of the church in the United States and the ways that it has enabled racism both actively and passively. This isn’t the first book I have read on this topic. I also recently read Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation . As I’m reading these books and learning more about our history, I am left wondering what we are losing by burying it instead of acknowledging, repenting, and reconciling from it. That is my heart behind these words: There is no redemption without mess. There is no miracle without brokenness. There is no re...

Ok I've had a couple opportunities to write lately and wanted to share them with you. This first one was written as a devotion on our church Facebook group and was a reflection following Sunday worship in which Pastor Chris shared a message titled "Love Your Enemies" based on Matthew 5:43-48 and using the movie How to Train Your Dragon as an illustration. (The service is here, and worth watching  https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=656995488285956 ) Here are my thoughts: I wanted to continue the conversation about loving our enemies from Pastor Chris’s message yesterday. Relentless humanization is something I have been practicing in these divided days. It’s not easy, but it is necessary in order to love our enemies. We need to look behind actions for the emotions that are driving us. As I look around, I see a lot of people acting and reacting from pain and fear. Fear of change. Fear of nothing changing. Fear of losing jobs and a struggling economy. Fear of coronavirus. Fea...

This year I coordinated the Family Christmas Eve service at church. Instead of a single message, I did 3 short reflections. Here are those reflections: The gift of underachieving Anyone who has ever had a baby knows how much it changes your life. Two years ago on Christmas day, I found out I was pregnant. Our daughter was born September 1, 2018. I’ll be honest – I had done a lot with kids and while I knew being a parent would be different than any of those things, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what to expect. I did not; it was still much different than I expected. Harder in some ways. Surprising in others. More emotional in almost every way. She brings me joy that I never knew before. And has taught me so much over the last 15 months. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned has been to go with the flow. And I was already a pretty laid back person! But in order to find peace in where I am in life, I had to let go of my expectations. My expectations of her as a baby and ...

I am so fortunate. I start with that because I am not in the best mental space as I write this, so I want you to know up front that I know how fortunate I am to lead the life I do. I have a wonderful family and support system. I have a flexible job that I enjoy that also gives me the opportunity to spend my days with my young daughter. I have a house that we are working on making our own. And I am so grateful for all these things and so much more. And yet… Actually, I don’t even know quite where to go with those two words yet. I just know that I feel unsatisfied by those things, like there’s something missing. It’s almost as if my life has been consumed by those things – my family, my daughter, my job, my house – and I don’t know where I am anymore. I am lost in inside my own life. And so today I begin a journey of finding myself again. Not because I don’t love and appreciate each of those things, but because I need to get out of this rut. Because right now I feel like I am a...

I have been United Methodist since I was born. Growing up, my dad was a United Methodist Pastor. I was only about 10 days old the first time I went to annual conference. I spent 5 summers working at a United Methodist camp in college and after. And for more than 10 years I have worked at United Methodist churches. There is probably not another institution that is more entrenched in who I am. This weekend, United Methodists gathered in St. Louis for a special General Conference to debate the future of the church, specifically with regard to recognizing ordination and marriage of people who identify as LGBTQ+. As I watch from afar, I pray. So often we get caught up in being legalistic and what are the "rules." It's hard because we are a people who need structure. We like clear lines between right and wrong - and to think we know what those are. But life is not that clear cut. And so I pray for humility to know not one of us has all the answers. I pray for love that re...

On April 20, 1999, I was a junior in high school. I had stayed after school because I had practice for the spring musical, but the rehearsal wasn’t right after school so I had some time to fill between the two. I just didn’t have a ride back to the school if I went home. I remember walking through the cafeteria that afternoon and looking up at the TV. The news was on and it was showing footage of Columbine High School in Colorado. I remember standing there in disbelief. It was one of those things that was difficult to comprehend, because it had never happened before. I mean, we had had bomb scares from my middle school, but those were always some prankster calling from the pay phone in the school to get out of class – and they stopped when the pay phone was taken out. And I remember those bomb threats as being fun times hanging out with my friends instead of being in class. I never thought it could be real. Not until Columbine. And what breaks my heart is that today's youth have...

First, let me start by saying that Brene Brown's new book,  Braving the Wilderness , should be required reading for everyone these days. It speaks so much to our current societal reality. It is important, if only we can hear it. Ok, moving on... We as people are designed to see patterns in things. Sometimes we see patterns that don't exist and other times patterns help us understand that which is happening around  us. And there are the times that we refuse to acknowledge the connections between the patterns we see, but that is a post for another time. I have been told that my brain makes connections that other people don't see. I find it to be a true gift as someone who teaches and leads others. And over the last week I have been thinking about presence. There are three places these thoughts have come up. First, was from the aforementioned book,  Braving the Wilderness. In Chapter 4, titled "People are Hard to Hate Close Up: Move In," Brene Brown writes the fo...

Apparently today is the International Day of Peace. I must admit it seems like a great ideal, but these days, it feels pretty unrealistic. The world seems more chaotic, more frightening, more out of control every day, and I often wonder where to even begin in my efforts to be a peacemaker. And yet I do believe peace is possible. If you are my friend on Facebook or follow me on Instagram, you will see that I often post nature pictures because nature is a place where I feel at peace, where I feel a connection to God that is hard to come by in the distractions and busyness of the rest of my life. There is a wisdom to nature - it is not in a hurry. But that is not how we live our lives. We are always in a hurry, always rushing to what is next. In her book,  Searching for Sunday  Rachel Held Evans talks about the difference between a cure and healing. She writes, "The thing about healing as opposed to curing, is that it is relational. It takes time. It is inefficient, like a ...

Do you ever have a day that comes with a message that seems impossible to miss? Like it's a giant neon sign, or God hitting you up side the head with a 2x4. That was my day today. It started at Girls on the Run. I volunteer on Tuesdays as a running buddy, and each day there is a lesson about empowerment, friendship, or some other important life lesson for the girls, as well as time to run and take care of our physical selves. Today's theme was "Star Power", and it was all about those things that we do that shine - kindness, confidence, encouragement, and so much more. But that was a lesson for girls in 4th and 5th grade, and relatively easily ignored after my crazy earlier day. However, since I didn't get enough exercise during Girls on the Run to achieve the goals set by my Apple Watch, and I currently have a streak of almost 60 days going, I needed a little more exercise. So I decided to go to the gym and get on the bike for 20 minutes. And I decided to star...

It's Vacation Bible School week this week at church. We are using the Cokesbury curriculum, Hero Central, so yesterday the kids all made capes in crafts. I have taken a more back seat role in VBS this year, opting to primarily serve on the media team during the opening and closing, but I did offer my game-leading experience to any crew leaders who wanted them. So last night I met up with the 2nd and 3rd graders who had just come from making their capes, and I noticed that a couple of the kids had chosen to turn their capes around, and I commented that they were more like aprons - and that I was totally ok with that because people who cook are certainly superheroes in my book. Fast forward to today. I am off on Mondays so I went to the pool to enjoy some of this gorgeous Ohio weather we have been having, and I picked up a book that I have been reading off and on:  Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church  by Rachel Held Evans. And as I picked up where I l...

I love the Psalms. I love the Psalms because they are real. There is emotion and life in the Psalms. Sometimes when I read the stories of the Bible, like stories of Jesus, it is easy for me to jump to the end or just think of them as stories because I have been hearing them my whole life, and I have to remind myself that these stories are real. I have to consciously put the emotion and the life into the story. But not so with the Psalms. With the Psalms the emotions are so evident. And so many of the psalms were written by one man – David. And he has an quite the story. You see David didn’t have the life he anticipated. The first time we meet David, he is a young shepherd boy off tending flocks. The prophet Samuel comes to his home after being told that one of Jesse’s sons is to be the next king. After all 7 of Jesse’s older sons are not found to be the right one, Samuel asks if he has any more sons, to which Jesse responds, only the youngest is left – he is out with the sheep. Jesse s...

I am not a boat rocker. I am the classic middle child - the peacemaker, the people pleaser, the one who wants everyone to like me. But I still have opinions (of course) and lately they have been harder and harder to keep to myself. There are many reasons that I try to do so - I don't think arguing with strangers (or friends) on the internet is helpful. I want to be someone who adds value to the conversation rather than taking it away and if I feel like what I am going to say will lead to greater division, then it's generally not worth it. I also work for a church and acknowledge that my professional life and personal life are inseparable. And yet lately it's harder and harder to keep quiet. I have said for years that the thing that scares me most about our culture is the "I'm right and you're stupid" mentality that has overtaken so much of society. We don't seek to have conversation. I used to be proud that my friend list was representative of both s...

Scripture James 2:14-26 A blogger I used to follow name Jon Acuff coined this phrase “Booty, God, Booty.” He was living in Atlanta at the time and he used this phrase to talk about this rap station that he listened to that had an “inspirational vitamin” every morning at a specific time. And he said these inspirational vitamins were often quite powerful, and included a scripture and a gospel song, but something he noticed was that they didn’t change their regular music around this time. So they would play a song like “In love with a stripper” followed by their inspirational vitamin and then go right back into a similar song. Booty. God. Booty. He talked about how this was obvious and weird on the radio station, but we also often live that way. We come to church on Sunday, but what are we doing on Saturday night? And Monday morning? This summer we have been talking about the Marks of a Meaningful Life, and one mark of a meaningful life is an integrated life. Living our faith in the...

On Wednesday I went to Griggs Nature Preserve. One of the interesting things about Griggs is how secluded it feels when you are down by the waterfall, and yet how close you are to the busyness of life. Because the waterfall is so loud, I didn't even hear the traffic that was zipping by above me as I had time for me and God. Yet I know there was traffic. It's a busy road I travel all the time, and if you look at the picture below, you can see how close the waterfall is to the road. When Matt and I were getting ready for our wedding, we did premarital counseling with Pastor Tom, and he talked about the window of time we had after our wedding to create "our" normal before we naturally reverted to who we had been before the wedding. Likewise, I think we have that window after any of those "away" times when we meet God and ourselves in new ways. I have several changes I am trying to make in my window following the Women in Youth Ministry Campference ...

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to Montreat, North Carolina for the Women in Youth Ministry Campference. It was a getaway at the time when I needed it most. I was tired and drained from a busy 2016 to this point, We had a big fundraiser last weekend, serving dinner to approximately 250 people and raising thousands of dollars for our summer mission trip. The conference was from Wednesday to Friday, and Thursday afternoon we had free time to do whatever it was we most needed. I'm not going to lie - part of me wanted to sleep. But I am so rarely in the mountains, and I really wanted to see the view. So despite my physical exhaustion, I ventured out with a group of new friends to climb Lookout Mountain.  I'm not going to lie. I was breathing heavily the entire hike. I had to stop and rest. And as a runner who has run half marathons, it was somewhat demoralizing to be having so much trouble climbing this mountain, when my climbing friends were ahead of me. But I kept ...

It's the beginning of a new year and a time when people make lots of promises to themselves. Some people do really well. Others, not so much. Some of you reading this may have already "broken" your resolutions. And in fact - that's what I want to talk about. The most important thing I have learned in my journey to accomplish my goals is the importance of grace. And by that I mean grace with myself. For a long time I would set lofty goals for myself. Eating healthy all the time, having a quiet time everyday, exercising multiple times a week. All of these are good things. But it wasn't until I started having grace for myself in the process that I started succeeding at any of them. Because before, if I missed a day, I saw the goal as being over. I had broken the resolution, the promise. But when I started having grace with myself, I would simply try again the next day. Or the day after that. Sometimes it has worked better than others, but I have certainly had more ...

As I scroll through my Facebook news feed these days, I find myself more and more discouraged about the state of our society. Not so much because of the tragic things that are happening - though there are many things happening in our world to be concerned about. But rather, what I find more disheartening is the way we talk about these things. I have written about this before, and will no doubt write about it again, but today I want to focus on one simple part: the reality that there is always more to the story. I don't care what the story is, and I don't care which side of the story you are on - if it's a news story these days, don't assume you have the whole story. Everything has an angle - whether it's intentional or not. That's reality. Even if we were both there, we would have different perceptions of what happened. And we weren't there. So we don't know the whole story. Now I am not saying is that you cannot have an opinion. There are certainl...

I keep seeing these posts about people picking their word for 2015. Something they want to move toward, what they want their theme to be. It seems to me to be the new form of resolutions. And as I see these posts, and consider what I would choose as my word, I honestly have no idea. Because I have no idea what 2015 will hold. But I can absolutely look back and choose a word that defines 2014 for me: Trust. A year ago, I thought things were moving along pretty well in my life. I thought I had finally found some balance and felt pretty settled. Oh, things weren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I was happy with where I was. And then in January, everything changed. The details of how and why the change happened don't really matter, but it was a change I hadn't planned on. In January, it was decided that I would leave my job at the time at the end of May. And the reality is, as a youth leader, my career is much different than just a job. I have a job that infil...