What really matters...

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...