Identity
Announcing A New Project: Breathing Room
This is how my ideas come to fruition: I have an idea. I think about that idea for a long time. I say the idea out loud, but only to myself. One day, I say the idea out loud to a trusted friend. Then, I say it to more friends. I practice speaking the idea.…
Read MoreI Am Not Good at Being Me, Except When I Write
I am not very good at being myself. But I am very good at being who people want me to be. I can walk into a room, read the situation and take on a persona. (I would probably be a great spy.) A room of academics? I’ll try and act smart. A room of Christians?…
Read MoreThe Opposite of Fear Is Not Courage
A few months ago I had a week full of fear related to my work. I felt overwhelmed, andthe thoughts running through my head looked something like this: “I don’t know what I’m doing.” “This is too much.” “I need to just find another job.” “I’m not going to be able to fulfill everyone’s expectations.” You…
Read MoreWhen You Realize You’re the Pharisee
Often when I read stories in the Bible about Jesus, I consider myself one of his disciples in the story, and I consider the Pharisees my enemies. But in reading a story in Matthew recently, I realized the reverse was true. Matthew 12 begins with Jesus and the disciples walking through some cornfields on the…
Read MoreA Key Question on the Path to Finding Your Niche and Your Purpose
Remember that time I promised you a three-part series on How to Become a Freelance Writer and wrote part one and then never wrote parts two and three? Yeah, well, I’m finally ready to address part two: finding your writing niche. This is ironic considering the reason I’ve been dragging my feet on this post…
Read MoreThe Truth About Writing Books and Perfection
As I mentioned last week, I recently wrote a book. A dream come true. A freaking miracle. It’s about 65,000 words in its current state. Those 65,000 words are what I submitted to my editor. Then, there is a document hidden on my computer called “CUTS.” My dad told me about the CUTS document…
Read MoreCreating from the Hard Places
I’m in a women’s class at my church on Thursday mornings. We’re studying the book Waking Up Grey, which is all about waking up your creativity. As I sat in class last week, I looked around and noticed several women crying. They were just sitting there, letting tears run down hardly wiping them away. They looked…
Read More“I didn’t know myself without social media.” – Essena O’Neill and Knowing Ourselves
I don’t often drop everything to comment on newsy topics, but when it involves body image and identity, sometimes I can’t help myself. You may have seen that Essena O’Neill, a teen social media celebrity with half a million Instagram followers, has quit social media. I didn’t know who Essena O’Neill was until yesterday, but…
Read MoreWhy Being Still Makes Us So Uncomfortable
I hate being sick. I know everybody hates being sick, but I feel like I have a particularly hard time with it. I’ve had a cold since Friday, and I noticed that with this cold I was doing more than usual to try and make it go away as soon as possible. I took a…
Read MoreWhat It Means to Be Loved By God
I’ve been quiet in this space lately. Work has been consuming. Any spare time I have I devote to writing other things and writing here gets pushed farther and farther down the priority list. I don’t like it, but it’s the season I’m in right now. I listened to a song the other day that…
Read More