Identity
The Lie That You Can Always Be Better or More
Last Monday night I set my alarm for 5:30am to get up for a 6am workout class. My plan was to go to that class, then come home, shower, get ready, go to to work and then go to an afternoon meeting. This was my Tuesday plan. What happened instead? Well, Monday night I couldn’t sleep…
Read MoreTwo Things Daughters Need to Hear from their Fathers
A few weeks ago I was assigned to write a Father’s Day article about what daughters need to hear from their fathers as teens. Immediately I remembered this one time I did a Q&A session at a youth leaders’ conference. I and another preacher’s daughter answered a few questions about what it was like to…
Read MoreFeeling Bent. Feeling Broken.
Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape. – Charles Dickens I spent about 26 years of my life feeling pretty good about myself. I was always a…
Read MoreWhen Church Is the Cause of Your Hustle
Last week I was feeling irritable. I was busy. I had a lot of things to do and places to be and I didn’t like it. My soul wanted to rest. You know that feeling? When you realize you crammed a few too many things onto your calendar for the week and you feel the…
Read MoreSix Tips for Navigating Your Twenties (+ a Giveaway!)
Winners of the All Groan Up giveaway are… Leslie Wood Beverly Vance Missy Mutchnik Send me your address via my contact page or PM. CONGRATULATIONS! A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about an article I had read that inspired me to embrace this unknown season of life I’m in, rather than run from it. I…
Read MoreWhen Life Is Shaky, Weird and Hard, But Good at the Same Time
I’ve moved a lot since college. Almost every year in fact. From apartment to house to condo to another house. It’s the typical transient life of the twenty-something, I suppose. Though I leave a lot behind when I move—clothes, old picture frames, dishes I don’t want anymore—one thing I’ve carried with me to…
Read More2015: No More Clean Slates
The phrase “a clean slate” is kicked around a lot this time of year. People are encouraging others and themselves to forget the heartache or mistakes or tragedies of last year and begin anew. A clean slate. It sounds so crisp. So freeing. So beautiful. So…clean. But I’m beginning to wonder, is a clean slate…
Read MoreA Christmas Reminder for Perfectionists
This weekend I attended The Gift of Christmas–a night of spoken-word poetry and music with Ann Voskamp, Amena Brown and Ellie Holcomb. I expected the Christmas songs and the candles and for the word “advent” to be thrown around a few times, but I didn’t expect to be so moved by it all. I like…
Read More10 Things I've Learned, 10 Years After High School
This weekend, I attended my ten-year high school reunion. I didn’t think we would ever make it to our ten-year reunion. In high school, it seemed a million years away. But it turns out, ten years flies by like ten minutes in the real world. As we sat around in a circle reminiscing about crazy…
Read MoreWhy Men Don't Tell You You're Beautiful
I read this post by Matt Walsh a while back. It was a letter to his daughter, who is still very young, about her beauty and how he hopes that the magazine rack and social media will never convince her she isn’t beautiful. He’s knows it’s wishful thinking but it was a very well-written and…
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