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Words
The greatest waves of guilt I’ve ever felt have been over my words. There’s no way I could recall all the times my heart has seemingly fallen into my belly while reflecting on a conversation and my own ill-spoken words. I’ve thrown curse words at loved ones, I’ve criticized friends behind their backs, I’ve shared stories that weren’t mine to share. Sometimes these words were simply poorly chosen, but many times these words were from my own internal darkness, pain and critical nature. Thanks to all the ever-expanding avenues of connecting with people, it’s so much easier to apologize and attempt to make things right than it was when I…
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Statement Culture
We have become a culture of statements. Jewelry is no longer called a simple “necklace” but a “statement piece.” A couch is no longer a place to sit your butt, but has to also “make a statement.” Our cars, our homes, our clothes, friends, where we eat, the beer we drink have become statements about who we are. And our 140 characters, parsed statements become our summation of how the world should operate. When news hits, we jump on Facebook or Twitter to essentially release a statement on the event… with the same pomp and air of authority as a government official or chancellor of a university. Sometimes we share the words of…
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Piles on Piles
I’ve been working my way through the house attempting to put it back on its feet after several years of toddlerdom and a lifelong habit of saving every little thing. There’s a front room in the house that has amazing potential yet it often finds itself in the cross hairs of multiple hobbies, a litter box and hoards of preschool projects. It is the first room people see when they walk in the door and it currently looks like it is vomiting out the manifestation of my internal chaos. You see, I begin piles as temporary solutions, and yet they almost always grow to be permanent problems. These piles are…
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Too much waiting, not enough living.
Sometimes you have to stop looking for permission from everyone else to pursue your passions. If you wait for divine inspiration, you may spend your whole life waiting. When I started grad school, I read an article talking about the fear of starting. Some students dove right in, making corrections and alterations to the plan as they went, some stood at the edge of the pool assessing every ripple in the water before jumping in. Guess which I was. If you guessed I was the one frozen at the side, you were right. I waited so long and planned something so big that I had to change form a Masters degree…
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Finding Your Calling
Earlier this week I wrote a blog post, deleted it, and then sent it to the women in my Community Group. It is embarrassing when you ask the same questions for years on end only to stay just as confused. This pursuit of finding our “calling” as it relates to the local church and God’s work at large can seem impossible to nail down as our lives and circumstances are constantly in flux. As an undergrad I had a very different idea of what serving God looked like than I do now as a mother of two children with a part-time job. Back in high school, my youth pastor Phil…
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A Seat at the Table
This morning, our good friend Thom preached on being the adopted and sons and daughters of God. The part of his talk that really grabbed me was his discussion on how we write ourselves off as undeserving, unwanted or less than at His table. Several weeks back, I was dining at Magiano’s with a group of women to celebrate my friend’s birthday. There were sixteen of us laughing and talking as if we were the oldest of friends, and amazingly enough we managed to all agree on two appetizers, salads and main courses to share family style. Six months prior, I would have felt completely inferior and too socially inadequate…
