‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!’ ‘Shiny, happy people holding hands.’ ‘Don’t worry, be happy.’ Sound familiar? A quick Google search brings up more than 100 songs with the word ‘happy’ in the title, but I have to wonder how many of us would use the word to describe the day […]
I just stepped out of my closet. My head is hanging, because I thought it might be effective to poke fun at myself and my obvious obsession with shoes. I figured that, if I wanted to really make a strong argument for the case of the damage done by our excesses, I should begin at […]
Discomfort comes in many forms, in varied shapes and sizes. Whether circumstantial, relational, physical, financial or spiritual, the thing we all know about discomfort is THAT IT COMES. Our natural tendency is to recoil when pain and discomfort hit close to home. We FIGHT it! We DENY it! We COMPLAIN ABOUT it! We RUN FROM […]
Nothing scares us more than facing off with our inner demons, and yet nothing scares THEM more than when we call them out, BY NAME! Think Jesus and the healing of the demon-possessed man. Having been filled with a whole herd of demons, this poor man was literally out of his mind (or, he could […]
You think I’m kidding, but I’ve never been more serious. I WELCOME YOU to my MID-LIFE CRISIS because I’ve learned that ‘the more, the merrier’ is as practical as good counsel gets, and the one thing that my mid-life crisis has failed to produce is ‘merry’ of any kind. ‘Merry Christmas,’ we say. ‘Eat, drink […]
Every Tuesday morning, armed with my Bible and a bag of powerful, freshly ground coffee, I make my way to the church. Only, I don’t really think of it as going to ‘church’ – it’s more like going home. I never dread Tuesday mornings. On the contrary, Tuesday is my favorite day of the week! […]
I’ve been on a retreat this week. Never mind that I worked as many as 13 hours a day while retreat-ing. Never mind that what occupied much of my mind-space this week had to do with counting books and counting money. Never mind that my retreat required air travel and taxi rides and coordinating a […]
It came in the mail this week – my shiny Starbucks Gold Card. Imprinted with my name, this card is more than a high class gift card. It allows me to get my favorite iced soy latte without paying 50 cents for the soy milk. It allows me to get a free refill when I […]
My husband and I had just finished loading up my little Nissan Cube with groceries the other day when a man passing by commented to his friend as my husband got into the driver’s seat, not so much under his breath, “he’s gay.” (Not the word he used.) A friend told me about a church […]
There are times in my life when I have been truly amazed at my own fearlessness while doing INCREDIBLY intimidating things. ME – afraid of heights and PETRIFIED of falls – in a harness, climbing a 50 foot tower, only to JUMP OFF of the top and be lowered to the ground by another person – […]