Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Community”
What if everyone agreed with me? I’ve been asking myself that question a lot the past few days. Or should I say daydreaming about it, because that’s really what it amounts to. Every time I read a mean comment, or a stereotype, or an opinion I just plain disagree with, I ball up my fists and growl, How could they POSSIBLY think that? My righteous anger …
Last week I attended a writers conference in Grand Rapids that–due to no fault of its own–I had been dreading for weeks. The conference itself is fantastic, but I have a real love/hate relationship with writers conferences. On the one hand, I love seeing old friends, making new ones, and learning more. On the other hand, writers conferences dig up a lot of …
Last month a friend of mine posted this as his Facebook status: “It’s not even the 2016 election yet, and unfriend season is already in full swing. How did we get here so fast?” When I read this I laughed, because I feel 100% the same way. Although for me, “unfriend season” is not limited to election years. Whenever a …
I have put off writing this post for awhile, because I was a little embarrassed to share it. It’s one of those lessons that I should have learned in high school–maybe even middle school–but I’m still struggling with it today. I was afraid that, in sharing it, I would seem immature or emotionally stunted, but I finally decided to bite …
A few months ago, Ike and I added a new parenting milestone to our resumé: we were sick at the same time. Maybe “milestone” isn’t the right word–the experience was somewhere between a trauma and an accomplishment–but either way, we did it. We survived. And lest you think this was a little sniffly cold that descended on our home, it …
When I was about 25 years old I spent a summer working as a hospital chaplain. It was a hard job, to say the least. Every day I was confronted with death, grief, brokenness, and suffering. By the end of it I was emotionally drained, and it took me months to recover. In addition to the demands of the job, …
“Once you label me, you negate me.” – Soren Kierkegaard This week I spent some time with a group of women I didn’t know very well. Some I didn’t know at all, which meant that each and every introduction began with this initial question: “So, what do you do?” Whenever the interview turned my way, I usually answered the question …
During my twenties my parents used to joke that I would always have a crisis when they were on vacation. When I was single, that certainly seemed to be the case. Whenever they were out of the country, out of cell phone range, or generally out of reach, I would become sick with a parasite, or go through a horrible …
In the last several months, Sovereign Grace Ministries, a network of Reformed churches, has been in the news as the result of a sexual abuse scandal and allegations of a cover up. Although there is much we don’t know for sure, some of the adults accused of abusing children at two different SGM churches are now serving time in prison. …
Community can be so elusive, can’t it? I didn’t fully understand the rareness of true, heart friends until I moved away from North Carolina 2 years ago. Starting over is much harder than I thought it would be, but cross-country re-locations are not the only obstacle to community. Another barrier to community can be life stage. As a single person, …
