• Community,  Faith

    We Have Given Up

    Tweet Dear American Evangelical, It seems we have given up. A quick perusal of social media makes this point painstakingly obvious to some, but perhaps you are still not convinced.  For a minute, just consider what giving up might look like to others. We have given up our missional calling for political pursuits. We have given up being pro-neighbor to be pro-life. We have given up the calling of the church for the calling of the state. We have given up Christian first for Republican first. We have given up the simplicity of the gospel for the complexity of dos and do nots. We have given up kindness for rightness.…

  • Faith

    Scandalous and Scornful

    Tweet Scandalous. Scornful. Unusual.   And no, I am not talking about any current political or celebrity figure. The book of Matthew and thus the New Testament begins with a genealogy. You know, the ever long passages of scripture going “so-and-so begat so-and-so.” The passages we are tempted to ignore, skim over, or skip past to get to the meaningful text. The verses we can use to support our stance or encourage or admonish. Who cares about a long list of someone’s family tree. The thing is, you can learn a lot about a person by exploring their ancestry. You can find out a lot about someone by knowing where…

  • Faith

    Trash Your Ideal Self

    Tweet A few days ago, I sent a group of friends a picture of part of my kitchen. I have included it for full-disclosure. I would like to write a long post about how this was a rare sight and normally my kitchen is perfect, clean, and could be found on Pinterest, but far more often, the picture is the reality. I imagine, for a lot of you, your day-to-day reality may look similar to my kitchen. Perhaps it’s a different room in your house or perhaps it’s a part of your soul that feels messy and disorganized.  It’s a part of your life you will never find on social…

  • Community,  Working Mom

    A Year of Authenticity

    Tweet Authentic- true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character; Not false or imitation For the past several weeks, I have been struggling with what to choose as my word for the year.  While I have a few personal goals for 2017, I am more concerned with the year I live and how I treat those around me thus I decided to go back to my word of the year and filter all my goals and plans through the word. I tossed around a bunch of different ideas and looked up a bunch of words in the dictionary. My problem was narrowing down to a single word because there were…

  • Faith,  Working Mom

    Independent. Multi-Tasker.

    Tweet This was the description of women summed up by an author in a book I was listening to the other day. She polled a bunch of women and the theme which emerged was independent, multi-tasker. In other words, women think they can do it all and they can do it all alone. Talk about feeling hit by a ton of bricks. I could totally relate. I feel the exact same way. All.the.time. Although I might replace the word can with the word should. I should do it all and I should do it alone. Isn’t that the message our culture sends?  Be the perfect wife, mom, employee, church attendee…

  • Community,  Working Mom

    30 Things for 30 Years

    Tweet Last week, I turned 30 years old. I love birthdays, but this one had me a bit emotional. I am not sure why except it had been a really tough few months and 30 looks nothing like I thought it would at 20.  Crazy how fast a decade goes by and all of a sudden you are staring down a new decade wondering where the time went. It seems like yesterday I was celebrating 20 and looking forward to all my twenties would bring. In many ways, I am actually looking forward to my 30’s and glad to say goodbye to the past decade. So as I say goodbye,…

  • Working Mom

    You do You

    Tweet   You do You.  This was advice given to me by a speaker I recently listened to at a leadership breakfast I went to for my job.  She was talking about her career path and current position at a prestigious local company. At one point, she mentioned her two children and their ages. A quick bit of math brought the realization she had built her career while her children were very young.  After the breakfast, I went up to introduce myself as we had a mutual friend and ask her advice. Being a working mom is tough. Being a working mom in a world where most people assume eventually…

  • Working Mom

    My Do-Not-Do List

    Tweet If you missed my obsession with Hoopla, check here for more details. And download it stat. It might change your life. My current audio book loves are all of Shauna Niequist’s books. I probably should stop listening to them because they make me cry. Ugly tears sometimes. But I love her. and her writing. and she narrates them. Currently, I am in the middle of Bittersweet and she has a chapter in there on her “Do-Not-Do” List. At one point she was overwhelmed and trying to do it all (hello all my millennial mom friends) and received some wise advice which lead her to creating a list of things she…

  • Faith

    One Christian’s Response to the 2016 Election

    Tweet Ya’ll, listen. If you haven’t noticed, there is this tiny little political election happening this year. I am not sure how you could have missed it. I don’t watch TV, but social media is rife with articles, posts, opinions, and every other type of political fanfare you can imagine. I normally try to shy away from all things political,  but today I hit a breaking point. Someone on my FB feed posted an article about Trump with a line about how could you not support him after reading this article. Curious by nature and still slightly in shock at the candidates we have to choose from, I clicked on…

  • Working Mom

    One Year Later

    Tweet They say kids grow up fast, but how truly fast they grow up is not something you understand until you have them. And then all of a sudden you sit here on the verge of your first kid’s first birthday and wonder where the time went. Weren’t you just born yesterday? I still picture that moment with the most vivid of memories. H’s birth was tough. He came into this world as stubborn as his mama and I love every ounce of his personality and little life. Perhaps because H is our first or because I always wanted an August birthday, I have a big party planned. I have…