My mom has been reading to me since I was born. So I called her up and asked her to take on the immense endeavor of narrating the first-ever (to my knowledge) King James Version audio Bible read completely by a woman.
This is the moment everything up til this moment formed into this realization of healing. Because not once during the last few days had I been triggered. Not one hymn. Not one shudder induced by a smell or a sight. No anger. No pain. No regret. Just genuine gratitude and bittersweet joy for my family, for my grandma’s prayers, for the good old hymns, for each and every last memory.
Maybe you have looked up to people like Rachel Held Evans and Joshua Harris. I know that I did. Maybe their deconstruction stories have shaken your faith. Maybe you wonder if faith deconstruction is for you. Maybe you are ready to walk away from it all. It’s tempting to take a hacksaw to your faith, dump the remains in the yard waste cart, and wipe your hands of it all as the city utility workers haul it all away. But I urge you: build a compost pile. Stay. Please stay. Because the tree grows on the fallen forest. If it died, it can live again.
If you have ever been on my blog before, you probably know that I feel like I have a complicated “faith story.” (If you are new to my blog, you might want to start here.) After walking away from “fundamentalism” in my mid-twenties, I’m now in the process of letting God reconstruct my faith as … [Read more…]
A few weeks ago a fellow faith blogger asked me to write a guest blog for her some time about my faith journey. “I’m particularly interested in your journey to finding Jesus…how grace has changed your life…or something of that nature.” I readily agreed. That was a month ago and I haven’t written a word…until now. … [Read more…]
This morning I drove to church – alone, feeling guilty. Between working all week on moving things over to our new house and my having to play the piano for both Easter services at our church this morning, “Easter” activities for the kids got the short end of the stick… By short end, I mean … [Read more…]
As I write this, I am in the backseat of our minivan on the way home from our family’s 4th of July Summer vacation. For now, everyone is behaving. My heart is full, but I am unsure quite where to begin. Every patriotic holiday evokes emotion for us, but Independence Day is the happiest. It is … [Read more…]
August 25, 2015 – 39 weeks, 6 days I had originally planned to title this post “Strong enough? Finding the balance between female empowerment and dependence on God.” And I’m going to talk about that, I promise. But I realize, at 1 day shy of 40 weeks up at 5:30AM having contractions, that I can’t … [Read more…]
Christmastime last year was a very difficult one for me. My husband was working a low-end temporary job making $15 an hour – with no time off for the holidays (not even Thanksgiving or Christmas). We had no Veteran’s benefits coming in yet. Neither of us had healthcare. We were living in an 850 square … [Read more…]
I think that there’s still a way to keep telling my story. To keep sharing openly and vulnerably. To shift focus more onto the beauty and still honor others in the telling.