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March Madness
March madness has ended. The NCAA tournament is over for another year. Today many will feel a little bit of sadness that the momentum of the unpredictable, drama infused and entertaining madness has concluded. Do any folks who sacrifice for the tournament ever say, “Yeah, that was so worth it?” Like this past tournament, I had my own nerve-racking experience. My March madness began with an annual trip to the breast center for a mammogram. That’s what I do to celebrate my birthday each year. It’s weird, I know, but I never forget to schedule it. So I went, complained a whole bunch, and thought nothing of it. A few…
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This Daughter of Mine
Sometimes life brings dark, lonely moments that seem endless. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. Like a contraction during childbirth, you breathe through it, screaming every second of that moment for a glimpse of relief. I’ve had many, many moments like that but nothing comes close to what I went through in 1997. In the midst of it all, a baby’s cry—God’s gift of mercy and grace in a living song. This Daughter of Mine Seventeen years ago today, God gave me a daughter. This daughter of mine, I’m nothing like her, but in so many ways she’s just like…
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Live Out Your Purpose
Do you want your life to make a difference? Look around you. How satisfied are you with your life? What about purpose? Do you seek to live out your purpose? My drive to succeed as a college student was solely to find purpose in changing the world. I wanted to have an impact on others so badly that I worked really hard. Never mind my pursuit of excellence in my education, I served at church and I even adopted a child from Guatemala—okay not really, I just sponsored one. Even though I barely had enough money to eat in college, I still made sure Manuel had his monthly donation.…
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My Shirley Temple Moment
Almost everyone I know has a Shirley Temple moment in his or her life. Whether it happened forcefully or unexpected, many of us have a story to tell that includes a Shirley Temple movie or song. I think that’s why most of us feel a sense of loss in her passing. My Shirley Temple moment lasted for just a little while, but the lesson I learned from it has persevered. I performed On the Good Ship Lollipop in a church talent show to raise money for something—I can’t remember what, but I know it involved a high-school trip. Anyway, right before taking the stage, I got sick and…
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Said This Blogger to the People Everywhere
It’s Christmas. Celebrate the ultimate expression of love in the birth of God’s Son, Jesus. Celebrate His life—His power over death, for it is how we have salvation. It is how we have a relationship with God. Take in His grace. Embrace it and don’t let it go. Take the freedom you have in Christ and play. Enjoy your life and the gifts God has given you. Laugh so hard your sides hurt. And go ahead and cry if you want because of the unexplicable love He has for you. Yes, He loves you dearly. Stay in wonder. Can you imagine? The God-man born—given to us to…
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A Heart of Thanksgiving
I love this time of year. I especially love how time turns as we head towards Christmastime. I have especially enjoyed reading the “…thankful for…” tweets and Facebook posts from my friends. Wordless pictures on Instagram simply thanking God for everything filled my days with smiles. God made such creative people! I didn’t do any social media things this year. I decided after last year’s Thanksgiving, to skip it this year. What you need to understand is that I fell into the trap of trying to find the most creative way of communicating my thankfulness for the wrong reason. I saw that I played the part of feeling thankful…
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The End of My World
All of us experience a time where we risk our well-put-together world for something we know God has called us to do. We get challenged far beyond trying to figure out what to make for dinner. And we tell ourselves, “Since it’s from God, it will play out simple, right?” My past few months have contained so much change. I started a new job and my husband began a new project in Sacramento, California. This means we get to spend more time apart than together. It also leaves me in charge here at home. I thought, “No big deal, I can do this,” and felt peace about it. Several…
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A Touching Story
I called her “The Bloody Woman in Mark 5” for the longest time. I can think back to my childhood and remember hearing about her in Sunday school. I can even recall when my mind made the connection that her suffering involved bleeding — the vaginal kind. I grossed out and groaned in horror when I realized she suffered for twelve years. Whenever I read about her today, I still cringe. And I continue to feel sad when I see that she did all she could to make it better…instead it only got worse. Others rejected her since a bleeding woman was considered “unclean.” The last time I read about…
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Totally Busted
I hate it when appliances stop working. They burst, explode or refuse to function. It makes me happy to think that everything that makes my life convenient will do its job. Yet, when a major appliance like my hot water heater starts spewing water everywhere, I reach a moment of crisis. I fall apart when things seem out of control. And honestly, God has decided to teach me amidst my broken appliances. For example, my oven heats up but then shuts off in the middle of baking. I think it likes it when I plead with it to stay on. Then my clothes dryer, it died a few months ago.…
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A Walk in the Park
In the heart of Manhattan stands an oasis of green rolling hills, plush gardens and a reservoir that covers 106 acres of the 840 acres of Central Park. A few blocks away you will find shoppers on Fifth Avenue, chaos in Times Square, and performers doing their thing on Broadway. Yet on any given day, many will find the park filled with people looking for a bit of sanctuary in the midst of a city that never sleeps. I recently took a walk through Central Park. I found the beauty of it astounding despite having toured it a few years back. During my time there I noticed some New Yorkers…
