• Engage

    Did God Really Say?

    I attended grad school in San Francisco in the 90’s. Each week a group of Christian students, faculty, and staff would gather in one of the small classrooms on the top floor for our CMDS meeting. This room had a floor-to-ceiling view of the Golden Gate Bridge where I can still picture the cars driving Northbound towards Sausalito. I adored the cute rainbow-painted tunnel arcs where the bridge merged with Marin County. My beloved friend’s uncle had painted those rainbows there many years prior. Every week I sat at the back of the room next to the window, gazing at the orange bridge stretched over hundreds of boats below. Some…

  • Engage

    The Crazed Creation is under the Curse

                “Pain is a blessing in disguise.” Really?             Today, many Christian women seek psychotherapy. Surprised? Because Christians shouldn’t feel angry or depressed.                 I have struggled with doubt and loneliness due to infertility. With the Christianese platitudes that ensued, the sense that people in church disapproved of my struggle was hard to miss. As a Bible study leader, I wasn’t supposed to struggle.             Some of us feel uptight about pain. So we rush others through their pain. We try to fix it instead of letting God fix it, all in the name of Fake Happy. But the plastic church smile only perpetuates…

  • Engage

    The Gospel and Work

    When you hear the word “work,” what initial thoughts come to mind? If you’re thinking, “hard, difficult, tiring, 9-5, drudgery, rat race, trying to get ahead, trading time for money, labor, productivity, climbing the corporate ladder, etc.” then you’re not alone. Most of America defines work in this way. But why is it that our ideas of work are primarily negative? Is it because we don’t enjoy what we do or the people the work with? Is it because we view work as a necessary evil, something we must do in order to eventually attain the “good life?” Or perhaps work gets in the way of pleasure and relaxation? Perhaps…

  • Heartprints

    Boom – Goes the Marriage!

    There is a war on Marriage! It was waged thousands of years of ago by Satan in the Garden of Eden and he hasn’t stopped since.  Genesis 3 tells us that the Satan used deception, lies and pride to set up the fall of man and ruin the perfect marriage.  What’s amazing is that Satan still uses the same three “marriage bombs” to ruin marriage today.  Let’s break that down: Bomb #1) Deception – here Satan uses a host of false and negative illusions to enter into the minds and hearts of the married couple.  This bomb will cause the most damage when there is a lot of stress, lack…