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Grieving With Hope
We grieve many things in this life. Death being chief among them. In a constantly changing world we must learn to grieve well As teachers and parents, we need to prepare young children for the losses of this life: friendships, broken toys, houses that we move from, teachers that change yearly but especially the loss that comes through death.
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Feeling Weary? Ready to Quit? Let Love Prompt Your Labor
I was weary. Tired of serving the same folk, sick of repeating identical tasks year after year. Discouraged by lack of results, and convinced my striving made no difference, I wondered if it was time to step aside. I turned to my Bible for some help and found the Apostle Paul’s encouragement to the believers in Thessalonica: We recall in the presence of our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 1:3 I began my study of this verse by comparing different versions, making observations, and writing lists. What did Paul remember about the Thessalonians?…
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Our Power Source
Difficult days of uncertainty and depletion lead to the question: What’s your power source? Consider light bulbs. Without a power source, they’re merely glass and metal without purpose. Once connected to their power source, they shine…
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Cultivating Friendships & Female Allies
Listen to the nightly news, read just-released statistics, talk to a few friends––and you’ll hear over and over again the hard realities of mandated isolation, increased challenges in daily life, and mounting obstacles as working women navigate the lingering effects of this pandemic. Now more than ever we need to forge bonds of sisterhood with the women in our circles.
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Stuck in the Waiting Room
We all have spent a lot of time waiting since March 2020. Waiting for the end of lockdowns. Waiting for election results. Waiting for a COVID vaccine to be developed. Waiting to get a vaccine. I still wait to hug my oldest grandson. I’m eager to get back to face-to-face teaching of my refugee students. I wait to enjoy the sound of a roomful of women speaking Arabic, Amharic and other tongues while drinking tea and savoring walnut-filled pastries. And speaking of waiting, more than 79.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide wait for stable homes, according the UN Refugee agency. The dire circumstances of so many burden me. What do…
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Equality Act passes. Tough week. Romantic realism.
This past week we hit the post-2020 election wall of reality pretty hard— Amazon banned the thoughtful and science-based When Harry Became Sally, singer Demi Lovato declared that gender-reveal parties were transphobic, and Mr. Potato Head came out as gender fluid. To cap it off, at the confirmation hearing for Biden’s nominee to be #2 at the Department of Health and Human Services, Sen. Rand Paul could not get him/her to admit that children should not be able to make their own decisions to make sex changes with hormone blockers or surgery without parental involvement. The outrage has lit up social media. It reminded me of my own onset of rheumatoid arthritis.…
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An Audience of one
Whether in person, online, or on social media, we spend a lot of time performing for other people. If we center our lives on pleasing others, living out each day gets harder and harder. It can feel impossible to create a new life script.
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Daring to Hope in 2021
No one misses 2020: the ultimate year of loss for our generation. But as the chapter page turned to 2021, I wondered how I could muster up hope. So I decided to go back to the basics of spiritual renewal: creating and committing to a healthy rhythm of life. We all have different passions and interests, but the need for healthy rhythms remains universal.
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No Fear…”Seeking My Favorite Things”
What are your favorite things? According to the familiar song, “My Favorite Things” written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, these are a few of Maria’s favorite things. Julie Andrews, who portrays Maria, in the award-winning musical “The Sound of Music” gives a list of some of her favorite things to help the Von Trapp children from being afraid of the storm. “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, Brown paper packages tied up with string These are a few of my favorite things.” As the song continues, the lyrics are uplifting and fun. In the movie, Maria whisk through the music with delight to…
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Stop Saying Christianity Doesn’t Make You Happy
This week, a Gallup Poll has reported pretty dismal mental health ratings, adding to a year full of statistics about depression, suicide, porn, stress and substance abuse. 2020 stinks, and the world doesn’t know how to handle it. So can we please stop adding to the problem by saying that Christianity doesn’t make Christians happy? I know, I know. When we say this, we’re trying to explain that we–and our happiness–aren’t the point. We’re reminding one another that our faith doesn’t protect us from life in a broken world. We’re saying that the abiding joy in Christ is substantially different than flurries of happiness that may come. These theological truths…
