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An Ordinary Woman’s Response to Global Crisis
Horror. Sadness. Anxiety. Anger. Guilt. With these emotions, I watched religious fanatics take over the ravaged land of Afghanistan leaving women, girls, Christians, and the marginalized desperately scrambling for their lives. This crisis is just the most recent example of pain, injustice, and all that is wrong in our world. The latest that eclipses many others: an earthquake in the already devastated nation of Haiti; Chinese Christians in re-education camps; Indonesian citizens dying outside hospitals for lack of beds, oxygen, and vaccines; flames destroying entire towns in California; Lebanon in economic, social, and political downfall. And all this exacerbated by a continuing global pandemic. What does an ordinary western woman…
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Are You Lamenting or Whining?
We live in a culture of complainers. Everywhere we turn, we hear complaints. The culture’s bad. The neighbors are bad. Life’s not fair. Why can’t we have what we want when we want it. You know what I’m talking about. I listened to a sermon series1 recently on the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk looked around him, seeing all the injustice, and challenged God on why He wasn’t doing anything about it. Habakkuk asked God a bunch of “why” questions and “how could you let that happen” questions. The speaker asked this question, “Was Habakkuk lamenting or just whining?” That question struck me. The answer has stuck in my brain for…
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Breonna Taylor-The Tip of the Iceberg
Breonna Taylor- her name keeps playing over and over in my head. Yes, there have been many names to say throughout the last couple of years. But something about this name, a young black woman much like myself, only a stone’s throw away from my hometown, hits differently. Shot and killed by a police officer in her home, #JusticeforBreonna has made international news. Even though one officer involved in the shooting has been indicted, the ripple effect of a collective groan of exhaustion continues. I am not here to argue the facts and figures of this case, I am simply here to lament, as a sister in Christ and I…
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“Together, We’ll Get Through This” and Other Soul Reflections
Steven Curtis Chapman’s new video release, Together (We’ll Get Through This), captures the realities, faces and images thus far, of COVID-19. The lyrics offer a compelling trajectory of hope in persevering together. Listen to it as soon as you can and be encouraged. The sudden onslaught of this virus and subsequent quarantine came with the words—take cover, shelter in, wash your hands, wear a mask. It also came with new fears, confusion, strange feelings, unfettered emotions and an odd kind of inertia. We found ourselves enmeshed in the sheltering in, the shut downs and closures; no access to loved ones in nursing home, obsessive hand washing and face masks; high…
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Leading Through a Pandemic: Three Questions for Ministry Leaders
Today I’m happy to have as my guest, Morgan Eseke. After studying leaders during high-stakes, high-pressure situations for more than two decades, Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative summarizes: “Crises are most often over-managed and under-led.” Researchers explained that leaders often find themselves making decisions based on the tyranny of the urgent. And in doing so they fail to gaze beyond the crisis to intentionally lead others through the uncertainty toward a more promising future. Certainly, woven into the DNA of Christian faith is an outlook oriented toward a promising future. As we sit in the midst of a pandemic that has overturned normal ministry operations and shattered plans, we can…
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Missing My Crowd: A Palm Sunday Lament (but can we really choose trust?)
It’s just wrong to spend Palm Sunday and Easter at home. I wished I’d been on my way to church yesterday instead of listening to a sermon on line. I so missed seeing our kids waving palm branches. Singing praises and hosannas in a room full of voices blending so strongly that my own is submerged in a sea of praise. My morning began with a silent reading about a day of praise. Jesus riding in, gently, peaceably down the Mount of Olives through the Beautiful gate and the streets of Jerusalem. What was missing yesterday was the crowds. Can you imagine lining up behind Jesus 6 ft. apart? Walking…
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Five Things My Community Has Learned after a Mass Shooting
Today I'm happy to have as my guest Destiny Teasley, who was my grad-school writing student at the time of the Las Vegas shootings. Please listen carefully…. On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting took place in the center of my city, Las Vegas, Nevada. Fifty-eight people were killed and more than 850 suffered physical injuries. Two years have now passed. And here are five things my community has learned in that time: 1. Life goes on. And that is positive and negative. Encouraging and insulting. As a community we have become well-acquainted with the challenge of helping others to navigate the precarious tightrope between mourning and living. In this broken world…
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A Psalm for the New Year
2019—a new beginning. My heart is filled with hope and also lament—the makings of a David-styled patchwork psalm over the year ahead from my own heart to God. God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. Psalm 7:11 As I look into this new year, read the news and take the stories and research to heart, I too feel indignant. And deeply sad. Lord how can it be that… …56 million a year are dying from abortion, almost four times as many as from heart disease and stroke (the next leading cause of death). These little ones are human beings, yet, for…
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An Epiphany Reflection
Years ago when my husband and I were experiencing infertility, we had a couple of failed adoptions that happened two years in a row on December 22. In those years, the phrase “Christmas is for the children” especially grated. And in my heightened awareness, I made a key observation: The only children in the Christmas story other than the newborn king are the male infants and toddlers whom the government slaughtered. Matthew describes that event this way: “Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and…
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Why, God?
Today I'm happy to feature guest blogger Laura Murray. Laura is a pastor, mom, wife, writer, speaker, baker, and lover of mountains, sleep, and early mornings. “Why?” It is a question that accompanies our pain and suffering. We believe its answer will satisfy. We believe knowledge will bring salve to our wounds, and understanding the hidden purposes will be sufficient for our pain. Yet answers to “why?” fall short, and knowledge does not heal our pain. Indeed, every answer falls short of healing our pain. Our “whys” are often met with a deafening silence, and we are left to wonder if anyone sees, hears or knows. Are we alone? If humans…
