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Shame, Jesus, and Me
This month I’m honored to invite my friend and teammate Christian Williams as my guest blogger. I love being in Christian’s company because one minute she’s making me laugh so hard I’m crying and the next she has stopped me in my tracks with a thought-provoking reflection. Christian is a Dallas transplant (Native Arkansan) and DTS student who loves communicating truth and building safe, authentic, purposeful communities. She feels God’s pleasure most when using her imagination, storytelling, teaching, and living in intentional relationships which yield growth and transformation. Dub: (verb) to give an unofficial name or nickname to (someone or something). I dub everything. From my period- I call her…
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Welcome to My Messy
My life is messy. Let me just start today by putting the truth out there. Of course, you wouldn’t know my life is messy just by looking at me. Like all of us, I know how to keep going in hard times and I cope when I need to. I used to guard the truth of my life, and I would continually makeover appearances of my exterior life so people wouldn’t ask questions about my internal struggles. Although not everyone goes to extreme lengths to conceal what they fear might look “off,” most of us don’t want others to see our behind-the-scenes messy truth. Since I’m being honest about my…
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What is Christmas Without a Christ-child?
The future of our world depends on steady hearts and strong hands from the next generation. The next generation always comes to us first as a child. The children we teach today will be the future leaders of our homes, our churches, our country, and our world. They are valuable even when many times they don’t feel that value. Christmas is a perfect time to emphasize the importance that God has placed on children. “The potential possibilities of any child are the most intriguing and stimulating in all creation.” — Ray L. Wilbur, third president of Stanford University “Every child you encounter is a divine appointment.” — Wess Stafford, President…
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My One New Year Resolution
Unproductive. Sidelined. Missing the mark. Behind in my work. Self-critical thoughts assailed me during a period a few years ago when my husband and I were both sidelined by injuries in a couple of mishaps. I think of myself as someone who grants myself and others a lot of grace. But sometimes life ambushes me and I don’t accomplish my goals, invest effectively in the people around me or live up to my own or to what I perceive as others' expectations. At those times, I realize that while I grant grace to others, I tend to measure my value by what I do. However, in the Lord's economy, when…
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NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS FOR TEACHERS
Many people make New Year resolutions. Some are personal goals but others focus on work and ministry. I would like to challenge us, as teachers, to make one New Year resolution that will empower our teaching. This new method will not only change the lives of our children but is guaranteed to change our lives too, as we hear, believe and live out the truth of our position in Christ. When I was being trained by Child Evangelism Fellowship, I was taught that every lesson should contain a PAS (personal application the saved) and a PAU (personal application to the unsaved). These thoughts are just one sentence of truth drawn…
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Should your Women’s Ministry drop the self-esteem talk?
Have you ever felt like women's ministries kind of have the same three topics on repeat? Women are tired of going to church and chanting "I am beautiful" while wearing Proverb 31 shirts and taking selfies in front of a pink backdrop. I get it…as a female minister who is addicted to church history and loves exegetical preaching, the narrative of women's ministry can stand to be a little less Fru-Fru. Yet before you consider deleting the topic of self-esteem and beauty altogether, I implore you- don't do it! I am living proof that good theology does not do away with crippling insecurity. My in-depth understanding of the Imago-Dei (image…
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Women’s Wars and Personal Value
I felt worthless as a teacher. In my first semester of teaching English as a Second Language, I discovered one day that all my students had made D’s and F’s on their first lab assignment. My stomach tightened into a knot and I considered stepping down mid-semester to allow someone else to take over my class. Later that day, I discovered that I had misunderstood the grading chart and that every single one of my students had made either A’s or B’s on their lab assignment. Since most classes have a very small portion of A’s and B’s on their final grades, I felt that I had done a pretty…
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Selfie-Inflicted Wounds
The selfie: that well-orchestrated, yet "accidental" picture of yourself as you just happened to be holding your camera up at the right angle to get a great shot of yourself and so you're posting it. Taken at the right angle it can apparently even make your eyes look bigger, your cheekbones more defined, and your overall appearance just awesome. For some, the number of likes and comments a selfie garners can mean everything. It's a quantifiable number on popularity. Back in the "olden days," you might wonder how many friends you had. Now you can know down to the exact number, including how often they interact with you, "like" you,…
