The relational damage of this season is not lost on anyone. It is wide and it is deep. For the extroverts who live by themselves it may look like deep loneliness that comes from isolation. For the introverts at home 24-7 with their children it may look like the state of constant over-stimulation and feelings…
In these weird days do you ever feel like that simple question: “how are you doing?” is really hard to answer? Does it get even harder when someone goes even deeper to the place of “How’s your soul?” or “where are you seeing and experiencing God in this moment?” My short answer to all of…
It was the Sunday before “virtual learning” was to begin. We knew on Friday we would have at least a week of it, but we all knew it would be much longer than that. I started to feel that old familiar feeling of panic well up in the pit of my stomach. I have learned…
A few weeks ago, before most offices shut down, I got into my car to go to a necessary appointment. It had rained the night before and the windows were covered with dew. It wasn’t raining, but everything was wet. It was impossible to see through the windshield. So, I turned on the windshield wipers…
I have a document on my desktop entitled “The Year of 40,” because yes, 2020 is the year in which I hit that milestone birthday: 40 years old! I am not typically one who wants to draw attention to myself or who feels that I “deserve” to celebrate or be celebrated. But when I found…
When the first phone call came: “He-llo. This is a message from XXX County Schools…” most of us went into action mode: “What do I need to order on Amazon? Where am I supposed to find their assignments? Do we have enough toilet paper?” Some of us lived in action mode for the first week;…
I have been thinking a lot over these last few weeks. I have been praying a lot. And I also believe I have been hearing from the Lord. There is encouraging stuff. There is hard stuff. All of it is real and all of it is helpful in one sense or another. I have felt…
It was July of 2018. It was the middle of the night and I was lying in bed in a farmhouse in the Austrian Alps when God gave me the most vivid dream. He then woke me and spoke to me in a way I had never experienced, with more specific words than He has…
I am a crier—and I’m not talking a cute crier…. I am an ugly crier—a snotty, sniffly, can’t talk crier. I am not the “cries at weddings and touching movies” kind of crier. I am a “cries at the most inappropriate and inconvenient times” kind of crier. It is something I have wrestled with my…
On retreat recently I started digging into a great book by Andy Crouch called Strong to Weak. In it, he speaks about the concept of “human flourishing” which is basically a synonym for what I refer to as soaring; being “fully alive.” And the summary of his findings and the thesis of the book is…
