Change is Coming
About a month into my freshman year of college, I was recruited by a local youth pastor to volunteer in his youth ministry. Two months later, after I fell in love with the students and was invested in the program, he announced he was leaving. Suddenly, my volunteer role began to get a whole lot bigger. There are times, you don’t see change coming. Whether good or bad, it seems to fall out of the air and land right in front of you, interrupting your path. At times, altering it forever. Thankfully though, this isn’t the only way change occurs [...]
How to Fight Loneliness (Because It Always Comes)
When I was a kid, I thought loneliness was sitting alone at the lunch table at school. Having no one to hang out with at recess. Or that temporary feeling I’d get when my closest friend was on vacation with her family. Little did I know, there are so many kinds of lonely, and as we go through life, we feel them all. There are so many kinds of lonely, and as we go through life, we feel them all. There is the kind of loneliness that comes when we leave home and realize for the first time, we are [...]
Scary Movies, Scary Times, & Taking Care of Yourself
When I was a youth pastor, many of my students liked horror movies. In between church services or during our after school program, they’d tell me about the latest film they’d seen. Then, I’d ask them why they liked it, and they couldn’t always say. But they did tell me, they liked the rush it gave them of being afraid. Now, what I usually didn’t tell my students was that: I hate scary movies. For me, stories—whether in books or movies—often live on in my brain for a while after I read or see them. The characters find me in [...]
This Holiday Season, Don’t Be Afraid To Go Your Own Way
When most people think about Halloween, they think about carved pumpkins. Kids in costumes asking for candy. And, they probably think about almost everything spooky. I think about Chinese food. Now, I realize that may seem random. So I will explain. But first let me say, Holidays don’t always have to be what they’ve always been. This is something my mom taught us growing up. By doing so, whether she knew it or not, she created for us some incredible memories. And, it all began with Halloween. When I was a baby, my mom became a Christian. Not the go-to-church-every-Sunday [...]
When You Find Yourself in a Desert
Two summers ago, when travel was still fun and easy, Tony and I went to California. We began our trip by eating our way through San Francisco, and staring at the Gold Gate Bridge. Then, before wrapping our trip up in Sonoma, we camped in Big Sur. We crossed Bixby Bridge. Pitched our tent in the middle of redwoods. And spent quite a few afternoons and evenings walking the gorgeous beaches. We saw the purple sand, and even spotted a few dolphins. But in the middle of it all, we noticed something strange: Our hands felt different. They were still [...]
This Isn’t the Season
Last week, on a cool fall morning, Tony and I walked down the streets of our new city. Though we’ve been here about a hundred times over the past fifteen years, I still say, “New” because we live here now. We’re no longer visiting. That day, we were heading to do our annual screening for our health insurance. When we arrived, we checked in with the receptionist. Then one at a time, we went into a small room where the technician drew the curtain. She measured our height, waist, and—the part I was dreading—our weight. But as she said my [...]
