(as posted on Facebook) I was raised in a family with an amazing sense of humor and observation, and we’ve stockpiled a treasury of favorite quotes to keep us chuckling even through crisis. We laugh with and at each other with great affection. To this day, when I’m on my way back home after a…
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced this isn’t just a temperament or personality trait. It’s practice. Something learned, chosen again and again. And in my friend’s life, I can’t help but see Jesus, because that’s just how He is.
It wasn’t kind when I said it. More than that, it was biting. Did it feel true and justified? Absolutely. But now ask: did it have any redemptive value in how and where I said it? Not a bit There is a specific kind of discomfort that follows moments like these. We call it conviction,…
I wasn’t ready for it, that beautiful spring evening in 2016 in the mountains of Haiti, when three men burst out of the ditch with a gun and a sword. I also wasn’t ready for what came after: the years of relentless what-ifs and the way fear doesn’t always end when the danger passes.
I hate being made out to say things I never said. My chest tightens, my mind races to defend not just my words, but my identity. Confusion floods the mind right along with the nausea that rises from the sting of such a betrayal. It’s exhausting trying to manage the story being told, only to realize that some people don’t care whether it’s true at all.
Before we can truly understand others, we must first be honest with and understand ourselves. As women, we often like to think we see things clearly. Yet discernment without compassion is simply judgment, and insight without inward honesty slips into arrogance. I know this because I’ve done it. I’ve used discernment to criticize rather than to restore.
Imagine her with me if you would, a young girl sitting in the church pew, absorbing hundreds of hours of preaching and teaching. Extra-biblical mandates, woven between the lines of Scripture, shaped her conscience, leading to a striving for approval and the brittle comfort of control.
We need each other. Because community can’t grow where insecurity rules. And jealousy will keep you lonely, even in a crowd of people. You can’t build sisterhood while secretly wishing to be the main one standing.
I’m on a ten hour drive headed home to Kalona today. I can already smell the earth after harvest, hear the clip clop of buggies, and imagine three inches of road dust that’ll cover the car. There’s something about this beautiful area that settles deep in my bones.
If the price of truth is your life, then you are unbuyable. Your integrity and the raw purity of the truth you stand for are not for sale – not for comfort, money, followers, reputation, or anything else.