It’s the Christmas season and it’s supposed to be the happiest time of year, right? But what if it’s not? What if it’s a season with deep sadness, and you’re unsure how to express it or even if it’s okay to name it? In our culture, we’ve done a great job of hiding our sadness and pain, often failing to make space for sadness and grief. We judge people’s tears. We’ve forgotten how to sit with each other in our pain. It’s okay if you’re sad. You’re in good company. I’m sad, too. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, “we turn to lament when life demands it,” says author Terra McDaniel, and we ..read more

A couple of months ago I was challenged to live with "devotional sincerity" to God. When used as an adjective, devotional carries with it this sense of sacred and religious devotion. Now before I lose you, let me say that I think we need to redeem the word 'religious'. Religious devotion has to do with the beliefs and practices that are part of a life of worship to a divine being. So when I'm encouraging us to consider what we actually give devotion to, I'm asking us to reflect on those things in light of our most important relationships and commitments. Are the things I'm devoted to leading t ..read more

At a recent conference on palliative care, one of the speakers said “you can rebrand something but you can’t change reality.” That statement slammed into me and got me thinking about how often we rebrand something or we do something different, but we fail to address the root problems or foundations of something. We have to learn to see. Spiritual transformation involves the purification of sight. Jesus said that if our eye is healthy, our whole body will be full of light (Luke 11:34). We have to learn to see—and accept—what is really there. Stripping away our illusions is part of this proces ..read more

Hippocrates said, It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of diseas a person has. As a Spiritual Care Practitioner, I am often asked what I do. Often I reply that I’m simply trying to help a person to be at peace. I seek to know and serve the person before me. When life is flowing well, we feel a sense of clarity and stability. When sickness or loss comes along, we often feel uncertainty and chaos. It can be jarring, and one of my roles as a spiritual care practitioner is to help people feel a sense of peace and calm, so after first meeting a per ..read more

A Relationship of Presence to A Relationship of Memory When loss happens, life drastically changes.  At that time, we may feel shocked if it's sudden. We may feel sadness or hopelessness.  If you have experienced attachment and love, you will experience grief when you lose what you love. One author says that "love and grief are two sides of the same precious coin. One does not - and cannot - exist without the other." Grief is the human response to love. I once was asked to come and provide spiritual care to a family. The matriarch has passed. This woman and her husband had been mar ..read more

It’s an exciting day when you get a call from a friend, asking you to team up with them and other extraordinary women for a transformational learning journey! My good friend, Kaitlyn Cey, has created a course called The STAND Wholehearted Spiritual Formation Course and has invited me to co-teach it with her. The course is launching on May 24th from 7-9 pm on Tuesdays for six weeks. We are always experiencing spiritual formation. The question is how are we being formed? Click here to learn more and to register ..read more

Ash Wednesday “‘And yet even now,’ says the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart…’” Joel 2:12 The seasons of the church year are meant to teach us something about the spiritual life that we need to learn. And today is a significant day in the church year. It’s called Ash Wednesday, and it marks the beginning of  the Church’s observance of the Lenten Season. Lent is a 40-day (not including Sundays) journey to Easter. It’s six weeks that are sent apart for the purpose of drawing closer to God and seeking him with intentionality and with greater intensity. Throughout this season, we ..read more

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and left the conversation feeling like the person wasn't listening to a thing you said - even though they were the ones asking you questions? Yeah, me too! In this post, I want to share with you 5 specific ways that you and I can be better listeners. Minimize distractions. Put your phone away. Turn the TV off. Stand or sit with your back to the distractions. Ask yourself: What distractions do I need to minimize so I can be present in this conversation? Take action! Make eye contact. This should be obvious, but it bears repeating. :) Empathic ..read more

While recently away on retreat, I shared a lament process from Psalm 13 with a young woman going through a very difficult time. Sometimes we just need someone to give us a process that can help unearth and name the pain and struggles we are going through. To be human is to have times of suffering. Later in the day she came back and shared with our group how much the process helped her. It moved me to tears and it moved me to action. I knew that before I left the retreat center, I had to create a resource and schedule it to be put out into the world. Psalm 13 is a six verse psalm that offers us ..read more

It’s hard to believe that 2021 will soon be behind us. For some of us, it’s been a year of surviving while for others of us, it’s been a year of thriving. The other day in my journal, I was writing all the lessons I learned this last year. I thought it would be great to share them with you and include some accompanying resources. In no particular order, here are my Top 10 Learnings: Men and women working together increase each other’s capacity. This comes from Daniel Strickland’s book, Better Together. Leaders must prepare for sabotage. Leaders often fail because we overestimate people’s d ..read more